§ COLONEL WELBY (Taunton)To ask the Postmaster-General, when a packet of 319 printed papers for abroad has been weighed at a post office, and the stamps required duly affixed, it is afterwards discovered the official has made a mistake in the weight or postage rate, whether the sender, the official, or the addressee is responsible for that error; and what system exists by which it is known where such packets have been officially weighed.
(Answered by Lord Stanley.) The person primarily responsible for the correct prepayment of postage on a packet of printed papers for a place abroad is the sender. Postmasters are not bound to weigh such packets for the public; but they are at liberty to do so if the ordinary duties of the office be not thereby impeded. In the vast majority of cases of insufficient prepayment there are no means of knowing at the time when the insufficient prepayment is discovered who is the sender of the packet or whether he has been misinformed as to the postage by an officer of the Post Office; and the universal practice throughout the world is to collect double the deficiency from the addressee; but if it is found, as it occasionally is, that an officer of the Post Office has weighed the packet and misinformed the sender as to the postage, steps are taken for refunding to the addressee the overcharge arising from that circumstance.