HttpWebRequest example with error handling (VB.Net)

Function WRequest(URL As String, method As String, POSTdata As String) As String
  Dim responseData As String = ""
  Try
    Dim cookieJar As New Net.CookieContainer()
    Dim hwrequest As Net.HttpWebRequest = Net.Webrequest.Create(URL)
    hwrequest.CookieContainer = cookieJar
    hwrequest.Accept = "*/*"
    hwrequest.AllowAutoRedirect = true
    hwrequest.UserAgent = "http_requester/0.1"
    hwrequest.Timeout = 60000
    hwrequest.Method = method
    If hwrequest.Method = "POST" Then
      hwrequest.ContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"
      Dim encoding As New Text.ASCIIEncoding() 'Use UTF8Encoding for XML requests
      Dim postByteArray() As Byte = encoding.GetBytes(POSTdata)
      hwrequest.ContentLength = postByteArray.Length
      Dim postStream As IO.Stream = hwrequest.GetRequestStream()
      postStream.Write(postByteArray, 0, postByteArray.Length)
      postStream.Close()
    End If
    Dim hwresponse As Net.HttpWebResponse = hwrequest.GetResponse()
    If hwresponse.StatusCode = Net.HttpStatusCode.OK Then
      Dim responseStream As IO.StreamReader = _
        New IO.StreamReader(hwresponse.GetResponseStream())
      responseData = responseStream.ReadToEnd()
    End If
    hwresponse.Close()
    Catch e As Exception
      responseData = "An error occurred: " & e.Message
    End Try
  Return responseData
End Function

wData = WRequest("http://server/", "GET", "")

wData = WRequest("http://server/rd.aspx", "POST", "name=jane&stat=active")