§ Mr. HARMOOD-BANNERasked the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that the railway and canal companies in Great Britain have been for many years in receipt of a sum amounting to many thousands of pounds as payment in compensation of wayleaves, etc., for telephones belonging to the National Telephone Company; that after the transfer of the National Telephone Company's undertaking to the Post Office at the end of the present year the only payment which will in the great majority of cases be made in respect, of such wayleaves will, in consequence of the operation of the Telegraph Act, 1868, and the awards thereunder, be a wayleave payment of 1s. per mile per wire; and will he state what provision he is prepared to make for compensating the railway and canal companies in respect of the loss which they will thereby suffer?
§ Mr. HERBERT SAMUELThe facts are, broadly speaking, these:—The State purchased for large sums of money, at the time of the transfer of the telegraphs to the Post Office full, and in many cases, exclusive wayleave over the railways and canals. After the transfer of the undertaking of the National Telephone Company to the Post Office such of the telephone wires—legally telegraphs—as are acquired by the Postmaster-General will be maintained under the wayleave so purchased, and the Postmaster-General will make in respect of them all payments for which he is liable under the purchase agreements with the railway companies. No question of compensation arises in this connection. If the railway companies have received large sums of money from the National Telephone Company it is to a great extent because the Postmaster-General has consented to waive his exclusive right, and he has done so under arrangements with the railway companies which have made his position perfectly clear. The State cannot pay again for what it has already bought. The hon. Member is under some misapprehension in quoting a rate of 1s. a mile per wire. In some cases there is no payment because wayleave was purchased for a lump sum; in other cases the payment is as high as £1 a mile per wire.