§ Mr. MOONEYasked the Secretary to the Treasury if he is now aware of the fact that, under the contract between the Postmaster-General and the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company, a sum amounting roughly to £2,000 per annum is retained by the Postmaster-General on account of the use by the company of the Carlisle Prer, Kingstown; whether the Treasury have given facilities to the London and North-Western Eailway Company to bring their steamers to this pier without any payment other than the 5s. per trip charged by the Board of Works; 916 whether the railway company have so used this pier for a period of one year; and can he state how long the Treasury propose to discriminate in favour of an English company, and against an Irish company, in the use of a public harbour maintained by moneys voted by this House?
§ Mr. HOBHOUSEThe answer to the first part of the question is that no money is retained by the Postmaster-General for the use of the Carlisle Pier, Kingstown, under the contract between him and the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company. A deduction of £2,000 is made from the subsidy payable to the company for the carriage of mails, in lieu of the share which the Postmaster-General enjoyed under former contracts of the gross receipts of the company in excess of £35,000 a year arising from and incidental to the passenger traffic between England and Ireland. The answer to the second and third parts of the question is in the affirmative, subject to the proviso that the existing arrangements with the London and Northwestern Railway Company are provisional only, pending the settlement of legal proceedings now in progress, and that the question of their user of the Carlisle Pier cannot be finally determined till those proceedings are settled. In answer to the fourth part of the question, there is no discrimination whatever between English and Irish companies, as each of the mail companies concerned, one English and one Irish, pays 5s. a trip for the use, not of the harbour, but of the pier.
§ Mr. MOONEYMay I ask is it not the fact that in the contract between the City of Dublin Company and the Postmaster-General a percentage of the passenger receipts is deducted from the Irish company which amounts to £2,000, and that no such payment' is made from the English company; that the English company has the same facilities for using this Royal harbour except that this Irish company has to pay £2,000; and is it not a fact that only last month the scale of payment was issued for the present year, which will preclude the Treasury from making any further arrangement?
§ Mr. HOBHOUSEThe hon. Gentleman has repeated every question he put on the Paper, and which I have endeavoured to answer. With regard to the scale of dues, that has nothing whatever to do with the payment made for the use of the pier. The dues affect the use of the harbour, and five shillings per trip is paid for the use of the pier.