TELEGRAPH CONSTRUCTION BILL. (Hansard, 19 June 1911)

§ Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL

This is a purely departmental measure of no general public interest. It deals with the regulations between the Post Office and railway and canal companies, and relates to telegraph and telephone lines which cross a railway line or canal as the case may be—not those which run along it, but simply those which run across it, which go from a road to a road, or from private property to private property. The Post- 101 master-General has the right of wayleave over railway lines with regard to most railways, but the company have a right to maintain the wires themselves. It is obviously very inconvenient for them to maintain a small piece of wire, which may be ten or fifty yards, forming part of a wire running along a long stretch of road. They, however, maintain the wires which run along their railways, but do not maintain the wires which cross them. The Postmaster-General has hitherto paid the company as though they did maintain the wires, and it is in order to relieve ourselves from this payment for services which are not rendered that we have introduced this Bill. The companies have met the proposal in a very reasonable spirit. The officers of the Department have had negotiations with the railway companies in respect of this Bill, and they accept the principle, and a number of Amendments have been agreed between the Department and the companies with a view to meeting any reasonable objections which the companies have raised. These Amendments will be inserted in the Committee, and on that understanding I believe the Bill is unopposed. Negotiations have also been proceeding with the interests representing canals, and an Amendment will be inserted to exclude canals over which we have rights under the Act of 1863, thus excluding very nearly all the canals of the country. This is a hybrid Bill, partly public and partly of a private character, and after Second Reading it will go to a mixed Committee appointed partly by the Committee of selection and partly by the House, and there representations will be received from parties interested, and details which may still be unsettled can be examined impartially by the Committee. I trust on that understanding the House will pass the Second Reading.

§ Mr. NIELD

The last statement the right hon. Gentleman has made has considerably relieved the position which I otherwise should have had to take up. For weeks past I had a notice on the Order Paper to move the rejection of the measure. That becomes totally unnecessary when I am told the Bill will be examined upstairs before a Select Committee. The interests which I represent are public interests, which do not, strictly speaking, come within the definition of canals. The objection I raise to the Bill is the power given to the Postmaster-General to go be-hind agreements that he has already made 102 under which he gets wayleaves, and according to Clause 1 it is not merely across a canal, but underground. Apart from the question whether or not he shall take power, as he does here by Clause 2, to go behind any agreement or award made against him for payment of wayleave, he is also able to insist in all cases on doing the work himself. I am interested only as a member of a public body which manages navigation and I have no personal interest at all. Very large sums of money have to be paid in interest and repayment of loans, and therefore it is necessary that the revenue of this body should be kept up as far as possible, and that is the reason why any agreement already in existence under which sums of money are paid, and they are very numerous, by the Government, should remain intact and should not be taken away under the general proposals of the latter part of Clause 2.

Then with regard to another question which is quite as important, that of the right of the Postmaster-General to undertake repairs on the river or canal bank, and possibly cause disturbance of the soil, I suggest that he is able to make the arrangement he tells us he has done with the canal and railway companies that he will afford facilities whereby the work shall be done under the supervision or to the satisfaction of responsible officers of the conservancy, who know the weaknesses of the banks and therefore will be able to help the Post Office as they have done in the past. I do not think any difference has seriously arisen between the Conservancy Beard and the Department, in regard to the very many wayleaves which cross and recross and go along part of the river banks, and he will find them as reasonable in the future as they have been in the past. I bring that specially before the Postmaster-General, because a great deal of the artificial river which has been constructed in the last hundred years, and made applicable for the purpose of trade, runs between high embankments, and it is therefore very necessary that the engineer of the conservancy should be able to have some controlling power over the Post Office officials and that the work should be done to their satisfaction or under their supervision. I am quite sure the Postmaster-General will give these suggestions the best consideration he can, and that when the Bill goes upstairs he will have them debated if a settlement in regard to these matters is not arrived at before then.