§ MR. ALFRED DAVIESTo ask the Postmaster-General if his attention has been called to the slow transit of the mails from Great Britain to New York; whether he is aware that the White Star Company are not building fast steamers, and the Cunard steamers are getting older and slower, and their two new steamers will not be completed for one and a-half years; and, if so, can he give the House an assurance that he will endeavour to arrange from this side for two fast and reliable mail services per week irrespective of the German fast steamers, whose times of sailing are not certain.
(Answered by Lord Stanley.) I have not recently received complaints of the length of time occupied in the transmission of mails from this country to the United States. The hon. Member is, I believe, correct in thinking that the White Star Company are not at the present moment building any fast steamers, and that the two new steamers of the Cunard Line will not be completed for about a year and a-half. But, with regard to the speed of the existing Cunard packets, he is presumably not aware that, as a matter of fact, each of the four Cunard steamers now regularly employed in the mail service made a faster voyage to New York last year than in the year 1900. With regard to the future I can make no promise, except that it will be my endeavour to continue to make the best arrangements that circumstances permit.