§ SIR GEORGE BADEN - POWELL (Liverpool, Kirkdale)I had intended to ask the Postmaster General if he can explain why it is that in London, Manchester, Birmingham, Newcastle, and other large towns, adequate and extensive buildings have been erected at the public expense for Central Post Office accommodation, but that in Liverpool, the second largest commercial city in England, the Central Post Office has been Lodged, in buildings designed and erected to serve as a Custom House; and whether, with a view to providing adequate 694 accommodation for the large postal business necessarily transacted in Liverpool, and securing better sanitary conditions for the numerous employés, any further steps have been taken towards providing Liverpool with adequate Central Post Office buildings, but I beg to defer the question?
§ THE POSTMASTER GENERAL (Mr RAIKES, Cambridge University)New head post offices have been erected within the last few years at Manchester, Birmingham, and other towns where the exigencies of the Public Service have showed conclusively that nothing less would suffice. But it is not certain that such is the case at Liverpool, where large expenditure has been incurred for the purpose of decentralising the post office business. The building in which the business of the Head Post Office has been conducted for many years was not designed solely for a Custom House, and there is room to conceive that the allegations of insalubrity may be exaggerated; but additional accommodation is admittedly required, and by my directions a special inquiry is now being made into the whole subject.