MR. GIBSON BOWLESI beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that since the transfer of the Admiralty Pier at Dover to the control of the Dover Harbour Board pier dues have been levied, as was not formerly the case, on the Belgian Mail Packets using that pier, and that a sum of £1,305 3s. 4d., for which no provision had been made in the Estimates, thus became payable from the Post Office to the Dover Harbour Board, involving the creation of a now charge upon a Vote of Parliament; and whether, in settling the conditions of the transfer of this pier from Her Majesty's Government to the Local Authorities, the circumstance was taken into consideration that this would involve giving power to those authorities to levy this large annual charge upon the Post Office Packet Service?
§ MR. MUNDELLAThe Belgian Mail Packets are Government vessels, and as long as the pier at Dover was under the control of a Government Department that Department made no charge for dues to vessels belonging to another Government. After the transfer in March, 1892, the pier became part of Dover Harbour, and the Harbour Board decided, in pursuance of their Acts of Parliament, to charge these vessels with dues; treating them as essentially commercial vessels and engaged in carrying passengers and goods for profit in the same manner as the Calais Mail Packets belonging to the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway Company. This circumstance does not appear to have formed part of the conditions of the transfer.
* MR. GIBSON BOWLESCan the right hon. Gentleman suggest any answer to the last paragraph of the question. Was the probability of this charge taken into consideration?
§ MR. MUNDELLAI have said it does not appear to have formed part of the conditions made in March, 1892.
MR. GIBSON BOWLESYes, it did not form part of the conditions, but was it taken into consideration that charges of this kind would be levied?
§ MR. MUNDELLAAs it formed no part of the conditions it evidently was not considered.