529

A—s

CHAIRMAN : For the minutes of to-day we record that Mr. Deakin submitted this resolution, and Mr. Lloyd George submitted his. Mr. DEAKIN : Please understand that if this resolution of mine were rejected by every individual member of the Conference, I should deplore our divergencies, but it would not in any way depress me. I should take the benefit of all the criticism, not regretting that I had brought the matter forward. My faith is that it is better to make a mistake attempting to frame a practical proposal than to do nothing at all. If this was a mistake, and I am satisfied it was not, I have at least succeeded in bringing the question right home. We are not here to score verbal victories by carrying resolutions, or to feel defeated if we do not carry them, but we are here to make some advance by the frank discussion of these Imperial possibilities. lam obliged to the Minister for getting beyond the accidents of my proposal to its essence at the close.

Fourteenth Day. 9 May 1907.

Imperial Sikta\ ON FoREIoN Imports.

UNIVERSAL PENNY POSTAGE. CHAIRMAN : Mr. Buxton also has business which calls him away, and as this Post Office subject will not take very long, 1 think we might take the subject of universal penny postage before we take Imperial cable communication. Sir JOSEPH WARD : Lord Elgin and gentlemen, In the motion as it stands upon the Agenda, I propose, after consultation with the PostmasterGeneral, to make a variation which he has agreed to accept, and it will fully meet what I want to place before the Conference to have a resolution upon, and I think it will bring about unanimity. I propose to substitute this : " That in view of the social and political advantages, and the material com- " mercial advantages to accrue from a system of international penny postage, " this Conference recommends to His Majesty's Government the advisability, " if and when a suitable opportunity occurs, of approaching the Governments " of other States, members of the Universal Postal Lnion, in order to obtain " further reductions of postage rates, with a view to a more general and, if " possible, a universal adoption of the penny rate." What animates me, in asking this Conference to give effect to a proposition of this kind, is a desire to see penny postage universally established as soon as possible, and to get over the incongruity of being able to send a letter from Lngland to New Zealand, or from New Zealand to England for a penny, and having to pay 2sd. to send that letter some 20 miles across the English Channel. Anything assisting to ripen public judgment on an important matter of this character, world-wide in its operation, in that respect is a good thing. As the Post-master-General has agreed to it in this altered form, 1 hope it may commend itself to the Conference. I move the resolution. Mr. BUXTON : Lord Elgin and gentlemen, 1 have, on behalf of the Government, to accept the resolution, in the words Sir Joseph Ward has been good enough to adopt. Only I feel bound to say in regard to it that this resolution must be taken as an indication of policy, and that it leaves the fullest possible freedom to the British Government to judge as to the time and the opportunity and especially as to the question of the funds at their disposal, with regard to how far, and at what moment, and to what extent they can carry out the policy of further Postal reforms with reference to foreign countries or the Colonies, and in the matter of the adoption of universal penny postage. lam afraid I can give no promise of any likelihood that we shall be able to consider the matter at a very early date, because the Post Office revenue from which this would have to come, is not in a very

I'MVKKSU. Penny Postaoe.

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