§ MR. HENNIKER HEATON (Canterbury)I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he is aware that all parcels from the United Kingdom arriving in Buenos Ayres by parcels post are not delivered, or even allowed to be inspected to see what they contain, until a tax of one dollar is paid on each; whether the exaction of the one dollar 1216 tax, not as import duty, is in accordance with the Postal Union regulations, and, if not, whether the British Government will make a representation to the Argentine Government with a view to its discontinuance; and whether in any case he will warn the British public that the receivers of parcels sent by parcels post to Buenos Ayres will have to pay the sum of one dollar on each, in addition to the import duty, before they can find out what the parcel contains.
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINThe Postmaster General is aware that in the Argentine Republic a stamp duty of one peso (about 1s. 9d.) is payable by the addressees of parcels received from abroad. This duty is said by the Argentine Post Office to be a fiscal and not a postal charge. The British Post Office is not a party to the Parcel Post Convention of the Postal Union. Nothing, however, either in the regulations of that Convention, or in those governing the parcels post between this country and the Argentine Republic, restricts the right to impose fiscal charges. In the forthcoming edition of the quarterly Post Office Guide the public will be warned of the imposition of this duty.