§ MR. GRAYasked the Postmaster General, Whether the Secretary to the Dublin Post Office has written to the Dublin Corporation threatening them with legal penalties if they carry out an agreement with the Telephone Company, by which, for certain concessions, they as owners of the streets agree to permit the lines of that Company to cross the public thoroughfares; whether he is aware that in consequence the Corporation have suspended the completion of an arrangement of great public advantage, by which all the police stations, fire brigade, and fire-escape stations, as well as the various subscribers to the Telephonic Exchange, would be placed in instant commuuication day and night 765 with the central fire brigade station; whether the letter in question was written under legal advice; whether as a matter of fact the Post Office can legally prohibit owners, public or private, permitting a wire for telegraphic or telephonic, or any other purpose, being run over their individual property; whether, if no such legal power exists, the letter will be withdrawn; and, whether, if the Post Office have the power to prevent the carrying out of the arrangement in question, and are determined to exercise it, he will take steps to afford to the authorities and citizens of Dublin by some other means the facilities and protection of which they will thus be deprived?
§ MR. FAWCETTSir, in reply to the hon. Member for Carlow, I beg to state that the Secretary to the Post Office in Dublin has informed the Dublin Corporation that an opinion has been given by the Law Officers of the Crown that the erection of telegraphs on public roads and streets, by persons or bodies not authorized by Act of Parliament, and, therefore, not within the purview of the Telegraph Act of 1863, is illegal. From a letter which has been received from the Town Clerk of Dublin, I am aware that the arrangements proposed to be made with the Telephone Company have been broken off. In the same letter application is made for the terms upon which the Department would establish the communication with the Fire Brigade station to which the hon. Member refers, and so soon as the necessary inquiries have been made a reply will be given. I may add that the Post Office is willing to allow private persons or companies to establish telephonic communication on certain conditions, and that the Post Office is itself prepared to establish telephonic communication in Dublin and other towns on terms which have already been stated in the advertisements which have appeared in the newspapers and in the notices to the public exhibited at the various post offices.