I do not attach the slightest blame or responsibility to the right hon. Gentleman for introducing the Estimate for this tube railway, but he does not impress me in the least by saying that something has been approved of by my right hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Wight (Major-General Seely) or by someone on my own Front Bench. I am not here simply to ratify everything which is done by the Front Bench on either side. What I complain of is that we have not got proper information from the right hon. Gentleman in reference to this Vote for which he is responsible. Whether the scheme is right or not I cannot say. The Committee has not been properly instructed. This is a very large sum. Where is it being spent? Has it been spent, or is it going to be spent? It is explained there was a tube railway authorised from Paddington to the Post Office, and the right hon. Gentleman said that no use has been made of that tube. If that is true I shall be very much surprised. I believe that it was in regular use, and, according to what I have heard, a more ridiculous railway never existed. My right hon. Friend the late Postmaster-General gave us the most graphic account of this railway. There were no engine drivers, the bags were shot down an inclined plane, just like the pigs in Chicago when they are being turned into sausages, and on this wonderful tube railway a button was pressed and the bags were distributed at Paddington in the different trains for Plymouth, Cardiff and the other big centres.

That is a very tempting labour-saving appliance, but I doubt whether this scheme has any of these brilliant attachments. I believe that it is to be an ordinary tube railway, the mails being brought by hand from the tube railway to the different Post Office vans at Paddington. It is ridiculous that there is no one here to tell us the facts. I am told that there is a tunnel completed from the Post Office, with a station at Liverpool Street, to Whitechapel. I would like to know when that was done. Has there been any use made of the Liverpool Street station? Have any mails been disembarked there? My own view is that the tube from Paddington to the Post Office is open, and that the rest of the tube to Liverpool Street and Whitechapel is not open. The wisest thing is for the Committee to say, "We ought to have more information before we vote this money. We ought to know whether or not this tube has ever been used and, if so, what part?" As regards the money, I believe that it is intended for equipping in some form or another the extension from the Post Office to Liverpool Street station and on to Whitechapel. If that is so, we should know how to deal with the matter, but we are left entirely in doubt at the present moment. It is not right to vote the Money in absolute ignorance on this point. I hope, therefore, that the Government will adjourn this Motion.