§ MR. PROVAND (Glasgow, Blackfriars)I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether the Guernsey States Telephone Committee has declined to connect their telephone exchange system with the head post office in Guernsey in consequence of the refusal of the Postmaster General to allow such a connection, if made, to be used by telephone subscribers located outside the town of St. Peter Port, for the purposes of telephoning telegrams for transmission over the post office telegraphs, for telephoning messages to be written down and posted as letters, and for calling for the services of express messengers as provided for by section 7 of the Treasury Minute, dated 23rd May, 1892; and whether, seeing that such refusal is a denial of the facilities authorised by the said Treasury Minute to all the telephone exchange subscribers except those in St. Peter Port, he will take steps to have this connection made?
§ MR. HANBURYThe States of Guernsey have not up to the present time connected their exchange in St. Peter Port with the head post office, and it may be that they are influenced by the reason mentioned by the honourable Member. There is no desire to exclude from the facilities at St. Peter Port any subscribers outside the town directly connected with the exchange there, and the States have been informed that subscribers are at liberty to use the facilities. But what it is understood that the States require is, that subscribers connected with other exchanges in the island should enjoy these facilities at St. Peter Port instead of at their own local postal telegraph offices. This would not be in accordance with the practice which has hitherto obtained throughout the United Kingdom, and the Postmaster General is reluctant to alter the existing practice in 1158 any respect until he has had the advantage of considering the Report of the-Committee of this House which is now inquiring into the whole subject.
§ MR. PROVANDI beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, on what date the National Telephone Company applied to the Postmaster General for permission to attach wires to the post office from, the telephone exchange they commenced to erect in St. Peter Port, Guernsey, in, 1896, and on what date the permission to do so was granted; and on what date the States of Guernsey Telephone Exchange applied to the Postmaster General for the same privilege, and on what date he granted it?
§ MR. HANBURYThe National Telephone Company applied to the Postmaster General on the 18th May, 1896, for permission to connect their exchange in St. Peter Port with the head post office, and permission was granted on the 20th May, 1896. The first formal application from the States of Guernsey for permission to connect the exchange which they were constructing in St. Peter Port with the head post office is dated the 31st May, 1898, and permission was granted on 28th June, 1898, but the letter conveying this permission also dealt with the question of the establishment of a postal telegraph office at the White Rock Pier, and with the rules which governed the use of the proposed connection with the head post office—matters about which the States entertained views which were not in harmony with those of the Department, and about which there had been separate correspondence.