POSTAL COMMUNICATION (IRELAND). (Hansard, 25 July 1854)

THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE

rose to call the attention of the House to the present state of postal communication in Ireland. The noble Earl said that the present postal arrangement in Ireland had given rise to very great complaints on the part of the public; and various petitions had been presented from the south of Ireland on the subject. The fact was, that since the establishment of railways there had been less postal accommodation afforded to the people of Ireland than there was before that great improvement in the means 693 of speedy transit. Even where railway communication did exist the Post Office authorities did not avail themselves sufficiently of the facilities for the conveyance of the mails. As an illustration of this, he might mention that, although there was a direct railway between Dublin and Waterford, the mails were carried by railway only so far as Malton, and thence conveyed for the rest of the journey by coach over very indifferent roads; thus delaying their arrival at Waterford several hours later than it should be. Another complaint made by the petitioners on this subject referred to the absence of day mails, from the want of which commercial persons suffered much inconvenience, and the Post Office sustained considerable loss from the transmission of letters as parcels. Another ground of complaint was, the inconvenience and delay which existed in regard to the posts between towns not upon the main line of communication. The Bishop of the diocese in which he (the Earl of Donoughmore) resided was in the habit of going to the seaside in the summer months, and in some cases it took four days for his letters to reach his clergy. In reply to his complaint, that the railways were not sufficiently used for the postal communications, he anticipated that his noble Friend the Postmaster General (Viscount Canning) would reply that the railway companies asked unreasonable sums for the conveyance of mails. In answer to this, however, he would say that the Limerick and Waterford Railway had offered to convey the mails between those places for a rate of remuneration lower than that which was paid to the Great Southern and Western Company, but that their offer had been refused. He thought he had at least made out a case for inquiry, and he hoped that the noble Viscount would make inquiries into these matters, and see if he could not make arrangements which would be satisfactory to the districts which now complained of want of accommodation.

§ VISCOUNT CANNING

said, that while nothing could be further from his desire than to insist upon any arrangements which might be inferior to the due administration of postal communication in Ireland, he could not concur in the conclusions to which the noble Earl had come upon this subject, and should have to dissent from some of the statements which he had made in regard to it. Though it was true that petitions had been presented to that House upon the subject, yet they had 694 all been from the south of Ireland. With the permission of the House, he would state a few facts to show that the noble Earl was in error when he accused the Post Office of having refused to allow the just claims of Ireland. The gross postal revenue of Great Britain was 2,294,000l. and the Post Office expenditure 1,204,000l., or about 50 per cent of the revenue. The gross postal revenue of Ireland amounted to 198,000l., and the expenditure to 185,000l. Therefore the management of postal communication in Ireland amounted to 93 per cent of the receipts, while in England it amounted to only about 50 per cent. Of the gross revenue for Ireland, only 17,000l. found its way into the Exchequer. In these figures he had stated the matter favourably to Ireland, because he had charged to Great Britain the whole expense of the packets between Holyhead and Dublin, amounting to 20,000l. a year, and that of the line between Chester and Holyhead, incurred on account of the Irish postage, amounting to 30,000l. In Great Britain the conveyance of a letter cost upon the average ¾d.; in Ireland it cost ld. and one-tenth, showing that in Ireland the expense was greater than the receipts. In further evidence that Ireland was not treated unfairly, or subjected to any unnecessary disadvantages in regard to postal matters, he would refer to the amount of business that was transacted in the money-order department, and the privileges that were extended to Ireland in this respect. It was very generally acknowledged that this branch of the business of the Post Office was of very great service to all classes of persons; and, although it never was expected to increase the amount of the revenue to any large amount, yet it was always expected to meet its own expenditure at least. But what were the facts of the case with respect to Ireland and the money-order department in 1853? Why, whereas in England the money-order department brought to the Exchequer a profit of 14,000l., in Ireland there was a dead loss of 770l. As to the question of direct mails, and Ireland being unfairly treated in this respect, such was certainly not the case, as a proof of which it might be mentioned that direct mails had been established in Ireland more than two months before they were established in England. Within the last twelve months a direct mail had been established between Dungarvon and Youghal, And between Youghal 695 and Fermoy; and a direct coach mail also between Kilkenny and Thurles. At this moment negotiations were being carried on with the directors of the Great Southern and Western Railway for the acceleration of the mails, and many other improvements were under consideration. The noble Earl presumed correctly that he would be met on the question of expense; and, when the large prices were considered which the Irish railways demanded for the transit of the mails, this was scarcely surprising. The rate paid in England to the South Western and Great Western Railways for a day and night mail was 2s. 9d. per mile; the rate paid to the Great Southern and Western Railway in Ireland for a similar service, performed at a lower speed, was 5s. 6d., or just double the amount. In England the average number of letters carried per week was 704,000; in Ireland it was 196,000. Therefore the price paid for an inferior service in Ireland was double that paid in England, while the number of letters carried was only about one-fourth. Although the offer made by the Limerick and Waterford Railway was moderate, compared with the charge of the Great Southern and Western, yet it amounted to 1,300l. per annum, while the postage of the letters whose transport it would have accelerated amounted to only 350l. Ireland had, unfortunately, not shown the same elasticity in regard to correspondence that had been exhibited in England and Scotland. In the case of Scotland, the reduction of the postage had been followed by a gradual increase in the amount of correspondence, so that, notwithstanding the difference of population as compared with Ireland, it had now reached in Scotland the highest point ever attained in Ireland. Though he could not promise to meet the arrangements proposed by the noble Earl, he would, nevertheless, be quite ready fully to consider any proposition that was submitted to him on the subject; but, at the same time, he could not hold out to him any promise that a largely increased use of the railways in Ireland would be had recourse to so long as the payment demanded by them greatly exceeded that which he was bound to say he regarded as a reasonable rate of remuneration.