LORD MONCREIFFMY Lords, I rise to ask the Government whether great importance is attached to the observance of certain restrictions imposed on railway travellers, and, if so, why more systematic measures are not taken to ensure tha.t these instructions are carried out. I do so because it appears to me, from my own personal observation in the last few weeks, that the whole business is rather a farce. I live more or less in the prohibited district in Scotland, and I have occasion to travel to and from Edinburgh very frequently. 409 Sometimes I go by the North British railway over the Forth Bridge, and sometimes by the Caledonian railway. The two particular points to which I refer are the subduing of lights in the carriages and the prohibition against carrying parcels or luggage of any kind in the carriages over such strategical points as the Forth Bridge or the Tay Bridge.
As to the subduing of lights, I would say that just before leaving Edinburgh the other night a porter came into the carriage and drew down all the blinds. Soon after we left the station I looked out and noticed that there were no window blinds at all in the corridor and that all the lights there were full on and were not shaded over with any dark stuff. If a certain amount of light is given through the windows of an ordinary carriage compartment, then much more light would come through the windows in the corridors. I do not know whether that is a great help to hostile airmen or not, but if a regulation is made I think more attention should be paid to it and railway companies should be compelled to put blinds in the corridors.
The point as to luggage was particularly brought to my notice one day when I was leaving Edinburgh. With me was a little boy who had a golf-club bag of about two to three inches in diameter which could easily have been turned upside down to see if there was anything in it. But the officials took that bag from the boy, and also thought right to deprive my little girl of a doll which she was carrying. There was some one else in the carriage, and he had a large dispatch box on the rack and a bag under the seat, yet no one came to see if there was anything on the rack. If in order to prevent bombs being thrown on the Forth Bridge you are to have regulations about not carrying parcels, there should be some one to see that they are carried out. I have been over the Forth Bridge several times lately and no one has looked in to see whether or not I had a parcel under the seat. I submit that if regulations are made systematic measures should be taken to see them carried out, and the matter should not be left in the hands of a few casual porters.
§ LORD STANMOREMy Lords, experience has shown that great assistance to aircraft in finding their way is afforded by brightly-lighted trains, and it is of great importance that the light visible from trains should be reduced as far as possible. It is, 410 of course, essential that the public should co-operate with the railway companies to make these measures effective; but the railway companies themselves have shown the greatest willingness to meet the wishes of the Government in this matter. In regard to the point raised by the noble Lord as to lighted corridors, the Railway Executive Committee, through whom the Government communicates with the railway companies, shall be communicated with. The responsibility for the measures taken for the protection of the Forth Bridge rests with the War Office, and I can assure the noble Lord that the question he has raised shall be brought to the attention of that Department.