§ MR. BUCHANAN (Perthshire, E.)To ask the hon. Member for North Huntingdonshire, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, what reply has been obtained from the railway companies to the representations of the Board that were based on a memorial from the County Council of Perth, on the inequalities of the rates for grain, potatoes, etc., between stations in Scotland, and on the high charges for the carriage of fruit from Blairgowrie to England as compared with the cost of 1371 carrying fruit to the same towns from the Continent.
(Answered by Mr. Ailwyn Fellowes.) On receipt of the memorial to which the hon. Member refers, detailed inquiry was instituted and an interim report was sent to the county council for their observations in January. 1903. The inquiry has since been continued, but it was found practically impossible to confine it to the actual cases against which complaint was made, and a Departmental Committee has now been appointed to investigate generally the alleged preferential treatment of foreign and colonial as compared with British produce. The specific complaints made by the Perthshire County Council will be brought before that Committee.