§ (1.) £786,951, to complete the sum for Customs.
§ (2.) £1,446,615, to complete the sum for Inland Revenue.
§ MR. GRAYsaid, he had been under the impression that the first Vote about to be taken was that for the Post Office Department.
§ MR. COURTNEYNo; the Inland Revenue Department.
§ MR. GRAYsaid, he believed that several hon. Gentlemen desired to call attention to various details connected with that Vote. There were certainly 125 some Members of the House who were under the impression that the first Vote to be taken that day would be the Post Office Telegraph Vote; and, consequently, those who were anxious to raise questions upon the present Vote were absent. He was afraid, in consequence of a statement made in answer to a Question he had put, that he had been the means of conveying that impression to more than one hon. Member; and he had certainly been told that the first Vote to be taken would be the Post Office Telegraph Vote.
§ MR. COURTNEYsaid, he should be sorry if any hon. Members had been misled; but, at that period of the Session, it was necessary that the order in which the Votes were presented should be adhered to; but any hon. Gentleman could raise a question about the Vote upon Report.
§ MR. COURTNEYsaid, that, in regard to the Post Office Vote, he had certainly intimated to the hon. Gentleman that, if the time was convenient, he would take the Telegraph Vote before the ordinary Post Office Vote; and, for the convenience of the hon. Member, when they came to the Post Office Vote, he would be ready to postpone that until they had taken the Telegraph Vote.
§ MR. LABOUCHEREasked if he was to understand that these Votes included the Supplementary?
§ MR. COURTNEYYes.
§ MR. MONKsaid, he would like to address a question to the hon. Gentleman the Financial Secretary to the Treasury in regard to a certain branch of the Revenue Department. Was the hon. Gentleman aware that the hon. Member for Preston (Mr. Tomlinson) had had a Motion on the Paper for a considerable time, asking for a Select Committee to be appointed to consider the grievances under which certain officers of the Department considered they were labouring? He should be glad if the hon. Gentleman would give some assurance, on behalf of the Government, that these assumed grievances—for he would not express any opinion himself as to their reality—would be inquired into, and that next Session a Select Committee would be appointed.
§ MR. COURTNEYsaid, he could not make any pledge as to next Session; but he could assure his hon. Friend that the grievances of the Inland Revenue officers had been carefully considered already, and an elaborate Report had been presented to the House bearing upon their case. He believed that the attention given to the subject had been exhaustive; but if there were any further remonstrances they should be considered.
§ MR. WARTONasked the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury if he was prepared to take any step towards the amalgamation of the Customs and Inland Revenue Departments, with the view of saving a number of commissions? He was of opinion that a considerable amount of saving might be effected to the country by such an amalgamation.
§ MR. COURTNEYsaid, the amalgamation of the Customs and of the Revenue Departments was by no means a novel question; it had been considered by a Select Committee many years ago, which was specially appointed to inquire into the question, and various steps had been taken to promote the fusion of these two branches of the Public Service. Warehouses had been amalgamated, and the same rules of administration adopted; and the object of the union was being kept steadily in view, in order that it might be realized as changes occurred. There had really been an amalgamation of the two branches at many ports, although not at the principal ports, and the fusion of Departments was being carried out as rapidly as circumstances would permit.
§ Vote agreed to.
§ MR. COURTNEYsaid, he would now propose to take the Post Office Telegraphs Vote.
§ MR. PULESTONasked if he was to understand that the question of the salaries paid in the Post Office would be included in this Vote?
§ MR. COURTNEYNo; that will be taken under the Post Office Vote. I propose now to take the Vote for completing the sum for Post Office Telegraphs.
§ (3.) £1,204,589, to complete the sum for Post Office Telegraphs.
§ MR. FAWCETTI know that many hon. Members on both sides of the 127 House take great interest in the question of telephonic communication; and I think it would conduce to the convenience of the Committee, and also save time, if I at once proceed to explain to the Committee the decision which has been arrived at by the Government upon this subject. Throughout we have been most anxious that the public should enjoy all the possible facilities, with regard to telephonic communication, which are compatible with due regard to the interests of the Revenue. I am free to confess that, during my short official experience, no question that I have had to deal with has presented so many difficulties; and I trust the Committee will accept the assurance that, in attempting its solution, I have been actuated by no other motive than a desire to do what I believe would most conduce to the advantage of the public. I feel that no good would result from occupying the time of the Committee by going over bygone controversies; and, therefore, I will at once state that, after taking into consideration all existing circumstances, I have come to the conclusion that, in order that the public may enjoy the facilities with regard to telephonic communication which, in my opinion, they may fairly claim, it is desirable to give greater freedom to private enterprize by relaxing some of the conditions contained in the licences which have been granted to private Telephone Companies. That being the case, I at once proceed to state how we think that these facilities could be given, so that, on the one hand, the public may have these facilities with regard to telephonic communication, which they have a right to demand; whilst, on the other hand, the Revenue is properly protected. In order to assist me in arriving at a decision on this subject, I, some weeks ago, asked the Telephone Companies to send me a statement of their views upon the matter, stating to me in what respect they considered that the conditions now contained in the telephonic licences ought to be relaxed in the public interest. In reply to that application, I received a statement from the United Telephone Company, and its affiliated Companies, containing three distinct proposals, which I will now proceed to explain. Before doing so, however, I may state that from other Companies, not connected with the United Telephone Company, I also received 128 statements of their views which, except in one particular, did not vary in any important respect from those of the United Telephone Company. The point which they specially insist on demanding is, that they should be secured against competition in those towns in which they have been carrying on telephonic exchange business. I may at once say that that request is one which I do not think for one moment ought to be entertained. Reverting to the three proposals which were submitted to me by the United Telephone Company and its affiliated branches, I will briefly describe them. The first proposal was that the Telephone Companies, in the various localities in which they had been licensed, should be allowed to carry on their business in any manner they might think fit, and that, in lieu of the royalty of 10 per cent now paid to the Post Office on their gross receipts, the Companies would undertake to make good to the Department any loss which the local telegraph revenue might suffer from the development of telephonic communication within such district. They offered to guarantee the Post Office against loss in its local telegraph revenue; from carrying on an unrestricted telephonic business; and they further proposed that, in estimating the telegraph revenue, account was to be taken of its normal growth by estimating what had been its growth during the previous three years. The second proposal contemplated, not the entire abolition of the present royalty of 10 per cent, but its reduction to 5 per cent; that the same guarantee against the loss of local revenue to the Department as that contained in the first proposal should be entered into; and it was further proposed that the present radius for carrying on a telephonic exchange business, which is now usually restricted to four or five miles, should be extended to 15 miles; and that, in other respects, restriction should be removed, which, in all essentials, gave the same freedom as that embodied in the first proposal which I have just described. I think it will conduce to a clear understanding of the subject if, before proceeding to describe the third proposal, I say at once that, at first sight, I was considerably attracted by the proposal of a guarantee, and thought it might offer a solution of the question. 129 When, however, I examined into the matter more closely, I came to the conclusion that it would prove inadmissible. I will explain to the Committee why I came to that conclusion. If we had accepted from any Telephone Company such a guarantee as that which they now propose, it would be obvious that they must be secured against future competition in their business; because, having accepted a guarantee, it would have been palpably unfair immediately to license another Company to compete against them. [Mr. GRAY: No.] Well, that is my opinion; and I think the Committee will agree with me that if there is to be monopoly in telephonic communication, or in any other communication, it had better be in the hands of the Government, which can be controlled, and which is directly amenable to public opinion, rather than that a monopoly should be vested in a private Company. Besides this objection there was another which, even if it had stood alone, would, in my opinion, be quite sufficient to prevent the idea of a guarantee from being entertained. If the Post Office had once accepted the principle of such a guarantee its discretion would have been fettered in introducing any change in the telegraph tariff. That being the case, I have to consider the third proposal of the United Telephone Company, and I will briefly describe it to the Committee. It contemplates no guarantee, but proposes that the existing royalty of £10 per cent should continue to be paid, and that the Companies should be freed from all restrictions in carrying on their business, much in the same way as is contemplated under proposal No. 2. I may add to that, that the Telephone Companies laid great stress, with regard to all these proposals, upon the Department relinquishing the condition we have inserted in private licences, which enables the Post Office to demand an unlimited supply of the patented instruments used by the Telephone Companies. For the reasons I have already stated, I came to the conclusion that proposals Nos. 1 and 2, the essential feature of which was the guarantee, could not be accepted; but I also came to the conclusion that proposal No. 3, the essential feature of which is a continuance of the royalty of £10 per cent, affords the basis for a settlement; and the terms which 130 the Government are now prepared to offer I will now describe under eight heads—(1.) That the Post Office should reserve its right to carry on telephonic business on its own account, or to give licences to any responsible persons to carry on such business in any part of the country, whether in that part of the country a licence had or had not, been, previously given; (2.) That the Post Office would no longer maintain the condition which has been inserted in recent licences, which called, on the part of the Post Office, for an unlimited supply of any patented instruments used by Telephone Companies; (3.) That, as the same objection in principle to a radius of 15 miles applied to a radius of four or five miles, all limitations as to area should be swept away; (4.) That with this abolition of the limitation of radius, and with the extinction of area, the distinction as to the conditions on which Telephone Companies were allowed to carry on business on telephone exchange and trunk wires should not be maintained, and that the same conditions be applied to trunk and exchange wires alike; (5.) That call offices for the despatch of oral messages should be allowed; (6.) That, in lieu of the concessions just described, and with the object of securing a greater simplicity of accounts, the royalty of £10 per cent, now paid on gross receipts, should be extended to receipts from private wire buisness; (7.) That the Post Office should be under no obligation to provide way-leaves, or to erect wires for the Companies; (8.) That, in order to maintain the distinction between the written telegraphic message and oral messages sent by means of telephones, the Telephone Company should not be permitted to receive or deliver a written message at any point. Now, I think it will be obvious to the Committee that so anxious have I been to redeem the pledge that no unnecessary impediment should be thrown in the way of telephonic communication, that in some respects I have conceded more than has been asked for, either by the Companies or by the public. I can only say that I hope the terms which I have offered will be received in the same spirit which has prompted me in making them; and if they are unreservedly accepted as a settlement, I have nothing more to add than this—that all existing 131 licences, as soon as they are returned, shall have the new terms introduced in them, and in any new licences which may be granted the terms which I have just described will be embodied. I have now only to thank the Committee for the patience with which it has listened to a statement which I fear may have been somewhat prolix.
§ MR. JACOB BRIGHTI wish to ask for an explanation in reference to exchange and trunk wires. The present rule is, I think, to charge 10s. a-mile to subscribers for trunk wires; but it is necessary that the subscriber entering into that arrangement should make a deposit of so much a-year. Is that included in the present arrangement?
§ MR. FAWCETTNo. All those conditions will be got rid of.
§ MR. JACOB BRIGHTThat being so, I may say to my right hon. Friend, on the part of persons who have asked me to take their cases in hand and lay them before the Committee, that I think they will be perfectly satisfied with the arrangements proposed. Indeed, it appears to me to be as generous an offer as any of the Companies could expect. My hon. Friend the Member for Carlow (Mr. Gray) is, however, connected with the Telephone Companies, which I am not. I have nothing to do with any Telephone Company, and he probably will be able to represent their views more than I can; but, from representations which have been made to me from Manchester, I think the statement of my right hon. Friend will be regarded as satisfactory.
§ MR. GRAYPerhaps, unfortunately for myself, I am connected with an Irish Telephone Company; but I certainly shall not venture to discuss the question before the Committee in that capacity. I have not sought to advance what I considered to be the interests of the Telephone Companies except as connected with the interests of the general public. Now, Sir, I have listened with great interest to the very clear, although very elaborate, statement which the right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General has made; and I say at once that, as far as I understand the speech—and there are certain slight matters which I shall ask the right hon. Gentleman to explain, and I do not doubt that he will be able to explain them—I think his statement is highly 132 satisfactory, and an exceedingly fair one. In regard to the observations he has made as to the protection of the public and the protection of the Post Office Department, I heartily agree with him, and I think that the provisions he has sketched out in that respect are quite as necessary as he thinks himself. I have no doubt that the arrangement he has sketched out will be fully carried out, not merely in the letter, but in the spirit, and I have no doubt that it will be accepted by the Telephone Companies. I also agree with him that to go back upon old controversies and to reopen old sores is totally unnecessary. I do not think it at all necessary to discuss the reasons which have been put forward by the right hon. Gentleman as to why he has been unable to accept proposals Nos. 1 and 2 made to him on behalf of the Telephone Companies. As the matter has now passed beyond that stage, I do not think it is necessary to occupy either the attention of the right hon. Gentleman or that of the Committee by going back to it. I myself think the first proposition of the right hon. Gentleman—namely, that the claim of any Company to receive a monopoly could not be entertained for a moment, is perfectly just. Such a claim would be as unjustifiable as a claim to restrict the undoubted right of the Post Office to erect and maintain wires itself for the Public Service. There can be no doubt that the right hon. Gentleman, in the interests of the Post Office Department, and in the service of the public, is bound to reserve to himself the fullest possible rights, both as to the Post Office Department in competition with existing Companies and as to licences for new Companies. The claim of any Company to establish anything in the nature of monopoly, of course, cannot be conceded. The Companies connected with the United Company have always claimed the right of free competition; and the only objection they have raised has been to an unfair competition on the part of the Post Office Department using the rights and privileges of a great public service to their detriment. I do not think that I need occupy the time of the right hon. Gentleman by discussing those of the eight points he has submitted to the Committee, and of which I thoroughly approve. In regard to most I only ask for a little further explanation, especially in regard 133 to No. 4. The right hon. Gentleman says that, with the abolition of any limit of radius and consequent extension of areas, the distinction between the conditions on which the Companies have hitherto been allowed to use trunk and exchange wires will not be maintained, the Companies being in future able to provide themselves with trunk and exchange wires alike. Then, when I come to No. 7, I find the right hon. Gentleman says that the Post Office incurs no obligation to provide way-leaves, or to erect or maintain wires for the Telephone Companies. I may point out that, of course, there is no obligation at present upon the Post Office to erect wires, either for Telephone Companies or for private individuals. So far as I know, the Department has aright to erect them; but I am not aware that any person has a right to compel it to erect them. But if, when the right hon. Gentleman says that the Department shall be under no obligation to erect wires under any circumstances—if he means to convey that the Department will not erect wires under any conditions, the result would be one which I know the right hon. Gentleman, in his present frame of mind, does not contemplate; for instance, I believe, although whether it is in actual work or not I cannot say, that there is a trunk wire between London and Brighton. Now, it would be actually impossible for any Company or private individual to run wires between London and Brighton, or generally between town and town, simply because the Post Office, not as a Department of the State, but as a private purchaser, has obtained the monopoly of way-leaves along all railway lines; and it is only along railway lines that telephone wires for long distances can be run. Therefore, if the Post Office say they will not erect wires between town and town, that would be, in effect, the same as to say that they will not permit the public at all to have the advantage of telephonic communication between town and town. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman does not contemplate that. But what he means to convey is that the Companies shall have no right to seek to compel the Post Office to erect trunk wires, but that the Post Office shall be free to do so, if they think it advantageous to the public. If the right hon. Gentleman will give an assurance to that effect I 134 think it would be perfectly satisfactory; but if the right hon. Gentleman means to convey that, under no circumstances, will the Post Office run a trunk wire for the service of the public along its different lines, why, then, he simply shuts out the public of the United Kingdom from an enormous advantage. I believe that, at this moment, telephonic communication is carried on in America between towns 300 and 400 miles apart. I am anxious to meet the right hon. Gentleman in the spirit of fairness which he has manifested; and, in regard to trunk wires, I say that telephonic communication by trunk wire between London and Liverpool, or London and Manchester, or between London and Brighton, cannot be carried out, except with the assistance of the Post Office Department; and if the opposition of the Post Office were pushed to a vexatious extent, the result might be very disastrous to the public interest. No doubt, it is perfectly right for the Department to protect its telegraphic revenue. As I understand the view of the Companies, there is no desire on their part to secure a revenue from trunk wires. What they are desirous to secure is, that those who use the telephone wires shall have facilities in regard to trunk wire communication between town and town; and I am quite certain that they would be perfectly willing, if the Post Office will consent to erect trunk wires, to secure the Post Office from loss by giving to the Post Office all the profit of those trunk wires. I believe they would even go further than that, and guarantee the Post Office a certain amount of revenue from such trunk wires. All I want is some assurance that the right hon. Gentleman will not draw a hard-and-fast line which may deprive the public of the United Kingdom of the advantage which the people of every other civilized country either have, or are about to have, of carrying on conversations freely between persons living in towns at a considerable distance from each other. I am sure that he does not desire to punish the inhabitants of the United Kingdom for having given a monopoly of telegraphic work to the Government by saying—"You shall not have the facilities of this wonderful invention, although the people of Germany, of France, of America, and of every other civilized country in 135 the world enjoy it." Let the right hon. Gentleman protect the public Revenue in the most careful way possible, and let the Department make all the profit they can out of an enterprize which cannot be carried out by other persons, owing to the fact that the Department has purchased the exclusive way-leaves over railway lines; but do not let him, because he has a monopoly, punish the public by not allowing them to derive advantage from a great discovery. The right hon. Gentleman proposes, in consideration of the undoubtedly substantial, and, I may go so far as to say, generous concessions he has enumerated—he proposes, as a condition for those concessions, that the Post Office should receive a royalty upon private wire business. Now, that involves a principle which the Companies may have some difficulty in acceding to. The right hon. Gentleman might as well ask the Companies, or private individuals who run private telegraph wires, to give the Post Office a royalty upon them. He might ask me for a royalty upon erecting a wire to communicate from my own private house to my stables at the end of the garden.
§ MR. FAWCETTYes; if a profit was derived from the transaction.
§ MR. GRAYPrecisely; but the right hon. Gentleman might just as well ask me for 10 per cent on the rent of the house I occupy, because the Post Office have never pretended that they have any direct or indirect licence to interfere with the erection, by any individual or Company, of a telephone wire between house and house. Surely, if I own a house, I would have the right to run a wire between the house and any portion of the grounds connected with it, and to use there either a telegraphic instrument or a telephone, or both. Who on earth has a right to interfere, or to step in and say that I must pay for it? But if I use a patented instrument, whether a patented telephonic instrument or a patented telegraphic instrument, and I pay the person who belongs to it a royalty for the use of it, the right hon. Gentleman says that he must have a share of the revenue thereby derived. Now, this is not, as far as the profit derived from it is concerned, an important question. The concessions given by the right hon. Gentleman would even be cheaply purchased by assenting to 136 that proposal, if it did not involve an exceedingly dangerous principle; because the right hon. Gentleman says—"If I do certain things in the interest of the public, I ought to be allowed to step in and obtain a portion of the private property of the individual," to which the State has no more right than it has to my hat or coat. I think the right hon. Gentleman ought to reconsider that point; and, if he does so, I think he will see that his position, whether he claims 10 per cent or .0001 per cent, is altogether untenable; and I do not see how any Company or private individual could consent to recognize that claim. If once recognized, it might be pushed very much further, and the Government would be able to say to any private individual—"As a concession for giving you certain facilities, we lay claim to a portion of your property, although we have no right to it by law." I do not think it possible to admit that principle; and although it is not of importance financially, I hope the right hon. Gentleman will reconsider it, and I think he will come to the conclusion that it is quite untenable. The right hon. Gentleman says that the Telephone Companies are not to be permitted to transmit anything in the nature of a written message. I think that is a poor kind of condition to impose, and scarcely worthy of the attitude the Government now take up. At the present moment, the Post Office authorities have a certain number of Telephone Exchanges, and any person subscribing to those Telephone Exchanges has now two privileges which the Post Office refuses to the subscribers to private Telephone Exchanges. One is the privilege of sending a written message, say, to Newcastle or anywhere else where the Post Office has, at this moment, a Telephone Exchange. Say, for instance, that the subscriber desires to send a message to his grocer, or his wine merchant, or anybody else who is not a subscriber to the Exchange. The Post Office officials will transcribe the message for him, and will forward it, charging only 3d. for doing so. Now, I do not see why the right hon. Gentleman should deprive the subscribers to a Telephone Exchange of this great convenience. I can easily understand how, in any circumstances, it must be an enormous convenience to any subscriber to an Exchange to "ring 137 up" a clerk from the office and say—"Write down a message to so-and-so, next door to the Exchange office, and toll him to attend my sick child, or to supply me with any particular article I want." I do not think it is good policy on the part of the Department, and I invite the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to the point. I do not think it is good policy for the Department to restrict, in any way, the facilities which are given to the public. I think the policy of the Department ought to be confined, in the first place, to protecting the public, as far as it is in their power, against the evils of monopoly; and, in the next place, to protecting the revenue of the Department against loss. I do not think the policy of the Department should be, in any way, to interfere with the convenience received by the public from the use of the telephone, and I would suggest to the right hon. Gentleman to provide a condition, by saying that if the Telephone Companies send written messages for their subscribers, such messages should be recognized as in the nature of telegrams, and a rate charged for them which the Post Office Department charges in its own Telephone Exchange for similar services. The revenue derived from them, after a reasonable deduction for outlay, should be the property of the Post Office. I wish to impress upon the right hon. Gentleman the distinction between the Telephone Companies wanting to make a revenue out of a matter of this kind, and rendering their service more attractive to the public. They would willingly, I believe, yield to the Department any revenue they might derive, and I think the right hon. Gentleman would protect the Post Office by saying that written messages should be regarded as telegrams, and that they should only be sent on certain conditions. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will take the suggestion in the same good spirit as that which has actuated him in connection with other details. What I really want to see in this matter is, that the public shall be served in the best possible way. There is one point of detail to which I wish to direct attention. At the present moment, subscribers to the Post Office are permitted to be put in communication with the Telegraph Department of the Post Office; and if they want to send a telegram to Australia, America, or any other part of 138 the world, they can take their telegram to the telephone without quitting their rooms. Subscribers can dictate their messages by telephone to the clerk at the Post Office, who takes them down in writing, and charges them with the cost. I do not see why the same facility should not be given to all those who use the Telephone Exchanges. If the telegraphs, instead of being a Department of the State, were a private trading concern, and any other trading concern offered to erect a wire in connection with the Telegraph Office, so as to give the public greater facilities for sending telegrams, surely any responsible manager in charge of such telegraph business would say that he was very much obliged, and would willingly fall in with such proposal, because it would be to his own advantage. But the Post Office say—"We will not permit anything of the kind, except you charge to each subscriber £5 per annum for the facility of sending telegrams," for which he is, of course, to pay the full price charged for the telegraph system. I recollect the hon. Gentleman the Member for Glasgow (Dr. Cameron) saying, upon the question of sixpenny telegrams, that he would demonstrate that the Post Office telegraph wires were only used to the extent of one-third of their capacity.
§ MR. FAWCETTIf you take the number of messages, and spread them equally over the 24 hours, no doubt that would be so; but it will be found that, in the day time, the greatest number are sent, and that many of the more important wires are very much crowded; and before it would be possible to bring the reduced tariff into operation, it would be necessary to lay down 15,000 miles of extra wires.
§ MR. GRAYI do not dispute that. All I suggested was, whether the Post Office was in such a position, and had so much business, that it did not want any more. If the Post Office wants more business, why not facilitate those who wish to bring business to their doors? What I contend is that it is not a reasonable arrangement to impose a preposterous charge of £5 5s. or £5, which no ordinary subscriber will pay. But, on the other hand, it would be perfectly fair to allow the Telephone Companies to give facilities to their subscribers for sending telegrams, simply 139 allowing them to charge the actual cost to them for taking down and transmitting. If that is not done, the public are deprived of a great convenience which they ought to enjoy. I will put it to the Committee what an enormous advantage it would be if a person residing two or three miles away from a telegraph office, who wanted to send a message in the middle of the night through a telephone, were able to say—"Take down that message for such-and-such a place, and send it off by your telephone to the telegraph wire." That would be an enormous advantage; but a subscriber would only want to send a message in that way occasionally, and he would never dream of paying £5 a-year for the privilege. I know that the right hon. Gentleman will say that he imposes a similar charge on his own subscribers; but it is only a nominal charge, and does not really exist. He divides his charge under two heads—one for the use of the telephone, and one for the use of the telegraph. I believe he makes a charge in Newcastle of £14 or £15. He says—"I charge £9 for one service, and £5 for the other;" but if the subscriber says he will give me £9 for the one service, and that he does not require the other, for which he would have to pay £5, the right hon. Gentleman says—"No; you must pay £14." It does not, therefore, become a question simply of £ s. d. It is not a reality, but a mere formality; and I put it to the right hon. Gentleman to take it into his favourable consideration in the interests of the public. If there is any charge made by the Telephone Companies for this additional service, let the revenue go to the Post Office. The Companies do not want it. But what they want is that they should not be impeded in serving the public. I have directed attention to these two or three points, and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will see his way to arriving at some reasonable arrangement upon them. With regard to the propositions of the right hon. Gentleman generally, I trust and believe that they will be accepted by the Telephone Companies in the generous spirit in which they have been offered. Personally, I think they are fair and reasonable; and if the right hon. Gentleman will give an undertaking that he will himself insist on them, and see that they are really carried out fairly, 140 and in a straightforward manner, without the old policy being pursued of the officials of the Department racking their brains to invent impediments, and to create causes of delay, I believe the public will heartily welcome the action which the right hon. Gentleman has taken in the matter. I might give instances to show the preposterous manner in which the Department has interfered with the working of the Telephone Companies; but I do not wish to rake up old sores. But if the right hon. Gentleman says that he will see his proposals carried through fairly and properly, and in the spirit in which he has spoken to-night, I think the public will have every reason to be satisfied, and I am convinced that experience will show that the Post Office will gain largely and directly, both by way of royalties, and by the increase of business in connection with the ordinary telegraph. The invention of the telephone is one of a marvellous character, and I believe it will, in the future, be of the greatest possible service both to the commercial and the general community. Perhaps I may be allowed to say a word in conclusion. I have, no doubt, somewhat warmly taken up the question of telephones in this House. Possibly on some occasions in debates, or in written communications with the Department which I have had occasion to make, I may have used irritating words in regard to what appeared to me to be unnecessary and vexatious delays, and which may not unnaturally have been calculated to cause irritation or impatience on the part of the right hon. Gentleman. I can only say, on the other hand, that those who have been interested in the working of telephones have within the last few years been irritated at what they deemed the obstructive attitude of the Post Office Department. If, in my language or acts, I have given any offence to the right hon. Gentleman, I am sorry for it. I, for one, have had the fullest confidence from the beginning that if, as contra-distinguished from some of the officials who naturally, although well-meaning, are too much inclined to take a purely official view of a matter of this kind, the right hon. Gentleman had been able to fix his attention himself to the subject, and had been induced to give it his study, he would be prepared to deal with it in a broad and statesmanlike 141 manner; and while, of course, protecting the Department, and seeing that the public Revenue did not suffer, that he would give the facilities which the public with perfect confidence had a right to expect. I think he has now done so, and I think that our exertions are justified by the result. I therefore offer our thanks to the right hon. Gentleman for the way in which he has dealt with the matter, and for the exceedingly fair and straightforward offer which he has made.
§ MR. ARTHUR ARNOLDThere can be no doubt that the use of the telephone is greatly increasing; and, from the remarks made by the hon. Member for Carlow (Mr. Gray) and other hon. Members, I am convinced that there is likely to be a very great development of this new means of communication. My right hon. Friend the Postmaster General will, I have no doubt, remember that with reference to monopolies Mr. Mill used these words—
A Government is more often chargeable with interfering to make things dear, than with interfering to make things cheap.Now, I must say that what I have heard upon this matter makes me very much inclined to believe that the interference of the Government with regard to the use of the telephone has not had a tendency to make the use of these instruments cheap to the public. I am speaking now only on behalf of the public, and I am anxious that this mode of communication should be made as cheap as possible. I am inclined to think that it ought to be in the hands of whatever power, whether it be the Government or private Companies, who can make it cheapest. I think it probably may be found that, in the end, the Government will be able to make telephonic communication cheaper than a Company could do, because there must be communication more or less with the telegraphic wires, which are at present a monopoly in the hands of the Government. I only desire to say that it is very important the matter should be in the hands of that power which will give the cheapest supply; and I am quite sure the attention of my right hon. Friend will be directed towards that end.
§ MR. PULESTONI agree with every word which has been used by previous speakers, as to the appreciation of all those who take an interest in the matter 142 of the very liberal concessions made by the right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General. I am sure we were right in expecting and believing that the time would shortly come when some concession would be made; because our experience, and the experience of the country, has been, in regard to the administration of the Post Office Department, such as could lead us to no other conclusion. I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman was good enough to open the debate, and that, by doing so, he has prevented the possibility of any acrimonious discussion taking place. Reference has been made to the use of the telephone in the United States. I happen to know this important fact, which I may mention to the Committee—that, in proportion to the facilities which have been given for the use of the telephones in America, so have the revenues of the telegraph business increased, and very largely too. I ventured to say something of the same kind when seconding the Motion of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow (Dr. Cameron), in favour of sixpenny telegrams; and after the concession now made in regard to the telephone I am certain that the business of the telegraphs will also be largely increased, and that our experience will be similar to that of the United States—namely, that just in proportion as the telephone business increases, so the revenue received from telegrams will also increase. I fully agree with the suggestion of my hon. Friend the Member for Carlow (Mr. Gray) as to the desirability of giving facilities for the erection of trunk wires, in order to send messages by telegraph, after having conveyed them, in the first instance, by telephone. I see no particular reason why there should be no extension of area, or why the whole business should not be carried on upon a sort of Free Trade principle. Take the instance of Brighton. The public are well cared for there, but are not able to hold communication with London; and I hope my right hon. Friend, when he rises to reply, will kindly say a word on that point. To give an illustration of some of the past difficulties, I may say that in the towns of Plymouth and Devonport, the latter of which I represent, there have been difficulties which will be very familiar to the right hon. Gentleman. In fact, it has been 143 impossible to have any telephonic business done there at all in connection with the Post Office. All those difficulties are now entirely set at rest. As I understand now, any Company—the United Telephone Company, for instance—may open an Exchange anywhere. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman is aware that the Government opened their telephonic service at Plymouth with something like 150 subscribers; but that the number has since been reduced to something like 40. The general experience of the system was that the business conducted by means of private enterprize there was very much more successful than the efforts of the Government. Although I do not take exception to the statement of the hon. Member for Salford (Mr. Arthur Arnold), that the time may come when the Government may possibly compete satisfactorily with the Companies, I agree with him that the public ought to have the facilities they demand supplied to them in the cheapest way, whether by the Government or by private enterprize. I thank the right hon. Gentleman for the clear way in which he has given these concessions; and I trust we may hope that there will be no serious delay in putting them into execution.
§ MR. STEWART MACLIVERI desire to join with other hon. Members in recognizing the importance of the concessions made by the Postmaster General. It is well known that considerable dissatisfaction has prevailed in regard to the present arrangements for telephonic communication, and there are reasons why that dissatisfaction should now cease, after the concessions made by the right hon. Gentleman. At the same time, I think some allowance ought to be made for the Department over which the right hon. Gentleman presides, on account of their being hampered with the burden of the large expenditure incurred when the Government took over the telegraphs. We all know that the price paid for the telegraphs was enormously in excess of their value, and the Government have had to contend for years with that difficulty, and therefore have been unable to make any steady advance in the improvement of telephonic communication. But now, I think, we are in a position, after a relaxation which the right hon. Gentleman proposes to make, to expect 144 that the public will be satisfied with the telephonic communication, and to see that other advances are made in the same direction. I can only repeat that the public will recognize and thank the right hon. Gentleman for what he has done on their behalf.
DR. CAMERONThe right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General has very properly deprecated our going into any byegone stories; but there is one point to which I must direct the attention of the Committee. Telephones were not invented until long after the Government acquired the Post Office Telegraphs. Therefore, they did not purchase any rights in connection with telephonic communication. Towards the end of last Parliament a Bill was introduced by the Postmaster General, which contained a clause giving the Government a right over the telephones which had been invented and brought into use since their purchase of the telegraphs. Now, that appeared to me to be the confiscation of the invention. I strongly opposed that clause, and, with the assistance of some of my hon. Friends, managed to induce the Government to drop it. Since then, however, in consequence of some judicial decision, the Post Office have acquired a legal right; but I do not think they ever got a moral right; and they ought to treat the Telephone Companies, as far as possible, as if the Government had not violently, and, in my opinion, not very honestly, laid hands on this invention. The right hon. Gentleman has told us that one of his proposals is that the difference between trunk lines and local lines shall be done away with; and he proposes that the Post Office shall not be compelled to put up wires for the Telephone Companies. My hon. Friend the Member for Carlow (Mr. Gray) criticized this proposition, and he has said that the Post Office ought to be willing to give facilities for erecting trunk lines, if the Companies themselves are not able to put them up. Now, I have no unfavourable criticism to offer on that part of my right hon. Friend's proposals. It seems to me that if the Post Office place a Telephone Company in the same position, as nearly as possible, as they would be if the Post Office had not seized hold of the invention, we have no right to ask the Post Office to do anything for them in aid of their requirements; 145 and it is for the Post Office to consider carefully the propriety of setting up trunk wires between the large towns.
§ MR. GRAYI only suggested that they should erect them on the railway lines over which they have the right of way-leave.
DR. CAMERONIn addition to railway lines, there are the roads and canals of the country. It must be remembered that the Post Office pay, in many cases, under the Act for way-leave along the railways, a yearly charge of about £1 per mile. I know that way-leave and maintenance is a very important item. There is one point on which it appears to me the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman should in fairness be modified, if the Committee regard it from the standpoint from which I look at it. What we should aim at appears to me to be to place the Telephone Companies, as nearly as possible, in the position they would have occupied if the Post Office had not violently laid hands on the invention. I do not disapprove of competition on the part of the Post Office. By all means let us have competition. But how can we have free competition if the Post Office charge private Companies with a royalty of 10 per cent? I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider whether he cannot, in fairness and in the interests of the public, reduce that royalty? I am satisfied the telephone business would be greatly increased in the country by a reduction of the royalty now charged. There was one point which my right hon. Friend did not make as clear as I think he ought. He said that call-houses were to be permitted. These call-houses are places where any member of the public can go and communicate with any member of a Telephone Exchange. Is there to be any limit as to the price to be charged? [Mr. FAWCETT: No.] I think that is perfectly right, and perfectly satisfactory. I think that the right hon. Gentleman, in the disputes which have existed between the Post Office and the Telephone Companies, has endeavoured to meet his adversaries in the fairest and most conciliatory spirit. In the interests of the public, all I would suggest in addition is, that he should consider the propriety of reducing the royalty, which, at present, prevents the Telephone Companies from competing with the Post Office.
§ MR. WARTONI wish to call the attention of the Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Courtney) to the way in which the Post Office Accounts are given. At page 127, it seems to me that the Votes present two different systems of making out the accounts, especially in regard to the items for labour.
§ MR. COURTNEYThe explanation is, that the persons enumerated in the Estimate are persons employed and paid by the Postmaster General. They are, as a matter of fact, upon the Staff, and receive definite wages for definite work, and the other item is a lump sum for local labour where it has been necessary to employ local labour.
§ MR. GRAYIn reference to the question raised by the hon. Member for Glasgow (Dr. Cameron), as to the policy of the Department, imposing a heavy royalty of 10 per cent on the gross receipts, I should like to say a word. No doubt, that is an enormous royalty. I do not press it upon the attention of the right hon. Gentleman; but, of course, he fully understands that in insisting upon that royalty he is virtually imposing a tax upon the public. The Telephone Companies are like a tea merchant, who has to collect the duty upon tea. He cannot pay it out of his own pocket; and, therefore, he must pay it out of the pockets of the people who buy the tea. I have no doubt that the Telephone Companies, when they come to consider the new basis of the right hon. Gentleman's proposals, will ask for a reduction of this enormous royalty of 10 per cent on the gross earnings, and probably they would ask to have it reduced by 5 per cent. What they will say will be this—that if the Government grant a reduction of this enormous tax, the whole of that reduction which the Government concedes to them will immediately be given to the subscribers. For instance, if the Government reduce their demand from 10 to 5 per cent, whatever that 5 per cent yields will instantly be handed over to those who use the telephones. The Companies themselves have no wish to put it in their own pockets; but, of course, the right hon. Gentleman will not permit the Telephone Companies to do their work as cheaply as they could do it, if he insists upon retaining this charge. I wish the Government and the Committee thoroughly 147 to understand that the claim of the Telephone Companies to a reduction of the royalty is not made on their own behalf for the purpose of putting that which they now pay, in the shape of royalty, into their own pockets, but in order that they may be permitted to give the full advantage of it to the public.
§ MR. FAWCETTI hope it will not be thought that I am insensible to the manner in which my proposals have been received by the Committee if I refer, for one single instant, to a somewhat personal remark of the hon. Member for Carlow (Mr. Gray). Nothing could be more kindly than the way in which the hon. Member spoke about my personal endeavours; but in some remarks which he let fall he tried, I think, to draw a distinction between the officials of the Post Office and myself. [Mr. GRAY: Hear, hear!] Now, I do not think anything could be more unfair than for the head of a Department to allow such a distinction to be drawn. I look upon myself as being absolutely and unreservedly responsible for everything that has been done. I do not mean to say that there have not been any mistakes or delay; but my short sketch of the matter will show that it is an extremely difficult one to deal with. Whatever mistakes have been committed, and whatever delay may have taken place, I hope the hon. Member, and other hon. Members who are interested in this subject, will blame the Postmaster General, who is responsible to Parliament, and not the officials of the Post Office, who, I can only say, work with unwonted zeal to serve the public to the best of their ability. With regard to the remarks which have been made in the course of the discussion, I will deal with them, as far as I can, seriatim. In saying that no obligation should be imposed upon the Post Office to erect wires or provide way-leaves, I think it only fair to be as explicit as possible; but I do not mean, in making that statement, to say that, under no circumstances whatever, would the Post Office erect wires for the Telephone Companies, or under no circumstances whatever grant a way-leave at a proper rent; but it must be borne in mind that the Department representing the public have paid a heavy sum for the way-leaves they possess over the railways, and they are, therefore, bound not to give any 148 general right, but to consider every application strictly on its merits. With regard to whether any greater facilities can be afforded for allowing messages which are sent, in the first instance, by the telephone, to be forwarded by telegraph, although I do not see my way at present, I will again look into the subject. I recognize the principle that all I have to do is to afford the utmost facilities to the public, with due protection to the Revenue. On the subject of the royalty of 10 per cent, I understood that that was an essential feature of one of the proposals of the Telephone Companies. Of course, they invited us to reduce it. There is this disadvantage in a Government having a monopoly of any sort which presses on any particular industry—for instance, it might be for the interests of the public for any person to come forward and offer to deliver letters in London at the charge of a half-penny, or one-half less than the charge now imposed by the Post Office; but the Government monopoly must be taken with its disadvantages as well as its advantages, and it is not necessarily an objection to it that any part of the service may be done more cheaply. I have already answered the question of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow (Dr. Cameron). We do not propose to regulate the charges to be made for the use of call offices when established by the Companies. We allow the charge to be fixed by the Companies, on the understanding that they hand us over a certain portion of their receipts. [Mr. GRAY: That is 10 per cent.] Yes; 10 per cent. Why it is proposed to extend this royalty to private wires is not so much with the object of increasing the Revenue, which would be very trifling, but for the purpose of simplifying the accounts, and thus obviating disputes. I think the hon. Member for Carlow is under an error in putting the point he did. Suppose he laid down a telephone wire from his house to his own stables, that would be a private arrangement. What we propose to do is to levy this royalty on the receipts handed over to the Company. I now think that I have answered all the points which have been referred to in the course of the discussion; and I can only thank the Committee for the way in which the proposals of the Government have been received.
§ MR. GRAYWill the right hon. Gentleman be good enough to answer the point raised in reference to written messages?
§ MR. FAWCETTI must confess that I do not see my way to making any concession upon that point. I think that an essential distinction must be maintained. It would make, I am afraid, a serious hole in the telegraph revenue if written messages were allowed to be sent. I think the hon. Member will see there is an essential difference between telephone messages and telegraph messages.
§ MR. FAWCETTNo; I said that all the telephone messages would be oral, and the only distinction would be that a telephone message must be spoken, not written. That is really the cardinal point of difference. I have only, in conclusion, to repeat the statement I made at the commencement of this Sitting—that if the Companies will accept these terms as a final settlement of the question, there is no reason whatever why the licences should not be amended at once. Of course, it would take some time to put it into legal form; but there will be no delay in considering the changes it will be necessary to introduce; and, in regard to any new licences to be granted, they will include the new terms.
§ MR. PULESTONI have no desire to prolong the discussion; but I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider this one point, and to include it with the concessions and arrangements he has already proposed. The right hon. Gentleman has disavowed any responsibility in reference to the procuring of way-leaves; but I understand that one of the greatest difficulties met with in reference to the development of the telephone is the granting of way-leaves. Will it not be desirable to consider, before next Session, or any other time, some means of providing, by Bill or otherwise, for the Post Office Department to be able to take even compulsory powers?
§ LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLNonsense.
§ MR. PULESTONAlthough my noble Friend says "Nonsense," I think that something should be done for reducing the difficulty now experienced in obtaining way-leaves.
§ MR. GRAYPrivate individuals must expect to have difficulties in reference to the granting of way-leaves. The only difficulty that ought to be considered by the Government is where, as between town and town, the only method of communication is along the line of a Railway Company. The Government have purchased exclusive way-leaves over all such lines; and however willing a Railway Company might be to permit telephone wires to run along their lines, the Post Office might positively prohibit it. I think the Government ought to say—"We will be prepared to grant these way-leaves, if a proper consideration is paid for them." I hope the right hon. Gentleman will see his way to insure that his propositions, which must already have been drawn up in black and white, should be sent out immediately; and if they are accepted by the Companies, that then, even pending the completion of legal formalities, they may be adopted, although, perhaps, without conferring absolute rights, without interfering with the rights and privileges which the Post Office propose to reserve for themselves. Pending the completion of the formalities that may be necessary, the proposals of the right hon. Gentleman might be virtually put in force. Sometimes, as he is aware, a question of this kind does not mean a week or two, but months, and sometimes years. There have been some cases in which there has been a delay of a year and a-half over a simple question which, in the first instance, appeared as though it might be settled in five minutes. I trust the right hon. Gentleman will give the Committee some assurance that there will be no unnecessary delay.
§ MR. FAWCETTI think, in a matter involving many business details, it would be unwise to give an assurance like that, except the pledge on my part that everything will be done on the part of the Department to prevent unnecessary delay.
§ MR. FAWCETTWith regard to the important question of way-leaves on railways, the Government are bound not to grant such a number as would cripple the business of the Department. At the same time, I am not desirous of pursuing anything like a dog-in-the-manger policy; but it must be borne in 151 mind that many of the railway lines are at present almost fully occupied by wires, and there is no more room for additional ones. Suppose along a particular railway—and this is no imaginary case—there is, at the present time, only room for a certain number of additional wires. Owing to an increase in telegraph business, arising from a reduction in the tariff, or from any other cause, the Post Office may probably have to erect these additional wires. If, however, they had leased the remaining way-leaves to a private Telephone Company, we should find ourselves in this difficulty—there being no room for the additional wires the Post Office might require, no other alternative would be open to us but to put the wires underground; a large additional expense would have to be incurred; and the public would, I think, have a right to complain that their money had been wasted in order to promote the interests of a private Company. I mention this as an illustration to show that we are bound in these matters to proceed with extreme caution; therefore, while we must be careful not to give everything a Company may claim as a right, we shall be perfectly prepared to inquire fully into every application that may be made to us.
§ MR. GRAYAll I wanted was some assurance that impediments of a purely obstructive nature would not be imposed by the Post Office. Of course, any provision of a reasonable or protective nature they are entitled to make. The right hon. Gentleman has given me an instance; let me give him another. I am acquainted with the case of a Dock Company which owned a certain piece of ground, and they gave to a Railway Company the right of running a tunnel under it. They said—"We will not give you the property; but we will only allow you to run your line under the tunnel." A short time afterwards a Telephone Company proposed to carry telephone wires over the railway, and the Post Office were prepared to accede to the proposal on exacting payment for the privilege; but the Dock Company said—"No; this property is ours, not yours," and they refused permission. The right hon. Gentleman stepped in and said—"Unless we get something from the Company, which involves the recognition of a legal right 152 —which legal right, however, the Company did not possess—we will cut down the wires." Now, that I call obstruction, and not a protection of the property of the Government in their own interests. At the same time, I am desirous of saying that I fully recognize the fair spirit manifested by the right hon. Gentleman in the concessions he has made, and I thank him most cordially for them.
§ GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOURcriticized the manner in which the accounts connected with the Post Office and Telegraph Service were presented, and asked the Postmaster General whether, in future, in giving the results of the working by means of a capital account of the Post Office Department, he could not present them in a better form than at present?
§ MR. FAWCETTI believe that these accounts are considered by experts; and, so far as appears to myself, they are very clearly given. We have no separate capital account at the Post Office; but if my hon. and gallant Friend will speak to me upon the subject, I will carefully consider any suggestion he may make.
§ GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOURsaid, he would send to the right hon. Gentleman a copy of the communication he had sent to the Financial Secretary, and he trusted the right hon. Gentleman would consider the suggestions contained in it.
§ MR. T. P. O'CONNORWill the right hon. Gentleman have any objection to supply telephonic communication between different parts of this building and of this Chamber? What has been done in the direction of establishing telephonic communication between the House and the City and other parts of the Metropolis has been productive of a considerable amount of advantage. I have already put a question to the First Commissioner of Works upon this subject; but I am sorry to say that I was unable to obtain a satisfactory answer. The right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General is, however, accustomed to spend a large part of his time in the House, and I think he would have no objection to secure the comfort of hon. Members. Very often, when the Bell is rung for a Division, hon. Members in other parts of the building are in entire ignorance of what is going on. Sometimes 153 it is a question of importance, and it might be necessary that they should take part in the Division; or, on the other hand, it might be a Division in favour of some obstructive Motion; and, of course, the Irish Members, on such an occasion, would always, and properly, abstain from taking part in it. But there is no way of finding out, except by coming into the House. I have often said it was easier to ascertain in a newspaper office in Fleet Street what is going on in the House than it is in the Library of the House of Commons.
THE CHAIRMANI must point out to the hon. Member that his observations are out of Order. The Vote for the arrangements of the House is not taken under the Telegraphs Vote.
§ MR. T. P. O'CONNORThat I know perfectly well; but I assume that the telephones have been placed in the House by the Postmaster General, in consultation with the First Commissioner of Works. I do not suppose they have been placed there without the consent of the Postmaster General. I may be wrong; but I assume that he has control over the telephonic communication which now exists.
§ MR. FAWCETTNo; I have not.
§ Vote agreed to.
§ (4.) £3,852,517, to complete the sum for the Post Office.
§ MR. R. POWERsaid, he had asked the right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General, some time ago, a question with regard to the acceleration of the mails between Dublin and Waterford, and the right hon. Gentleman very kindly said he would consider the matter. Since then, however, he had been informed—although he hoped not correctly informed—that the right hon. Gentleman had proposed to give the carriage of the mails from Dublin to the Great Southern and Western Railway Company. He had no official information as to the correctness of that statement; but he would like very much to know whether it was correct or not? If the mails were carried from Dublin to Waterford viâ Maryborough, there would be a considerable saving of time; because, by that route, the time occupied would not be more three hours and twenty minutes, within which time the Great Southern and Western Railway Company undertook to deliver the mails; whereas, by 154 the other line, the time occupied would be four hours at least. He believed that the object of the right hon. Gentleman was that the letters from Dublin should arrive in Waterford sufficiently early to be answered the same day. Under the proposed arrangement, letters received in the morning could not possibly be answered until next day, which would be a source of great inconvenience to men of business. Besides, if the mails were not carried viâ Maryborough, the line from Kilkenny to Maryborough must ultimately be closed altogether for passenger traffic. The only route by which people could go conveniently to Dublin from Waterford was by way of Maryborough, which was a much shorter and more direct route. There were, moreover, between Maryborough and Waterford several very important towns, among them Abbeyleix, Ballyragget, Kilkenny, and Ballyhale. As regarded the saving of time, he would point out that a train left Dublin at 8 o'clock, which got to Waterford at 11 o'clock; whereas, by the other line, the train would not get in until 11.55. That was a very great difference, and he believed the Committee would perceive that it would be best to allow commercial men at Waterford to answer their letters viâ Maryborough. That route had been approved by the Chamber of Commerce, by all the commercial class at Waterford, by the Corporation, the Poor Law Guardians, and other public Bodies, who all advocated the mails being sent by way of Maryborough, instead of Carlow. Under the circumstances, he trusted the right hon. Gentleman would consent to adopt the Maryborough route.
§ MR. EWARTsaid, he would ask the right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General whether any step was about to be taken to give Belfast the benefit of the recent acceleration of mails from London to Dublin? Belfast, he believed, was at present the worst-served commercial centre in the United Kingdom. The people of Belfast did not receive their letters from London and other parts of England till about 1 o'clock in the day; while they were obliged to post letters in reply by half-past 2. Under those circumstances, they would certainly like to participate in the advantage of the acceleration of the Postal Service from Dublin. The mails now arrived in Dublin 155 half-an-hour earlier than they did a short time ago; but they were not despatched any sooner. The people of Belfast were anxious to get the advantage of that half-hour, though it would be far from satisfying the wishes of his constituents. There had been laid before the right hon. Gentleman a proposal for the acceleration of the mails, viâ Stranraer and Larne; but with regard to that he did not expect the right hon. Gentleman to give any answer at present, although he might mention that, by that route, the letters would arrive at Belfast by 9 o'clock in the morning. He did not press that point at present, for it was a large question; but he should be glad if the right hon. Gentleman would give some satisfactory assurance with regard to the acceleration of the mails to Belfast.
§ MR. T. P. O'CONNORsaid, he had already called the attention of the right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General to the very bad position in which the people of Galway stood with regard to the mails. He had stated, in the question addressed to the right hon. Gentleman a short time ago, the amounts per mile paid to the various Railway Companies; he found that the Post Office only allowed the Midland and Great Western Railway Company £40 a-mile, while it allowed the Great Southern and Western £70, and the Great Northern Company £90 a-mile, or more than double what was received by the Midland and Great Western Railway Company. They knew that the reason for not giving a larger sum to the Midland and Great Western Railway Company was on account of the much larger amount of mail traffic which passed over that line; but he submitted that the traffic was not sufficient to justify this enormous difference of £45 a-mile. The present very able and efficient Chairman of the Midland and Great Western Railway Company was prepared to increase the service of trains in case the Post Office paid a larger sum per mile. He would not, however, go into those details, which the right hon. Gentleman would be able to gather for himself. He would only say there was no reason whatever why the Midland trains should not start a little earlier, and make fewer stoppages than they did at present. It was only a question of money. There was another point to which he desired 156 to refer. He believed that, last year, his hon. Friend the Member for Westmeath (Mr. T. D. Sullivan) called the attention of the Secretary to the Treasury to the delivery of Parliamentary Papers by post, and he referred to those Papers which were delivered post free within a radius of four miles from the House of Commons. The present arrangement was extremely inconvenient for a large number of Members; and he would impress upon the right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General that he should consider the advisability of taking upon his Department the duty of delivering post free Papers beyond that radius. The matter was one which he should think could be very easily settled between the Treasury and the Post Office. The Postmaster General would, of course, have to be consulted as to any objection he might entertain to sending the Papers free of charge; but he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) understood that the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury would have the right of requesting the Postmaster General to do so, whether he liked it or not. Therefore, he hoped the hon. Gentleman would use the despotic power he possessed, by insisting that the Postmaster General should deliver Parliamentary Papers free. It was very desirable that hon. Members should be able to receive Parliamentary Papers at their residence, lodgings, or chambers in London and elsewhere; and he submitted that if the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury would bring to bear upon the Postmaster General those powers of persuasion with which he was endowed, this matter would be very easily arranged.
§ MR. MARUMsaid, he desired to supplement the remarks of the hon. Member for Waterford (Mr. R. Power) by calling the attention of the Committee, as he had done frequently, and the attention of the Postmaster General during the last four years, to the deficiency of the mail service between Kilkenny and Dublin. The present arrangement involved the necessity of travelling over 20 miles more line than was necessary, and a great delay was the consequence. On the other hand, they were in communication with Maryborough three times daily. If a letter were posted, under the present arrangement, at 5 P.M., he could not get a reply until the second day; nor could the local 157 newspapers be delivered before 5 o'clock in the afternoon; while English newspapers never reached him until the second day. Moreover, he could get Irish newspapers in the House of Commons much earlier than if he were at home. That was the state of things, monstrous as it appeared to him, which had continued for the last four years. It was said that the Railway Companies were exorbitant in their demands; but he did not suppose that they were more so than other Companies; and he apprehended that a Railway Company was entitled to the cost price for the carrying of mails. However, he would now make a further appeal to the hon. Gentleman, and would express a hope that the Treasury would not leave the people of Kilkenny any longer in their present position with regard to the mail service. He wished to refer to another matter in connection with this subject. When the right hon. Gentleman was replying to the Question put to him that morning, the noise in the House was so great that he could not collect even generally what the right hon. Gentleman said; and he must, therefore, put him to the trouble of repeating his reply. He would point out that a large proportion of his constituents were at Ballyragget; and, unless the mail route was altered, a very large number of persons would be absolutely deprived of any benefit from the accelerated service proposed by the right hon. Gentleman. He did not wish to intimidate anyone; but he would mention that there was a very large meeting about to be held, and that a great amount of excitement existed in the locality amongst persons who had a strong feeling that they ought to participate in the accelerated mail service.
§ MR. BLAKEsaid, that the hon. Members for Waterford (Mr. R. Power) and Kilkenny (Mr. Marum) had so ably stated the claims of the district to having the mails sent viâ Maryborough that he would not weary the Committee by further details. He would simply express a hope that the right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General would be disposed to consider the matter which had been so ably put forward by his hon. Friends.
§ MR. BIGGARsaid, he wished to add a few words in favour of the proposal of his hon. Friend the Member for Kilkenny 158 (Mr. Marum) for sending the mails viâ Maryborough. He (Mr. Biggar) had occasion once or twice in the year to go from Dublin to Waterford, and from Waterford to Kilkenny; and he knew that the most convenient way was through Maryborough and the Kilkenny route, instead of by way of Carlow, on which line a great deal of time was lost. The passenger, on arriving at Maryborough, went at once to a particular platform, and got on to the direct line of railway to Waterford; but anyone going to Waterford viâ Carlow would have to change on to another line of rails, go to a separate platform, and submit to other delays and inconveniences. Again, upon the line from Maryborough to Kilkenny there were only two trains a-day; and if the mail trains were taken away from that route, the result would be greatly to lessen the profit of a portion of the line, which was already by no means prosperous. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would accede to the wishes of the hon. Member for Kilkenny.
§ MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORsaid, the right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General would not be surprised that he should speak on this matter, seeing that Maryborough was in the county which he had the honour to represent. He could assure the right hon. Gentleman that there existed a great feeling among the people of the district, more especially with regard to the line of railway which went through Maryborough to Kilkenny. Maryborough was a centre on which three railways converged. Those three lines went, one to Dublin, another to Cork, and the third went southward to Waterford. Now, if this subsidy were removed, or was taken away from the service through Maryborough, the prospects of the Companies, not only in respect of mails, but in respect of goods traffic, would be, to a certain extent, imperilled; and it was perfectly plain that the interests of the people of the district would suffer. There were on the line several important centres, at which fairs were held; and the effect of the new arrangement would be seriously to injure these commercial centres from a pecuniary point of view. He had no doubt that the Postmaster General had, amongst other things, considered the matter; but he would urge upon him to take seriously into his further consideration 159 the possible consequences of diverting the mail along the Carlow line.
§ MR. RAMSAYsaid, he felt it necessary to remind the Postmaster General that in Scotland there were many places fully as important as those mentioned by hon. Gentlemen opposite, of which he did not speak in any spirit of disparagement; but there were many places, containing large populations, where the Postal Service was at the present time absolutely inefficient. The hon. Member for Kilkenny (Mr. Marum) had given the Committee an example of the inconvenience of the present arrangement in Ireland by pointing out that if a person posted a letter in Kilkenny at 5 o'clock in the afternoon he could not receive an answer until the second day. But he (Mr. Ramsay) could inform the Committee, by an example drawn from a district in Scotland in which he had some acquaintances, that if a person put a letter in the post at 8 o'clock in the morning, he would not receive a reply until four or five days afterwards on the average. He did not think his hon. Friends opposite could put forward a case worse than that; and, therefore, he would appeal to the Postmaster General to take into his consideration the isolated districts in Scotland where the Post Office mode of communication was so much inferior at the present time to that of any other districts in England and Scotland. He trusted that when the right hon. Gentleman was dealing with the representations which had been made to him by the Irish Members, he would not forget to take also into consideration those districts in Scotland and England where the postal arrangements were so defective, and where the population suffered so much in consequence.
§ MR. KENNYsaid, he understood that the Postmaster General proposed some time since to accelerate the mail service to Limerick. He (Mr. Kenny) hoped that that acceleration would also involve the acceleration of the mail service to Ennis. At the present time, the mail train which left Kingsbridge at 9 o'clock in the morning got into Limerick at 1 o'clock; but the train which conveyed the mails from Limerick to Ennis did not leave Limerick until half-past 3 in the afternoon, there being, practically, a loss of two hours after the arrival of the mail at Limerick. The train only 160 reached Ennis at 5 o'clock in the afternoon; and, although it was due at half-past 4 o'clock, it never got there before 5, and was frequently as late as half-past 5. He considered it a matter of very great consequence that the mail service should be accelerated to Ennis, because not only were the merchants of the town greatly inconvenienced by the delay, but, inasmuch as the mails for County Clare were distributed from the centre of Ennis, it would be of considerable advantage to the whole district, because it would enable them to receive their letters at a much earlier time than they now received them. He hoped, if the change were effected, that the right hon. Gentleman would take into his consideration the other districts which were connected with Limerick, and which stood equally in need of accelerated means of postal communication.
§ MR. WARTONsaid, he wished to call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General to a point which involved the public safety. He alluded to the Post Office carts, which were driven through the streets at a very great speed. He thought, at any rate, that these carts should carry lights at night. Another point was, that it was proper, in his opinion, that there should be facilities for posting letters at all the important railway stations, as was the case almost everywhere on the Continent. Then he would point out that the term Parcels Post, which appeared on the carts all over the country, was not only incorrect in itself, but differed from other terms which had been adopted by the Post Office. They had, for instance, Letter Post and Book Post; and, on the ground of correctness, he said that the proper term should be Parcel Post, and not Parcels Post. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would, as soon as possible, have this inaccuracy dealt with. Then, with regard to the charge by the Parcel Post, they knew that the price for the carriage of parcels was regulated by weight—that was to say, by the number of pounds. He would suggest to the right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General that he should revise the system of charging, and, instead of making one pound the unit of weight, he should place it at a little over a pound. Another point was, that there was a good deal of dissatisfaction felt all over the country at the 161 absence of any security for parcels. He did not expect the Post Office to be responsible for all the parcels sent; but he thought the Department might be answerable up to a small amount, or that they might establish some system of insurance. That would, perhaps, give a little more trouble to the Post Office; but, in the end, a handsome surplus would, he believed, be gained. As an analogy, he would mention the registered letter system, which had proved very profitable. In connection with that system, he wished again to urge in the interests of the public—which he supposed were identical with the interests of the Post Office—that a registered letter should be allowed to go for 2d., including envelope and contents. It was ridiculous that people should have to pay ¼d. for the envelope besides the 2d. for registration. That, practically, meant 2½d., for no one could ask for ¼d. change, and few people ever had ¼d. in their pockets. That was a matter of importance, although it was a small matter, and the adoption of his suggestion would greatly facilitate the use of the system. Greater difficulties than this had been overcome by the Post Office—for instance, the difficulty and inconvenience of using different stamps for postage and for receipts; and he hoped the Postmaster General would be able to carry out these small, but valuable reforms. He regarded the right hon. Gentleman as a man of genius; but he was surrounded by the snakes and serpents of red-tape and the Public Service. Doing ample justice to the courtesy of the right hon. Gentleman, and his desire to promote the interests of the public, he was sure the adoption of these suggestions would greatly advance the interests of both the public and the Post Office.
§ MR. PULESTONsaid, he did not wish to occupy much time; but he thought it was a matter of great importance and of safety to the Civil Service, that Clerks and Secretaries of Government Departments should be restrained as much as possible from discussing and coming in contact with Members of this House. He did not intend to move a reduction of the Vote; but the conduct of the Secretary to the Post Office, Mr. Blackwood, was a matter which he thought should be, at all events, considered, and in more aspects 162 than one—not alone on its own merits, but in reference to its effect on the Public Service generally. That gentleman was, no doubt, a very conscientious man, and he was, no doubt, esteemed by all who knew him; but he must object to that gentleman presiding at public meetings, and deliberately ignoring an existing Statute, and imputing to all who were carrying it out motives which had no foundation at all. When he put a Question, containing some of these statements, to the Secretary of State for the Home Department, the right hon. Gentleman said he had not seen the speech to which he had referred; but he (the Home Secretary) had no hesitation in saying that the statements in the last three paragraphs of the Question were incorrect and unfounded. That was the answer to the statements of the Secretary to the Post Office; and he believed that if it had not now been so late in the Session, much more serious notice would have been taken of the matter. It was not a matter which he considered satisfactory, as it now stood. And further, in defiance of and in actual contradiction of the real facts, after that answer had been given by the right hon. Gentleman, Mr. Blackwood wrote saying—referring to the right hon. Member for Whitehaven—
You were perfectly aware, when you addressed your Question to the Home Secretary, that I brought no charge against the Metropolitan Police; but you no doubt found it convenient to suppress facts. It is evident that Sir William Harcourt's answer was given under the impression which you designedly and intentionally made.It seemed to him (Mr. Puleston) desirable to consider the question whether the policy of Public Departments had been so changed as to admit of such conduct as this on the part of even the highest officials; and he was expressing the view of hon. Members when he said that, at all events, they were not guilty of the heinous offence attributed to them by Mr. Blackwood—namely, of doing an intentional wrong, and intentionally deceiving a Cabinet Minister, or that they were otherwise than sincere in protecting the police from unfounded statements and aspersions such as those made by Mr. Blackwood. The idea of saying that money was supplied to spy policemen under the Act, and that the Act permitted that, and all sorts of other outrages, was preposterous; 163 but although he might treat that as mere tattle, yet when it came to giving the lie direct to hon. Members, and accusing them of saying what they did not believe, and of intentionally misleading Ministers, it was time to ask whether the policy which had always been adopted and respected, in most of the Departments at least, had now been so changed as to permit of such an inroad, and such indecency as this on the part of an official in so high a position as that of Secretary fo the Post Office?
§ COLONEL NOLANsaid, he was afraid the right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General would think he worried him somewhat with regard to the mails and the work of the Post Office; but as he represented a large county, he received a considerable number of complaints which he felt he must refer to and press on the right hon. Gentleman. He was sure that if the Postmaster General would look into the subject he would see that in the county of Galway a very considerable improvement might be effected. The first point had been mentioned by the hon. Member for the Borough of Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor), who had urged the necessity of an acceleration of the mail service, to Galway. This could be effected by making the train travel more rapidly from Dublin. At present, the mail train only travelled at about 25 miles an hour; but, certainly, a greater speed ought to be adopted. There were two absurd stoppages of 10 minutes each at Mullingar and Athlone, and he thought those might be done away with, or the train should go more quickly. Such an alteration would be of great advantage to the West Coast of Ireland, because, at the present time, letters had to leave Galway before the mail from England came in. The English mail arrived at 12.30; but the Galway mail left at 12 o'clock. If the Postmaster General would exercise his influence with the Great Western of Ireland Railway, he believed it might be so arranged that the English mail would arrive an hour before the Galway mail left, and then people might get their letters from England, and answer the most pressing at once. This was really a matter of importance, and he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would inquire into it. The second point was closely connected with the first. It was a matter the Postmaster 164 General knew something about, for he had answered a Question upon it that evening—namely, the desirability of having a night mail train from Achonry to Tuam. Achonry was on the line from Galway to Tuam, and was 15 miles by rail from Tuam. This was not a mere question of supplying one town, but one-third of a county. At present, the night mail service was done by cart; but he thought that if the right hon. Gentleman would represent the matter to the Railway Company, a train might be run to carry the mails to Tuam at night for a very small increase upon the cost of the present cart system. Such a change would be of great value, not only to the Tuam people, but to the people in the neighbourhood, because it would be of great advantage to have the mails leaving at 10 or 11 at night, instead of at 9, as at present. This was more a question of management than of expense, because already the regular cart service had been dispensed with, and, of course, this special cart service would be also dispensed with. He hoped the Postmaster General would look into this matter also. The third point was one he had formerly pressed on the noble Lord the late Postmaster General (Lord John Manners). The noble Lord sent a high official to investigate the state of affairs in that part of the country; but although some improvement was effected, he did not think the noble Lord had thoroughly understood the matter. The question was that of cross-country posts, from the centre of the county and to Whitegate to the South of Mayo, or from Whitegate to Ballinasloe. An improvement in either direction would open up a large district. It now took a day and a-half for a letter to go about 15 or 16 miles; for it had to go out of the ordinary track. This and the other matters he had referred to were certainly points of detail; but they were important points of detail to the West of Ireland—namely, acceleration of the mails from Dublin to Galway, a night mail train from Achonry to Tuam, and cross-country posts.
§ MR. O'SHEAsaid, he wished to support his hon. and gallant Friend (Colonel Nolan) in the representations he had made to the Postmaster General. There was no doubt that in the Wrest of Ireland there was room for an immense 165 improvement in the arrangements of cross-country posts; and some of these affected his own county (Clare). Another point was, that there was still a cart mail service from Limerick to the Eastern counties, and he had frequently brought that and other grievances before the right hon. Gentleman, but without success. The District Inspector was, no doubt, an able man, and was deservedly appreciated by the Post Office; but he was rather conservative in his views, and he thought the Postmaster General himself would readily see that a comprehensive plan in regard to these cross-country posts was of great importance to the Western counties of Ireland, and could be effected at very small expense. He was glad to have this opportunity of thanking the right hon. Gentleman for the enormous improvements he had instituted during his administration in the county of Clare in regard to extended post office accommodation; but an acceleration of the train service from Limerick to Ennis and in other directions, and an improvement in respect to cross-country posts, would greatly increase the convenience to the public.
§ MR. BIDDELLsaid, he would ask whether the right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General would consider the propriety of opening country telegraph offices between 5 and 6 o'clock on Sunday afternoon, with a view to abolishing the delivery of letters on Sunday? The present arrangements for letters and telegrams were very unsatisfactory. Some places had a Sunday delivery, others had not, and the result was that if one posted a letter on Saturday evening he did not know whether it would be delivered on Sunday or not; but if the telegraph offices were opened on Sunday afternoon as well as on Sunday morning, the Sunday delivery of letters could be very well dispensed with. At any rate, the present uncertainty of delivery on Sunday would be done away with.
§ MR. FAWCETTsaid, that if he did not reply in detail to all the questions raised by hon. Members, he hoped the Committee would believe that he would bear them in mind as far as he could. The questions which had been raised by hon. Members from Ireland were, he admitted, very important, and he was most anxious to do all in his power to improve the Postal Service in Ireland; because, 166 as a matter of fact, he did not think there was a more legitimate means of stimulating the resources of a country than doing all that was possible to improve postal facilities. But, of course, that must be within certain limits, for there were various considerations to be kept in mind and difficulties to be contended with. He would give an instance of the difficulties to be dealt with. Several hon. Members from Ireland—the hon. Member for Waterford (Mr. R. Power), the hon. Member for Queen's County (Mr. Arthur O'Connor), and others—had pressed upon him very strongly the importance of stopping the mail train to Cork at Maryborough. The hon. and gallant Member for the County of Galway urged the accleration of the mail from Dublin to Galway, by preventing it stopping at certain places; but the moment he did anything of that sort, he had to face the precisely similar difficulty urged by the hon. Members for Waterford and Queen's County and others. It was often necessary to nicely balance the advantages and the disadvantages; and if they secured an acceleration on the one hand by doing away with certain stoppages, then on the other hand they deprived some places even of the advantages they possessed. Still, he had not come to any final decision as to whether or not the mail trains should stop at Maryborough or Mallow. All that had been urged upon him to-night and other representations, he would most carefully consider; and he should be very glad if he found that there were strong reasons to justify it, to arrange for the changes urged by hon. Members. It was simply a matter of balancing one thing against another. With regard to accelerating the mail trains from Dublin to Galway and the West of Ireland, that was, as he had said the other day, a question of expense. That was always the difficulty in regard to accelerating the mails in Ireland; and, unfortunately, the postal revenue from the South and West of Ireland left a very small margin for expenditure, compared with the revenue from the North of Ireland. However, he was in communication with the Railway Companies at the present time on this question, and hon. Members would render him important assistance if they would advise the Railway Companies to agree to his terms. With regard to 167 the remarks of the hon. Member for Belfast (Mr. Ewart), he had to state that the mail train was about to be started from Dublin half-an-hour earlier than at present, and from Belfast half-an-hour later. That would increase the time for answering letters by an hour; and when the new steamers came into working order, they would increase the time by another half-hour. He did not think the trains could run at a higher speed than they now did. As to accelerating the mails from Limerick to Ennis, he would see if that could be done; and with respect to the cross-country mails, that was, of all questions connected with the Postal Service, one of the most difficult, for if they made the hour for cross-country posts convenient they were almost certain to make them inconvenient for other posts. Still, he was anxious to do all that was practicable in this matter, not only in Ireland, but also in England and Scotland. With regard to the observations of the hon. and learned Member for Bridport (Mr. Warton) as to the charge of ¼d. for a registered letter envelope, if they charged nothing at all for the envelope, the stationers would object, because that would be selling at less than cost price. As to another point raised by the hon. and learned Member, although he was not sure how this Vote touched the Parcel Post, he was bound to say that he himself preferred "Parcel" Post to "Parcels" Post; and as time went on, and the vans had to be repainted, the correction, no doubt, could be made. They would, by that means, save a letter. With regard to the other point raised by the hon. and learned Member—namely, as to the insurance of parcels, that was a very difficult matter. For some time past he had been considering an insurance system for parcels, and, without giving anything to be interpreted as a promise, he could assure the hon. and learned Gentleman and the Committee generally that he would consider whether it would be desirable for the Post Office to undertake a system of insuring parcels. The last question put was by the hon. Member for West Suffolk (Mr. Biddell), as to Sunday deliveries. The rule at present was, that when the persons receiving two-thirds of the correspondence of any district asked for a Sunday delivery, it was at once given. [Mr. GRAY: In London?] 168 No; not in London, but in the rural districts. There was no small change which he looked back upon with more satisfaction since he had been at the head of the Post Office than one he had been able to effect in regard to the rural letter carriers. He had been able to secure them, in those districts where there were Sunday deliveries, a holiday on alternate Sundays. As to abolishing Sunday deliveries where they had once been established, they were not given up unless there was a general wish that they should be on the part of the inhabitants. The hon. Member (Mr. Biddell) had suggested that, instead of there being a Sunday delivery of letters, the telegraph offices should be kept open between 5 and 6 o'clock on Sundays. But, in reply to that suggestion, it was only necessary to call attention to the fact that there were a great many places without telegraph offices, and that this arrangement would be no boon to persons who were too poor to pay for telegrams. Then, so far as convenience was concerned, he could not conceive anything more objectionable, from the point of view of the Post Office employés, than to be called on duty between the hours of 5 and 6. That would be just the hour when they would most wish to be enjoying themselves. The delivery of letters on a Sunday, on the other hand, took place early in the morning. He could not help thinking that, from the point of view of Sunday rest, the suggestion of the hon. Member would not be welcomed by the public, and certainly not by the staff. He thought, now, he had referred to most of the points raised.
§ COLONEL NOLANThere is the question of the night mails to Tuam.
§ MR. FAWCETTsaid, he had not referred to that because no beneficial advantage could result from the arrangement proposed. It might be an advantage to the travelling public, but it would not be to the general public, because letters arrived in Tuam now at a time which enabled them to be delivered early in the morning, and the post did not leave until half-past 9 in the evening. The hon. Member for Devonport (Mr. Puleston) had referred to a speech by Mr. Blackwood, the Secretary to the Post Office; but he (Mr. Fawcett) did not think it necessary to refer to the subject now. He did not know 169 whether the hon. Member was present the other night; but the subject had then been discussed at considerable length. Strong objection had been taken to the statement of Mr. Blackwood. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Halifax (Mr. Stansfeld) had spoken in his defence. All he (Mr. Fawcett) could say, from his personal knowledge of Mr. Blackwood, was that he was sure a fairer-minded and more upright man never lived, and one less likely to bring an unfounded charge against anyone. His speech had not been properly reported, and the incorrectness of the report had been pointed out in the correspondence which had appeared in The Standard. It was not a question of Party politics, or of Departmental government, but one of those social, moral questions upon which it would be very undesirable for the Head of a Department to fetter the discretion of those under him. He was sure Mr. Blackwood had only been actuated by the best of all reasons. He (Mr. Fawcett) thought he had now exhausted all the points referred to. He had not especially alluded to all the particular improvements in the mail services which had been brought under his notice; but he would make a note of the suggestions which had been offered, and would look into them.
§ MR. PULESTONsaid, he was obliged to his right hon. Friend for the patience with which he had noticed the few remarks he (Mr. Puleston) had made. He wished to explain that the discussion he was present at the other night had no reference to the point raised as to the policy of allowing officials of the Post Office Department—clerks, secretaries, and other officers—to take an active part in the discussion of political matters and questions of a contentious public character. Moreover, his remarks just now were mainly directed to the fact that the Secretary to the Post Office had deliberately printed letters in the papers, attributing dishonest and dishonourable motives to Members of that House. He (Mr. Puleston) did not ask the right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General to take any action in this matter—it would be quite enough for him to call attention to what had occurred, and leave it there.
§ MR. HARRINGTONsaid, there was another question as to the acceleration of the mail services which he wished to 170 bring before the attention of the right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General, and which he had refrained from mentioning up to that time, as the right hon. Gentleman had had to consider other subjects of the same kind. He wished to refer to the acceleration of the mails to Tralee and Kerry generally. None of the difficulties which the right hon. Gentleman had found in dealing with other places would be experienced in endeavouring to meet the wishes of the people of Kerry and West Cork for an improved service. The right hon. Gentleman had agreed to an acceleration of the Cork mail service, and to meet the wishes of the people of Kerry all he would have to do would be to deal with the difficulty made by the Railway Company, and to get them to despatch their trains from Mallow Junction at the time the down mail trains from Dublin reached Mallow. The tourist traffic to Killarney depended very much on the right hon. Gentleman's arrangements. As the matter stood, Tralee would not share in the proposed acceleration of the mails to Cork, and a large number of tourists who travelled in that district would be detained in Mallow—or rather at the Junction, some distance from the town—for a period of from one to two hours. That would be very inconvenient. He did not see why the right hon. Gentleman should not let these districts participate in the acceleration of the mails to Cork. Very little difficulty would be experienced in doing it, and it was the unanimous wish of the inhabitants that it should be done. Would the right hon. Gentleman devote some attention to the matter?
§ MR. WARTONsaid, he was sorry to have to trouble the right hon. Gentleman again. He was obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for what he had said with regard to the Parcel Post; but there was one point in connection with that subject on which no answer had been given—namely, the defective lighting of the parcel carts. Furthermore, there was the question of the Parcel Post rates, and the question of providing removable boxes for the reception of letters at railway stations for carriage by mail trains.
§ MR. FAWCETTsaid, that the difficulty of acceding to the request of the hon. Member who had asked for an acceleration of the Kerry mails (Mr. Harrington) 171 was owing to the fact that a stoppage would be necessary at Mallow. If a stoppage were made there, the mails would be five or ten minutes later in arriving at Cork. In the case of those trains which stopped at Mallow, he would do what he could to induce the Railway Company to start them as soon as possible, consistent with the proper working of the traffic. But, speaking generally, it would be impossible to give the acceleration to Cork without reducing the number of stoppages as much as possible. As to the points raised by the hon. and learned Member for Bridport (Mr. Warton), he had not heard any complaints with regard to the parcel vans; but the question of Parcel Post rates was, no doubt, one of importance. He had decided to appoint a Departmental Committee to consider the matter. In an entirely new service, such as the Parcel Post, they could only arrive at the best conclusion by experience; and although particular weights and charges had been selected in the first instance, he was not prepared to say, without more experience and careful inquiry, whether those weights and charges were those which were likely best to load to the advantage and convenience of the public and the Department. Therefore, he had appointed a Departmental Committee, which would sit to consider the matter in the autumn—a Committee composed of some of the most experienced and practical officials in the Post Office. They would exhaustively consider the question. With regard to removable boxes at railway stations, already letters could be posted in the mail trains; and if boxes of the kind were provided on the platforms, countless mistakes would inevitably occur. Letters would be put in the wrong boxes, and very frequently, in the hurry and confusion of a railway platform, boxes intended for the North would get put into trains going South, and boxes for the South would go North. At a large central station, letters would be posted for Edinburgh in the North, London in the South, Bristol in the West, Cambridge in the East, and for places in the South-West, South-East, North-West, and North-East. It would be a most difficult matter to get these boxes despatched with accuracy.
§ MR. HARRINGTONsaid, he wished to point out to the right hon. Gentleman 172 that there was in the proposed arrangements great danger to the Killarney tourist traffic. At present, an express train left Dublin with the mails at 9 o'clock, and the right hon. Gentleman proposed now to run one at 8——
§ MR. FAWCETTThe 9 o'clock train will run as heretofore.
§ MR. HARRINGTONsaid, that might be so; but the Railway Company would probably find it to their advantage to delay the later train.
§ MR. FAWCETTNo; they cannot do that.
§ MR. MOLLOYsaid, the Postmaster General had given no answer to the Memorial of the Town Council of Tullamore in reference to the acceleration of the mail service to that town.
§ MR. FAWCETTI have not yet had time to come to a conclusion on the subject. I will consider the matter.
§ MR. LABOUCHEREsaid, that a good many complaints had been made that night, but he had yet another to raise. It was this. The Postmaster General since he had been in Office had made a great many improvements; but in regard to the colour of the stamps, he had made a change which could not be altogether regarded as an improvement. It often happened that people confused the 2½d. stamps with the 1d. stamps, owing to their being so nearly alike in colour. He would ask whether it was not possible to make a more distinct difference between the colours?
§ MR. HEALYsaid, he wished to call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to several matters about which he had spoken to him recently, and also desired to put to him one or two questions. With regard to the mail messengers, the right hon. Gentleman had given some guarantee that they would not be degraded or placed in a lower position in consequence of their recent agitation. But while the right hon. Gentleman was bonâ fide in that statement, the Department must take care to guard against representations from persons in Dublin to whom these men had rendered themselves obnoxious by their agitation. It was very probable that these people who had been offended, by some Departmental trick with which the Committee was pretty well acquainted, would attempt to show that the men were not doing their duty, and would endeavour to get them degraded. He 173 (Mr. Healy) would like to hear that night what course the right hon. Gentleman would take in the event of complaints being made against the mail messengers. Another point he wished to raise was as to the time put upon Irish telegrams. Why was it always English and not Irish time that was used? Why, in the case of a telegram from Ballydehob or Skibbereen, should the Irish people be confused by having it marked with English, instead of with their own time? He could understand English time being given in telegrams going from England to Ireland; but he could not understand why, in the case of local telegrams in Ireland, they should have English time marked upon them. Surely, the British Government might allow the Irish people some kind of chronological Home Rule. This was the third time he had raised the question without getting a reply, or nothing further than that the right hon. Gentleman had not heard of it before. Then, as to surveyors' clerks. The right hon. Gentleman was aware that the Irish Members had several times challenged Mr. Cornwall's action in this matter. Mr. Cornwall, now an inmate of Kilmainham Gaol, had made these appointments entirely by his own favour. He had brought over Englishmen to Ireland, and had given them some of the very best positions in the country. Irishmen had had no chance—in fact, nobody but an Englishman and a Freemason had had a chance. The system of official promotion in Ireland, simply through the medium of Freemasonary, had been a growing evil. Under Mr. Cornwall's régime no one had a chance of getting promotion unless he was a Freemason. Cornwall, however, was now out of the Post Office, and it was to be hoped would soon be somewhere where he would be getting his deserts. He (Mr. Healy) trusted Mr. Cornwall's successor would make the appointments through merit alone. It was a poor compliment to pay to an Irish official, serving out his days in the Post Office, to say that the posts were given to the best men, when so many Englishmen were brought in to receive them. How many Irishmen were brought over to take positions in the English Post Office, he should like to know? Why, they were so few that they were not worth mentioning. He acquitted the right hon. 174 Gentleman the Postmaster General of any but the most strict and straightforward method of procedure in regard to promotions; but, of course, residing as he did in London, it was impossible for him to deal with these matters with that local and personal knowledge which was necessary in order to come to a just conclusion as to the merits of the applicants. The matter was entirely in the hands of the Head of the Department in Dublin, and Freemasonry, and Freemasonry alone, seemed to be the qualification by which promotion was earned in the Dublin Post Office. It seemed to be impossible for any person to get on in that Department except through that secret Society; and he was bound to say that a very serious cancer was eating into Irish society, and that it was necessary that it should have some check. Attention had been called to this system several times by Questions put in the House; but no improvement had taken place. Though they were glad at all times to have English officials coming over to Ireland, if they were the best men, he must say that the procession of "best men" over from England was beginning to alarm Irish officials, when they saw promotion blocked to them, and observed that every vacancy which occurred was immediately filled by a gentleman from England. He would invite the right hon. Gentleman to carefully scrutinize this system of importing men from another country to fill vacancies occurring in Ireland. Heartburnings, jealousy, and bickerings were the result, especially when it was thought that the appointments were made from Masonic, political, or religious motives. He would call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman again to the manner in which the postmaster at Castletown had been treated recently. In the case of Mr. Thomas Walsh, another "suspect" who had been found guilty of sending a threatening letter to a bailiff, and imprisoned for four months, the Government, practically, said that the evidence of their experts, the judgment of the Resident Magistrate, and the evidence in the appeal to the County Court, under the Crimes Act, went for nothing, and that the man was entitled to have his place back again. But they did not say that in the case of other "suspects." The way Mr. Walsh had been treated—probably because he was of the same kidney 175 as the magistrates—was most unfair. He (Mr. Healy) had not the slightest animus against Mr. Walsh—he had never heard of him until he saw his name in the paper—but when he contrasted the treatment of the "suspects" on the one hand with that of Mr. Thomas Walsh on the other, he was inclined to think that there was something in the Dublin Post Office that could not be what it ought to be, and that that impartiality which ought to distinguish a great Department of the State did not exist there.
§ MR. FAWCETTsaid, that with regard to the observation of his hon. Friend (Mr. Labouchere), the colour of the stamps was a matter involving an explanation too long to give in Committee, and he would not go into it unless the hon. Member (Mr. Labouchere) expressly wished him to do so. In answer to the hon. Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy), as concerned the Irish mail messengers, he had already given an assurance that, as far as possible, they would be placed precisely in the same position as people who did the same work in England. The hon. Gentleman said they would be degraded; but nothing of the kind could take place without his (Mr. Fawcett's) knowledge and without his approval, and he would take care that they did not suffer in any way, unless sufficient reason was shown. The mail messengers were classed as letter carriers for their own advantage. They had bettor chances of promotion by being put in that class, and the system was continued more for their sakes than for anyone else's. With regard to the question of English time being used in Irish telegrams instead of Irish time, the point had been mentioned by the hon. Member before, but it had escaped his notice. He would take care, however, to inquire into it now, and to see whether there were reasons for the maintenance of the present system or not. Then as to Mr. Walsh's return to the Post Office, the course adopted in the case of this person had been adopted in other cases. Precisely similar action had been taken in the case of a post office in the county of Cork. The office had been held by the man's sister.
§ MR. FAWCETTsaid, that was so, so far as he remembered the case. He rather fancied that the Law Officers of 176 the Crown, or some legal officer in Ireland, investigated the case.
§ MR. FAWCETTHis place had not been filled up, and it was considered very hard that he should lose his post, particularly seeing that he had been declared innocent.
§ MR. HEALYNo; he had not. He was let out of gaol as a matter of course, when the Memorial was received from the magistrates.
§ MR. FAWCETTsaid, that an opinion, at any rate, was expressed in the man's favour. He did not know what Mr. Walsh's religion was; he had thought it only right, when all the circumstances were brought to his knowledge, to restore Mr. Walsh to his office. The only other point he had to reply to was as to surveyors' clerks. He had given a good deal of attention to this matter, and intended, shortly, to cause certain alterations to be made. In future, whether a person was put on the surveyor's staff permanently or temporarily, it would be done on the responsibility of the Postmaster General, and an intimation to that effect would be given in the Post Office Circular which was sent round every week to all the officials in the Service, whether in town or country. Whenever a vacancy in the permanent surveyors' staff or the temporary surveyors' staff occurred, all persons who were qualified would be invited to send in their applications. He himself, as he said, would be solely responsible for the appointments; and he could only say that he should do his best to give the appointments to those he thought most deserving of them. He did not believe that there had been a development of the system of employing Englishmen in Ireland on the great scale that the hon. Member had mentioned. He should rather say that, owing to the great development of the system of competition, and to the way in which Irishmen always distinguished themselves in these contests, it would be found that, in proportion, a far larger number of men had come from Ireland to take positions in England than had gone from England to take positions in Ireland. There was not a Post Office clerkship in London which could not be as readily gained by an Irishman as by an Englishman. He 177 could only say that, in sanctioning any appointment or promotion, he was always careful not to allow matters of nationality, politics, or religion to weigh with him in any way.
§ MR. GRAYsaid, that after the last General Election, when the present Government took Office, the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury was good enough to send him whips, and then the Patronage Secretary placed at his disposal several important Government positions—chiefly positions in Ireland for rural messengers and such officers, the emoluments of which varied from 5s. to 7s. 6d. and even 8s. per week. He had enjoyed this patronage for some time, and it had, of course, been a matter of some anxiety to him, to see that it was properly dispensed. With a due sense of the responsibility, he had endeavoured to discharge his duty without fear or favour. He had endeavoured to appoint suitable adherents of his own. This arrangement went on very much to the satisfaction of those who got the posts—though not so much to his own—until the first time he had the honour of being suspended. When that occurred, he supposed the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury came to the conclusion that he was too bad to receive such favours, and had no right to exercise grace or patronage. Accordingly, they cut off the whips and cut off the patronage. Since that period, he felt very much like the fox that had lost his tail—he could wish that other Members would lose their patronage also. He wanted to know why, under the present régime, now that almost every petty office was thrown open to competition, this little wretched remnant of an obsolete system was continued? Seriously speaking, he believed there was not a Member of the House to whom these things were not an unmitigated worry. They were sources of annoyance. They were not good enough to be of any use. He supposed if they got the bestowal of some good fat appointments, they might find them of some value; but no one could be corrupted for 5s. a-week, and plenty of hard work, even in Ireland. The thing was no good; in fact, as he had said, it was nothing but a worry. Some other arrangement ought to be adopted. It was strange how many people applied to him for these appointments. He did 178 not know whether other hon. Members who had still the favour of the Patronage Secretary to the Treasury were largely applied to; but the number of people who came to him for these appointments was enormous. He wished the Government would adopt some other system. Why should not the local postmasters, or some other persons holding official appointments, select these messengers. He had already called the attention of the right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General to two matters, and that night he would ask permission to mention them again. It had been a somewhat puzzling thing to him to imagine why an Institution like the Health Exhibition—which was very admirable in some of its aspects, but, perhaps, not very worthy of official approbation in others—should have its letters carried for nothing. His attention had been drawn to this circumstance, partly through a circumstance which had occurred a few years ago. When great distress prevailed in Ireland, when the people were, in fact, on the verge of starvation, a great Charitable Organization was set on foot for the purpose of relieving the urgent necessities of the starving population, and the Post Office were asked not to divert a portion of the funds from that object—not to levy a tax on starvation, for that was what the postal expenses came to. The Post Office were asked to carry the letters and circulars of this Charitable Organization free; but they sent a reply saying it was out of the question. He thought that to lay it down as a general rule that no letters should be carried free, would be an excellent thing; but if an exception was to be made, it should be in the case of a great Public Charity. The Charity to which he had referred as existing three or four years ago, was surely more worthy of having this favour conferred on it than this Exhibition, which, notwithstanding its fine title, and notwithstanding some good work which it did, really obtained its revenue from the fact that it was a place of amusement. People who went to the Health Exhibition went there to amuse themselves. It was the rival of the theatres in London. All the theatrical managers complained of it, for the "Healtheries," as it was called, was a more pleasant place of amusement, in the present hot weather, than the theatres. One place 179 of amusement which, no doubt, suffered serious pecuniary loss through the Health Exhibition, owing to the peculiar character of its patrons, was the Aquarium. The Aquarium at night used to do a certain profitable trade; but the "Healtheries" had cut it out completely. All the business that used to be done in the Aquarium was now done—as hon. Gentlemen who went to the "Healtheries" knew very well—at the Health Exhibition. People in the locality of the Aquarium rather approved of this transference of business; but why should the Health Exhibition have its letters and circulars carried free of expense? It would be a better system to allow each Government Department to pay for its own work, so that the Post Office account would show what the Post Office earned, and that the accounts of the other Departments would show what they spent on postage, just as they paid for other accommodation and supplies. This, however, was a matter of convenience, and he did not question it; but he did question the propriety of doing gratuitously the postal work of the Health Exhibition, which was realizing a large profit. The Fisheries Exhibition last year had its work done for nothing, and it netted a profit, as well as he remembered, of over £10,000. This Health Exhibition was going to net a large profit too, and going to do it out of a class of business which did not deserve the official sanction of the Government. The "Healtheries," as was well known, was at night simply a place of assignation. ["No, no!"] There was no doubt about it. He did not wish to discuss the point; but he did contend that the Health Exhibition had no claim to have its work done for nothing, no matter what patronage it might be under, when the Post Office was so rigid as to refuse to carry for nothing the letters and communications of a great National Charitable Institution such as that which existed in Dublin three or four years ago. What was sauce for such a Charitable Institution should be sauce for such an Exhibition, and why an exception had been made in the case of the "Healtheries" he did not know. With regard to the question of the acceleration of mails, it might have been brought to a point before this. Negotiations with the Irish Railway Companies might 180 have been opened long ago. He (Mr. Gray) remembered asking the right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General a Question on the matter some months ago, and the answer he had received was the same as that which had been given to him to-night—namely, that it would be well to communicate with the Railway Companies, and ask them not to adopt too heavy terms. He (Mr. Gray) adopted the right hon. Gentleman's suggestion, and communicated with the chief Railway Company in Ireland—the Great Southern and Western—and what was his amazement to discover that, although the right hon. Gentleman had suggested that action should be taken to induce the Company to reduce their terms, he had never once communicated with them on the subject. He had never asked them whether they intended to accelerate their train service, and, if they did, what sum they wanted.
§ MR. FAWCETTsaid, he was sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Gray); but he thought that by doing so just now he might save time. He could not communicate with the Company until they had decided what time the mail would arrive in Dublin. Till then, of course, he would not know what time the train would want to leave Dublin.
§ MR. GRAYsaid, he was aware of that. He was talking about what happened months ago. He considered this statement of the right hon. Gentleman just one of those purely "official" answers which could not satisfy those who had looked into the subject. He believed no one could give an answer more free from the spirit of the Government Benches than the right hon. Gentleman; but, certainly, the reply he had just tendered was just one of those official answers given by Members of the Government on subjects which it was obvious they had not considered. ["No, no!"] A venerable Gentleman opposite dissented; but he (Mr. Gray) maintained that it was. The only difference between them was a single half-hour. It was only a question as to whether the mail should arrive in Dublin half-an-hour sooner or later, and negotiations might have been carried on, leaving that half-hour in abeyance. Therefore, he maintained that if the right hon. Gentleman had been a business man managing this matter, or someone dealing with it on 181 his own account, he would have carried on negotiations forthwith, and would have made the half-hour a matter of cash payment, and the result would have been that the acceleration would have been at work at this moment. But when the right hon. Gentleman was pressed to give a service to the West of Ireland as rapid as that which he gave to the North, and was about to give to the South, he always met the question with the answer that the revenue from the West of Ireland was so much less that he could not afford to subsidize the Railway Company to an equal extent. This would be an admirable argument if there were not a single mail system—a single Post Office system—for the whole of the United Kingdom. It would be a sound argument if there were 50, 60, or 100 mail services, including this to the West of Ireland, each driven to support itself. Then, the plan the right hon. Gentleman had some time ago declared would not be tolerated would come into operation. The right hon. Gentleman had said—"You might very well have a halfpenny post for London—that would pay very well, but you must deal with it as a whole." Dealing with it as a whole, he (Mr. Gray) found that the Post Office, out of its £9,000,000 odd annually, made 27 per cent trading profit. That profit, he maintained, was too large. It was a preposterous profit for any trading concern to make; and so long as there was such a profit—a profit clearly derived from monopoly, and nothing else, for if there was competition it would soon disappear—the Post Office was bound out of it to give the greatest possible facilities to the public, to give the best service to every portion of the United Kingdom which could be given. It was not as though there was a fear of the Department making a loss; all it was asked to do was to relinquish a portion of the excess of profit, and this it ought to do in view of the commercial and social advantages which would accrue to a poor country like Ireland, where the train service was neither rapid nor frequent, and where, practically, the whole passenger traffic depended upon the mails. He certainly considered it a false and narrow policy to say—"Oh, because a certain district does not yield so large a Post Office revenue as another district, we will starve it in the matter of mail service!" When the right hon. 182 Gentleman said the Railway Companies ought to be pressed to take a liberal view of this matter, he (Mr. Gray) thoroughly agreed with him. He had no right to speak on behalf of the Railway Companies; but he might mention that, shortly after he had received the first of these answers from the right hon. Gentleman, he met Sir Ralph Cusack, the Chairman of the Company whose trains ran to the West of Ireland—namely, the Midland Great Western Railway Company. This gentleman (Sir Ralph Cusack) was a very enlightened man, who took a very enlightened view of things. He (Mr. Gray) had said to him—"Your policy ought to be this. You receive a certain sum for the conveyance of mails. You ought to calculate how much out of pocket a rapid service would cost you; and, if you get the cost out of pocket for a rapid service, you ought to be content with that, and with the better service you at the same time get for your passengers." That was the principle he (Mr. Gray) had ventured to lay down. He did not know what view Sir Ralph Cusack's Board would take; but he imagined that that, practically, would be the "tack" on which they would meet the Post Office, and if the Post Office was met on that basis, they should be, he thought, prepared to give such subsidy as would afford to the West of Ireland the service they needed. He was told that it was a mistake to suppose that as rapid a service could not be given to the West of Ireland as anywhere else. They had good steel rails, first class engines, and every means for running rapid trains; and if the Government would give to the Companies as much as would compensate them for the extra expense entailed by the fast service, it would conduce very materially to the advantage of the public, and, indirectly, of the Railway Company, and he did not think it was fair for the Post Office to look for any profit itself. He trusted that, on these lines, the right hon. Gentleman would endeavour to give increased facilities to Ireland. As he had said, the Post Office was making a preposterous profit upon its operations; and, in view of that fact, they might very well go to a little further expense to serve the West of Ireland with better postal arrangements. He had asked the right hon. Gentleman a Question sometime ago with regard to keeping open the telegraph 183 office at Holyhead on Sundays, for the convenience of Members of Parliament and passengers by the night trains. It might very well, at times, be a matter of great importance to passengers that they should be able to communicate on Sundays with Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman had been kind enough to go into the matter very carefully; and some time after putting his Question, he (Mr. Gray) had received a letter from him stating that the office would be open for some time on Sunday this Session, so that people passing through on Sunday might be able to telegraph. To the best of his recollection, he had himself sent a telegram through on Sunday for the reason, at least, that the right hon. Gentleman would not be able to meet him with the assertion that the office had been opened but had never been utilized. The hon. Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy), however, told him that on the 22nd of June, or some day towards the end of June, he had endeavoured to send a telegram from Holyhead late on Sunday night, and was unable to do so. If that was the case, he trusted the right hon. Gentleman would see to it, and have the office continued open, as it might at times be a matter of very vital importance that a Member should be able to telegraph to his friends in Ireland when journeying towards London. He wished, also, to bring before the right hon. Gentleman a question as to a very absurd system which prevailed in the Post Office. He had put a Question to the right hon. Gentleman with regard to it some days ago—namely, as to stitched newspapers. It was a singular anomaly, that while a stitched newspaper could be sent through the Post Office as a newspaper, a stitched supplement could not, so that a newspaper proprietor who went to the expense of having his supplement stitched for the convenience of his readers, had to pay the Post Office for doing so. The hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere) had also called attention to the matter some two or three days ago, failing to see, as a great many other hon. Members failed to see, why, because, instead of sending a supplement through the post in the usual clumsy form, a newspaper proprietor took the trouble to get it stitched, he should have to pay an extra amount of postage—that the 184 Post Office should levy a tax upon him of ½d. per copy because of the stitching. He knew cases in which the proprietors of Society journals had prepared good supplements, and had been foolish enough to have them stitched, and down had come the Post Office authorities upon them, declaring that they had violated the law, and making them pay for it. That seemed to him to be a most absurd practice. The right hon. Gentleman had said that it was necessary for the Department to exercise great care to prevent the privilege conferred upon newspaper proprietors of sending stitched matter through the post being carried too far. He (Mr. Gray) confessed that, in many cases, the Department had permitted it to go too far. For instance, where a tea dealer wished to circulate an advertisement, or anything of that kind, all he had to do was to print the thing as large as he liked—on a dozen pages if he chose—and if he could induce a newspaper proprietor to print it as a supplement to his paper, he could get it sent through the post gratuitously. That, though it was not connected with this question of stitching, was, at any rate, a great abuse of the rules applying to newspapers, which the Post Office had never intended to permit. It seemed to him to be very unjust to allow supplements of that kind to pass through the post without charge, and then, simply because a proprietor, for the convenience of his readers, passed a piece of thread through a genuine supplement, to say that he should pay an extra postage rate for it. Such a thing, to say the least of it, was a wretched business, and deserved to be looked into. The hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury that evening appeared to be in such a good humour, having so nearly concluded his labours, that he was sure the hon. Gentleman would tolerate him (Mr. Gray) for a few minutes longer while he drew attention to another matter. In the Savings Banks Amendment Bill, the Post Office had sought this year to increase the maximum limit of deposits in the Post Office Savings Banks; but, in consequence of the very determined opposition with which that proposition was met, the Government had abandoned the particular clause which was intended to effect that object. That he believed to be the case—he was not quite clear 185 upon it. His impression was that the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury had announced his intention of asking leave to re-introduce the Bill next year. He (Mr. Gray) could only tell the hon. Member that any proposal of that kind would, from certain hon. Members on that (the Opposition) side of the House, meet with most determined opposition. He knew that it would operate injuriously against some of his countrymen. So far as the Post Office extended the maximum limit of deposits in the Post Office Savings Banks, so far did they enter into competition with the banks. [Mr. COURTNEY: The Bill is not before the House] He did not intend to discuss the Bill—only the existing limit. They were dealing with the Post Office Vote, which, amongst other things, was a Vote for the expenses of the Post Office Savings Banks. In discussing that, he was quite at liberty to discuss the limit of the amount of deposits. ["No, no!"] Did the hon. Gentleman mean to say that he (Mr. Gray) could not argue the question of the extension of the limit; and, if so, why not? He hoped the Chairman would, at any rate, see that he had a right to discuss this matter. So far as the Post Office might succeed in obtaining an extension of the limit, it would obtain deposits at the expense of the banks. It would not obtain new deposits—it would not open new sources of deposit——
§ MR. COURTNEYhere addressed some observations to the Chairman.
§ MR. GRAYsaid, he must protest against the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury asking the Chairman sotto voce to interrupt him. If he (Mr. Gray) were out of Order, the hon. Gentleman should rise to Order, and make his complaint before the Committee.
THE CHAIRMANThe hon. Member is not correct. The Secretary to the Treasury did not appeal to me to stop the hon. Member who is addressing the Committee.
§ MR. GRAYsaid, the Chairman might not have heard the hon. Member. He (Mr. Gray) had heard him, however. Considering the importance of the question, he (Mr. Gray) did think he should be permitted to go on. He would not occupy more than five minutes. With regard to the competition of which he complained, what the Post Office would 186 do by extending its limit, was this—it would take the deposits from the Irish banks, and transfer them to the Exchequer here in London. So far as that policy proved successful, it would restrict the operations of the Irish banks, and limit their capacity for offering facilities to thousands of traders in Ireland. The Government would take away from the Irish banks a great deal of the money lent in Ireland for purposes of trade, and simply hand it over to the Consolidated Fund for English purposes. That, he contended, must be a distinct injury to Ireland; and he further contended that it was a false enterprize for the Post Office to seek to extend its operations by entering into competition with private trade and private enterprize. Any profits made by transactions of this kind, while they might be of benefit to the Treasury, were the reverse of a benefit to the nation. Operations of that kind interfered with private trade, and, consequently, with the welfare of the country. He trusted that the system of trade and enterprize at the cost of the community would not be pursued too far. To his mind, it had probably gone too far already. The Post Office business comprised insurance and deposit, and if it limited itself to giving advantages of that kind to the poorer portion of the community, who otherwise would not possess such advantages, well and good. The Government, in that respect, was doing a good and legitimate business, as it saved, comparatively speaking, poor people from insecure investments—from insuring in insolvent offices, and from putting their savings in banks, many of which in past times had broken down. But if the Government developed its business to the extent of entering into competition with sound insurance societies and banks—by entering into competition with the ordinary trade resources of the country, his contention was that they were using a great Department for the purpose of entering into an unfair competition with the industries of the general community. The Irish Members, whatever the English Members thought, were of opinion that the machinery of the Post Office should not be used to take over Irish deposits from Irish banks, which used those deposits for the advancement of the trade and commerce of the country. Most decidedly, if he could correctly 187 gather the opinion of his Colleagues, it was against any such proposition on the part of the Government, and if such a plan as that contained in the late Bill were persisted in, it would meet with a most determined opposition on the part of the Irish Party.
§ MR. FAWCETTsaid, he would not discuss the subject of the limitations of the amount of deposits in Post Office Savings Banks, as the hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. Anderson) had a Motion on the Paper relating to it. The hon. Member for Carlow (Mr. Gray) had blamed the Government for attempting to raise money by interfering with the Savings Banks business of the country, and the hon. Member for Glasgow had a Motion down upon the second reading of the Savings Bank Bill, strongly censuring the Government for having yielded to the views of the hon. Member for Carlow (Mr. Gray) and other hon. Members on this matter. Therefore, he (Mr. Fawcett) would abstain from offering any observations until the Bill in question came on. With regard to the question of the acceleration of the mail service to the West of Ireland, he had nothing to add to what he had already said. No final decision upon the subject had yet been arrived at. He had stated that it must ultimately resolve itself, to a certain extent, into a question of expense with the Railway Companies. He had not pledged himself to any particular plan. Communications were taking place at present between the Railway Companies and the Post Office; and he should be very glad if, at any time, he could see his way to secure that acceleration which hon. Members seemed to be anxious for. He had already succeeded in bringing about an acceleration over a considerable portion of Ireland, and he could only promise that he would not allow the matter to rest, but would continue to consider the subject of the acceleration of Irish mails generally. With regard to the telegraph office at Holyhead, and its being open for Sunday service, he was not aware that the new arrangement had been put an end to. Probably, the new arrangement had not commenced when the hon. Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy) had sought to use the office. The promise he (Mr. Fawcett) had made had been to open the office on Sunday this Session, to see how the plan worked. No decision 188 had yet been arrived at as to the extent to which the office was likely to be used, and the desirability of keeping it open on Sunday. With regard to the Health Exhibition, he had inquired into the matter, and had found that the practice as to carrying the correspondence of these Institutions free of cost had somewhat varied. Some of these Exhibitions had been allowed to frank their letters simply; some had been allowed to have a paying account—that was to say, to frank their letters, and then pay for them; and in some cases postage had been charged. He had looked into the matter, but had not yet come to any general conclusion; but he must say, however, that he had made a proposal to the International Inventions Exhibition, to be held next year, to the effect that they should be allowed, in order to save the time and trouble of stamping their letters, to keep a non-paying account with the Post Office, and that they should afterwards pay the postage of all letters sent and received by them. That would not enable them to frank their letters as was done by the present Health Exhibition. So far as he had been able to ascertain, the suggestion he had made had been favourably received by the Commissioners. The question was now before them, and he did not think that as yet they had settled it. The hon. Gentleman, he thought, must see that however desirable the charitable fund to which the hon. Gentleman had referred might have been, if they once accorded to a private charity organization the privilege of transmitting their letters free of charge, there would be no end to the applications that would be made to them by other charitable institutions for a similar privilege. The observations of the hon. Member, it seemed to him, went the length of showing, not that they should extend the privilege of free communication, but that they should rather restrict it.
§ MR. BIGGARsaid, he did not know whether the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Courtney) had communicated to the Postmaster General three small items, one, the question discussed by the hon. Member for Carlow (Mr. Gray), to which a reply had been given by the Postmaster General, as to the acceleration of mails to the West of Ireland. He (Mr. Biggar) could only say that as to the Midland 189 Great Western Railway, that went to the West of Ireland, the service was a good one. The carriages were good, the rails, the engines, and all that sort of thing, but unfortunately the trains were exceedingly slow. The Government should make arrangements with that Railway Company for a better service—they should give fair terms to the Railway Company to bring about a more speedy transit from East to West. The second item the Secretary to the Treasury should have submitted to the Postmaster General, and which he (Mr. Biggar) would beg to call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to, was one of a personal nature—namely, with regard to the letter sorters employed in the boats carrying the mails between Kingstown and Holyhead. He was told these people got no pay for the Sunday's work. He did not know what pay they got usually—whether their wages was sufficient for the seven days, or whether they only got six days' pay for seven days' work. He should like, however, to hear the right hon. Gentleman state what he considered was a reasonable remuneration to these men. The third item to which he referred was a very small one, and he did not know whether it was in the right hon. Gentleman's the Postmaster General's Department or not. He (Mr. Biggar), however, had called attention some time ago to the case of a letter carrier in a small district in the county of Cavan. This man had done wrong in the Post Office and had absconded rather than face a prosecution which was pending, and to his place the Government had appointed his brother. He (Mr. Biggar) was informed that both these men—both the absconding defaulter and the brother who was appointed to the place—had both lived in the same house, and that the brother who was now occupying the post had been for some time in the habit of acting for the defaulter. It seemed, therefore, to be a very questionable arrangement that a man who committed a fraud should be succeeded by the brother with whom he had been constantly associated, and with whom he had been in a sort of partnership. Whether or not the man now in the situation had been a partner in the misdeeds of his brother, he did not know; but, at any rate, he would ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he could not supersede the man, and appoint 190 someone of better character, and against whom there was no suspicion, to the place?
§ MR. GREGORYsaid, that the question of exemptions from ordinary postage fees had been mooted in the Committee in the course of that discussion; and, that being so, he felt bound to mention the case of one particular class who seemed to him to be specially entitled to some privilege of this kind at the hands of the right hon. Gentleman—namely, the officers of the Volunteer Force. These gentlemen, at present, had to spend large sums of money in sending out notices to their men which, for the efficiency of the different corps, it was absolutely necessary to send out. He was told that, in one corps, no less than £24 a-month was spent in sending out the necessary orders; and seeing that that sum was spent in the Public Service, he did think that the cost should be borne by the State. The Volunteer Force were discharging a public duty, and it did seem they were a class of persons entitled to full consideration at the hands of the Postmaster General. If it were not thought desirable to relieve them altogether from these charges, at any rate, some arrangement should be made to enable them to incur less liability than at present. With regard to the point mentioned by the hon. Member for Carlow (Mr. Gray) as to the patronage in the hands of private Members for the appointment of certain messengers, he perfectly agreed with the hon. Member that it would be better for the Post Office officials to take over these appointments than to leave them with Members of the House.
§ MR. FAWCETTsaid, that in reply to the hon. Member who had just sat down (Mr. Gregory), he would point out that he had already answered one part of his observations just now. He had said that his idea rather inclined to curtailing, than extending, the privilege of free postage. Then, as to the patronage arrangements which existed in the Treasury in connection with country postmen, he felt it was a subject which it was hardly desirable that he should enter upon on the present occasion. The hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) had already asked him a question with regard to that postman who had been appointed to fill the vacancy occasioned by the absconding of his brother. He 191 (Mr. Fawcett) saw no reason to change the opinion he had already expressed upon the subject. The particular postman now discharging the duty in the district in question had been highly recommended in the neighbourhood. It was true he was the brother of the man who absconded; but so far as he could discover, there had not been a breath of suspicion against him. It would, therefore, be very unfair to visit upon this man the sins of his brother. He said, again, he had very carefully inquired into the matter, and had never been able to find anyone who had a word to say against the present holder of the appointment. With regard to the sorters in the mail packets, the rule was that a certain amount of work was given on Sunday to these men, for which payment was made. He would look into the matter, however, to see whether the general rule in the case referred to was carried out. He had already spoken on the subject of the acceleration of the mails in Ireland, and he could only say that he would take into consideration the additional fact mentioned by the hon. Gentleman.
§ Vote agreed to.
§ (5.) £531,356, to complete the sum for the Post Office Packet Service.
§ MR. WARTONsaid, he wished to call the attention of the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury to the list of contracts, and the marginal notes as to the dates. This was a new arrangement, and there was no intimation as to what contracts the notes referred. It would be much better if hon. Members had something to guide them in this matter, so as to show what the notes referred to. Letter "C" he did not quite understand. What plan did it go on with regard to these packet services—which were part of the Post Office service, or part of other Imperial services? There was an item for Bermuda and Jamaica of £17,000 odd; but they were told that only £1,000 was charged to the Post Office, the rest being charged to other Imperial services. It was the same in principle in the case of New Orleans.
§ MR. BIGGARasked what steps had been taken in regard to the Stranraer route?
§ MR. FAWCETTsaid, he had not yet come to a conclusion respecting the Stranraer route. He knew the hon. 192 Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) differed from many hon. Members from Ireland as to the desirability of this route. He had carefully studied the letters which the hon. Gentleman had sent him in relation to the subject, and he had also borne in mind the arguments which were advanced for the adoption of the route by an influential deputation which had waited upon him.
§ MR. SMALLasked the right hon. Gentleman whether there were at present any negotiations in progress for the acceleration of the mail service from London to Westmeath, and vice versâ? Some time ago, the right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General gave some vague promise that the service would be accelerated.
§ MR. FAWCETTsaid, that although the question did not come strictly under the present Vote, he might say that he was just on the point of completing arrangements for the acceleration of the mail service between London and Westmeath.
§ COLONEL KING-HARMANsaid, he did not wish to detain the Committee more than a minute; indeed, he merely rose to remind the right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General that they had been in communication with regard to the postal arrangements round about Dublin. He trusted that in the Recess the right hon. Gentleman would turn his attention to the matter. Many of the Dublin citizens were in the habit of running down in the summer time to Bray and the watering places around Dublin, and it was to them most inconvenient that they were not able to get their letters before they left these resorts in the morning for Dublin.
§ MR. FAWCETTsaid, he had sent the communication addressed to him on this subject by the hon. and gallant Gentleman to the Irish Postal Authorities, with the endorsement that he should be glad to receive a Report upon it at the earliest possible moment.
§ Vote agreed to.