§ Lieut.-Colonel CROFTasked the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to the fact that difficulties are being experienced by steamers using the harbour of Poole owing to lack of bunker coal; whether he is aware that, owing to this situation, a large tonnage of produce which would have been sent from the Channel Islands and from France has not been delivered owing to regulations insisting that all bunker coal must be seaborne from South Wales; and whether he proposes to deal with the matter?
§ Mr. BRIDGEMANThe regulation that bunker coal for south coast ports must be seaborne from South Wales has been recently reviewed in consultation with the District Coal and Coke Supplies Committees concerned. It is not considered feasible to withdraw it at present, having regard to the necessity of relieving, so far as possible, the pressure on the railways, and to the difficulty of maintaining those inland supplies which must be railborne, if the additional burden of carrying bunker coal is imposed upon the railways. There appears to be no reason why the merchants concerned in the supply of bunker coal at Poole should not obtain their coal by sea in the same way as merchants in other south coast ports.