§ Captain C. BATHURSTasked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware that on the 10th instant a fruit grower, in 1032W the Wisbech district, tendered to the Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway Company at their Wisbech station a consignment of strawberries weighing 1½ tons for conveyance to a jam manufacturer at Bristol by passenger train, at owner's risk, and that the railway company refused to accept the same or any less quantity of such fruit than ½ tons; and whether it is on the instructions or with the approval of the Board that growers of perishable produce are thus prevented from sending it by rail out of a glutted district and securing its conversion into jam?
Mr. HARCOURTI am aware that the railway companies have taken various measures with a view to minimising the difficulties which might have arisen in present circumstances in dealing with the strawberry crop, and that it has been found necessary to require to certain destinations consignments of not less than 30 cwts. Ample notice has, I understand, been given of this restriction in those cases where it has been found necessary to impose it.