§ MR. HENNIKER HEATONI beg to ask the Postmaster General, whether 35 he has observed that the Castle Line circulates a printed notice, stating that the Company is prohibited from accepting for shipment any parcel or package of which the size, weight, and value are all within the limits allowed under the Parcel Post Regulations, and that all such parcels must pass through the Post; whether the prohibition in question came from the Post Office, and whether a similar prohibition has been intimated to other Steamship Companies running vessels to the Colonies and to foreign countries; and whether he has advised that such prohibition has a legal character, and is binding upon the shipowners concerned, or that it is void, as being in restraint of trade?
§ THE POSTMASTER GENERAL (Mr. ARNOLD MORLEY, Nottingham, E.)The notice in question relates to an understanding come to between the Post Office and the Castle and Union Companies in 1885 that, on the commencement of the Parcel Post to and from the Cape, under the contracts of those Companies with the Cape Post Office, they should not carry similar small parcels free of charge. The understanding is not embodied in the contract, and has not the character of a legal prohibition. There is no similar understanding in connection with any of the Imperial contracts for conveyance of Foreign and Colonial parcels.