HC Deb 24 July 1913 vol 55 cc2367-70

Considered in Committee, and reported without Amendment.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the third time."

Mr. PETO

I desire to assure the House that in rising to speak upon the Third Reading of this measure, which has just passed through Committee with such extraordinary and satisfactory facility, I do not do so with any view of opposing the proposals of the Postmaster-General, but, rather, to point out to the House, as I feel it my duty to do, that the Committee which reported on this Bill to the House felt bound to make a Report of a special nature to the Postmaster-General which was certainly intended in a friendly spirit to the scheme of the Bill, and which I hope personally will result in very considerable improvement in the method in which this railway will be carried out. I think the simplest plan would be for me to read the very short Report to which I refer. There are three Clauses, and I think the House should be acquainted with the nature of the Report. The first Clause says:— The Committee while satisfied that ample provision is being made for the extension of the mail traffic on present lines bear in mind the fact that the data of our experience of other countries hi the handling of mails is very limited, and therefore the present scheme is necessarily of a somewhat experimental character. On that Clause I should like to say this, that in the United States of America, which is generally regarded as fairly up to date, the experience the advisers of the Postmaster-General were able to get, was that of an experimental system in New York which consisted of an 8-inch tube which the Postmaster-General's engineer characterised as a blowpipe, and which has no relevancy to the undertaking the House is now considering. In Chicago there is a system which was characterised as extremely complicated and thoroughly unsuited to the demands of the Post Office in this country, and that also was dismissed. The experience gained on the Continent was of a most limited and experimental character. I do not blame the Post Office for want of experience in this Flatter, but I desire to point out that this scheme here is in the nature of an experiment, and a very large experiment, and it seemed to me and the Committee to be obviously desirable that all contingencies should be taken into account.

Either this scheme is an experimental scheme from which we may depart, or it may turn out to be a very great success, and perhaps a financial success. In the latter case there will be a very large extension of traffic. If that prove to be so, it seems perfectly clear that this experiment, designed with curves of such narrow radius that no vehicle larger than is at present contemplated, that is 2 ft. 10 in. by 3 ft. 7½ inches, by a maximum of 11 ft. in length, can be operated that tube will be useless. Even if the present two-line system of 2 ft. gauge were given up, and a single line adopted, it would be impossible to run on the railway which is now before the House any materially larger vehicle than that which is to be run upon the double plan. It seems to me perfectly clear that on a plan of that kind, the Postmaster-General, with his advisers, is going "nap" on the continuance of the present system. But if, for some reason or other, the present system turns out to be inadequate for the handling of mails, the right hon. Gentleman will not have in his possession for his million of money a practical tube running on ordinary lines, fairly straight, as one would expect of a tube, which could be used for any other purpose, and was not wanted for the Post Office. It appears to me, if that be so, that the Postmaster General's advisers have asked him to incur the very serious risk of his Department spending money on a tube which may become obsolete in a very short number of years. I do not want this railway in the future to be recollected as "Mr. Samuel's folly." I do not think that anything on which public money is spent should be constructed in such a way as to involve unnecessary risk of its becoming obsolete. It is for that reason the Committee to which I refer made this special Report. The members of that Committee to which I have referred do not pretend to be experts; we did not reject the Preamble of the Bill; we did not desire to hold up a red signal to the Postmaster-General to say that he could not proceed with his scheme. But we did desire to hold up the green light of "caution," pointing out to him that the scheme approved by his experts, in certain circumstances, will be practically valueless to the community. Therefore, I would point out to the House why it is there has been such hesitation on the part of the Postmaster-General's advisers to advise him on a more courageous policy. There is no doubt the Postmaster-General was very well advised if he was told that he would meet with the opposition of vested interests like railway companies and other undertakings if he adopted a design for a practical tube for ordinary vehicles, and constructed on reasonably straight lines. I cart assure the right hon. Gentleman that Ire avoided a great deal of opposition by constructing a tube to run round the corners of every building and keep under roads in order to keep down the amount of compensation, though it is a tube which may soon become obsolete. I do riot think that a Bill involving the expenditure of £1.000,000 of public money which was considered for nine days upstairs should be passed sub silentio without giving the Postmaster-General the opportunity of explaining what steps he proposes to take to avoid the risk of this scheme being rendered obsolete.

The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Herbert Samuel)

The hon. Member has suggested that we have not adopted a sufficiently courageous policy, and that we have not foreseen adequately the possibility that later on Post Office business may change altogether and that we may be handling parcels on a much bigger scale; in fact, that we may be handling merchandise of such a nature that our tube railway would not be sufficient to cope with it. It is not intended to deal with merchandise as an ordinary railway deals with it. It is to handle mails and parcels. It allows an enormous margin for future expansion if the Post Office business is conducted on anything like the methods it is now. If we were to adopt a new policy, of course, this tube would have to be remodelled, But that is not our intention. The question is whether we should be justified in spending a large additional sum of money which will not be needed so far as we can foresee the future. We are not spending this money on the chance that the Post Office will require a tube of larger dimensions. The hon. Member supposes that this tube might, at some future time be turned from a double line to a single line traffic, with another tube to carry the return traffic. That would need fresh Parliamentary powers and the Postmaster General would have to come to Parliament. With regard to the curves my engineers deny their extreme sharpness. The line is not intended to carry big heavy trucks or vehicles such as those run on the ordinary railways of London, and the curves are not so excessively sharp going round every building and turning the corner of every street as described by the hon. Member. I have been advised not only by the engineers of the Post Office, but also by a gentleman who is acknowledged to be a most capable engineer, Mr. Dalrymple Hay, and we have followed his guidance in the matter. Having received a Report from the Select Committee I feel I ought to invite further opinions. It is the working out of the engineering details which the Committee, to which the hon. Member belongs, draw my attention. In consequence of what he has said and the Report the Committee has made, I propose to get further engineering opinions from engineers who have not hitherto been associated with this scheme. I am going to ask the President of the Institute of Civil Engineers to nominate one or two men in whom he would have confidence, and to whom the technical points the hon. Member has raised can be submitted. I am sure the House will agree that we here are not competent, as the Select Committee felt themselves not competent, to adjudicate upon the proper radius of these curves, but can assure the hon. Member that the Report presented by the Committee of which he was a member will receive the most careful consideration, and that I shall not hurriedly adopt plans without having further expert engineering advice. I trust that the House will allow us to get the Third Reading of the Bill now, because it has to go to the House of Lords, and, being a Hybrid Bill, the statutory notice has to be given before it can be taken in Committee. Therefore, if it is to be taken this Session, it is urgently necessary that the House of Commons should deal with it.