§ Mr. PIRIEasked the Postmaster-General whether the matter of the conveyance of the mails between Paris and London was being carefully considered with a view of lessening the number of mails carried at present via Dover and Calais as compared with Folkestone and Boulogne, in view of the fact that there were forty-one services per week carried by the 428 former and longer route as compared with only nineteen by the latter and shorter route; and whether he was aware that if all the mails were conveyed by the shorter route there would be a reduction in mileage traversed of 59,864 miles a year?
The HON. MEMBERalso asked the Postmaster-General (1), with reference to the conveyance of mails between London and Paris, if he would before making further contracts consider the desirability of a certain proportion of the mails at least being carried by the London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway and Etat of France Railways, via Newhaven and Dieppe; if he would communicate with the French Government as to the practicability of this proposal, more especially as the railway system between Dieppe and Paris belonged now to that Government, and that there was a project of shortening the Dieppe and Paris transit by thirty-two kilometres (twenty miles) by doubling the line via Pontoise, together with the placing of faster vessels on that Channel service; would he also state the mileage between Paris and London, via Dover and Calais and Newhaven and Dieppe, respectively, and if such a project was adopted, whether economies would be effected owing to the shorter mileage of the latter route; and if he was aware that, even at present, one service via Dieppe and Newhaven occupied eight hours and forty minutes as compared with one of the mail services via Dover and Calais which occupied eight hours fifty minutes, and that the adoption of such a project would lessen the effects of the monopoly which had hitherto been used by the South-Eastern and Chatham Railway and the Chemin de Fer du Nord both as regards the conveyance of mails and passengers, to the detriment of the public interest? (2) With reference to the carrying of London and Paris mails, if he had considered the disadvantages of the present arrangement of train services whereby three out of the four day services from London left between the hours of 9 a.m. and 11 a.m., and the corresponding services from Paris, although more evenly distributed, between the hours of 8.20 a.m. and 12 noon; if he would endeavour to minimise this inconvenience to business men and the general public, against which the Chambers of Commerce had protested, by securing from the railways concerned a more equable distribution of train ser- 429 vices throughout the day, together with the starting of one of those services at an earlier hour from London so as to obviate London evening letters of the previous day and the English morning newspapers not reaching Paris for delivery until about 7 p.m., long after business hours; and if he was aware, with a mail service leaving London between 6 and 7 a.m., that correspondence and newspapers could be delivered in Paris before 3 p.m., thus enabling an answer to be sent the same day, and in this way effecting a great postal economy of time?
§ Mr. HERBERT SAMUELIt will be convenient if I deal with the hon. Member's three questions together. The figures quoted by the hon. Member are substantially correct, and I am fully alive to the advantage of encouraging competition between the several steamer services between England and France. The Newhaven and Dieppe route is already used for the service of certain French towns, and I am in communication with the French Postal Administration as to the possibility of making a more extended use of that route. The distance between London and Paris via Dover and Calais is 287 miles, and via Newhaven and Dieppe 244 miles. I am at present in negotiation with the South-Eastern and Chatham Railway Company with regard to the general question of the mail service between London and Paris, and while it would not be expedient for me to deal specifically at the present time with the points raised by the hon. Member, I can assure him that full weight shall be given to the considerations which he has advanced.