Conveyance of Mails Act, 1893

Carriage of mails on tramways.

2.(1) Every tramway company, that is to say, every company, body, or person owning or working any tramway authorised by any Act passed after the first day of January one thousand eight hundred and ninety-three, shall if required by the Postmaster-General, perform with respect to any tramway owned or worked by the company all such reasonable services in regard to the conveyance of mails as the Postmaster-General from time to time requires: Provided as follows:—

(a) Nothing in this section shall authorise the Postmaster-General to require mails in excess of the following weights to be carried in or upon any carriage, that is to say:—

(i) If the carriage is conveying or intended to convey passengers, and not goods or parcels, then in excess of the maximum weight for the time being fixed for the luggage of ordinary passengers; and

(ii) If the carriage is conveying or intended to convey parcels only, then in excess of such maximum weight as is for the time being fixed for ordinary parcels, or if that maximum appears to the Postmaster-General to be so low as to exclude him from availing himself of the use of any such carriage, then as is for the time being fixed by agreement, or in default of agreement by the Railway and Canal Commission;

(iii) If the carriage is conveying or intended to convey both parcels and passengers but not goods, then in excess of the maximum weight for the time being fixed for ordinary parcels, or for the luggage of ordinary passengers, whichever is the greater.

(b) Mails when carried in or upon a carriage conveying passengers shall be so carried as not to inconvenience the passengers, but so nevertheless that the custody of the mails by any officer of the Post Office in charge thereof shall not be interfered with.

(c) Nothing in this section shall authorise the Postmaster-General to require any mails to be carried in or upon a carriage conveying or intended to convey passengers but not goods or parcels, except in charge of an officer of the Post Office travelling as a passenger.

(d) If goods as well as passengers and parcels are carried on the tramway the enactments relating to the conveyance of mails by railway shall, subject to the provisions of this section, apply in like manner as if the tramway company were a railway company, and the tramway were a railway.

(2) The remuneration for any services performed in pursuance of this section shall be such as may be from time to time determined by agreement between the Postmaster-General and the tramway company, or, in default of agreement, by the Railway and Canal Commission, and this provision shall have effect in lieu of any provisions respecting remuneration contained in the enactments relating to the conveyance of mails by railway which are applied by this section.

(3) For the purpose of this section a requisition by the Postmaster-General may be signified by writing under the hand of any person who is at the time either Postmaster-General or a Secretary or Assistant Secretary of the Post Office, or the Inspector-General of Mails; and any document purporting to be signed by any such person as aforesaid shall, until the contrary is proved, be deemed, without proof of the official character of such person, to have been duly signed as required by this section.