§ 58 and 59. Mr. Ness Edwardsasked the Assistant Postmaster-General (1) if it is proposed to offer to the air corporations the new international airmail rates or their equivalent;
(2) the new international airmail rates decided upon by the Universal Postal Union recently held at Brussels; and how the new rates compare with the rates paid by the Post Office to the British air corporations.
§ Mr. GammansThe new maximum rates fixed recently at the Brussels Conference for the settlement of accounts between Post Office Administrations for the conveyance of first class airmail are
138W3 gold francs per tonne-kilometre over lines where that rate now applies, and4 gold francs over other lines.The new rates take effect from the 1st of July, 1953.A postal administration is not, of course, bound by these international rates in fixing the scale of payments for the conveyance of its own mails by air lines of its own country, but the sterling rates paid to B.E.A. and to B.O.A.C. for the conveyance of British first class airmail are now the equivalent of 3 gold francs and an average of about 4.2 gold francs respectively.