§ MR. J. HENNIKER HEATON (Canterbury)I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether a letter addressed to a foreign country, or to a Colony or British possession, is excluded from transmission as a railway letter, and if he can state the reason for such exclusion; whether he is aware that quite recently a gentleman residing at Aldershot, who was not allowed to post a letter with a foreign address on it in the train leaving that town, was compelled to take the train to London in order to get his letter conveyed by the Continental mail; and whether he will order that all letters without exception shall be accepted for transmission as railway letters?
THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. R. W. HANBURT,) PrestonA letter addressed to a foreign country or to a Colony or British possession cannot at present be transmitted as a railway letter. The arrangement with the railway companies applies only to 306 letters addressed to places within the United Kingdom. Foreign and Colonial letters have hitherto been excluded from it owing to the necessity of devising regulations which can be worked by railway booking clerks with the least risk of error and with the least interruption to their ordinary duties. For the same reason inland letters, other than those transmissible at the initial rate of postage, are not accepted as railway letters. The consent of the railway companies would have to be obtained before an extension of the arrangement to foreign and Colonial letters could take place, and though the Postmaster General is not at this moment, prepared to promise that all letters without exception shall be accepted for transmission as railway letters, he will consider the suggestion of the hon. Member. The Postmaster General's attention had not previously been directed to the case of the gentleman at Aldershot who had to make the journey to London to post a letter for the Continental mail.