§ MR. HENNIKER HEATONI beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether the question of conveying flowers by sample post from the South of France to England was one of the 1362 subjects brought by our representatives before the Postal Union Convention held at Washington last year; and why no notice was given of the instructions to our delegates, so as to enable the public to protest against being deprived of the privilege in question by the British postal authorities?
§ MR. HANBURYThe question of conveying flowers by sample post was not brought before the Postal Union Congress by the representatives of this country, but by the representatives of a foreign State, which desired to get what had been an irregular practice made legal. The Congress refused to adopt the proposal, and the British delegates at once informed the French delegates that the British Post Office would be compelled to act on the decision of the Congress. The honourable Member appears to have forgotten that a protest has been made on behalf of flower-growers in this country against flowers from abroad being allowed to pass by sample post into England, and that he himself, on the 5th of June, 1896, objected to the advantages thus conceded to foreign growers, and asked that equal facilities might be given to our own people for the conveyance of flowers from favoured climates in England and Ireland to London, as are enjoyed by the French peasantry.
§ MR. HENNIKER HEATONI beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he is aware that during the past twelve or fifteen years small boxes of flowers have been transmitted by English people, temporarily sojourning in the South of France in the winter, to their friends in the United Kingdom by post at a cost of about 35 centimes each; what is the estimated number of these boxes of flowers sent last year; whether the British postal authorities are aware that the cost of conveying these boxes of flowers by post throughout France, for example from Mentone to Calais, did not and does not exceed fifteen centimes or three-halfpence each; on what grounds facilities for conveying small boxes of flowers at an equally low rate are not given to the small agriculturists of this Kingdom; whether any communication was made or notice given through the 1363 London and provincial papers that the privilege of sending small boxes of flowers at the cheap rate from the south of France to this country would be withdrawn on the 1st April of this year; and whether he is aware that in the altered circumstances, while the new regulation will not prevent flowers being sent from the south of France, it will throw the trade into the hands of middlemen?
§ MR. HANBURYDuring some years past small boxes of flowers have been transmitted from the south of France to this country by sample post, and the average postage on the boxes was about 35 centimes. It is estimated that about 15,000 packets were sent in this way from France to this country last year. If by the cost of conveying these packets, the weight of which he does not mention, within French territory, the honourable Member means the cost to the French Post Office, the Postmaster General has no information on the point. No notification as to the strict application of the rules of the International sample post to flowers on the 1st of April was given to the Press in this country, as the rules always had been strictly applied to flowers posted by the public in this country. But full notice was given to the French and other foreign post offices concerned. Since the Budget Reform of last year the public in the United Kingdom has enjoyed greater facilities than the French public enjoy as regards the inland transmission of these articles. Articles sent at the five centimes rate in France have to be open to inspection. Within the United Kingdom flowers can be sent at virtually the same rate—½d. for two ounces, with a minimum postage of 1d.—in closed boxes.