§ MR. PIRIE (Aberdeen, N.)I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, whether he is aware of the recent action of the Highways Committee of the London County Council in ceasing to advertise on behalf of the Council in the Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail; if his attention has been drawn to a unanimous resolution of the Battersea Vestry in which they deprecated the issue of seven-day newspapers as being fraught with serious industrial consequences to the working classes, and therefore determined to discontinue the purchase of those papers for the libraries of the parish until their Sunday issue ceases, and to affix copies of the resolution in the places of those papers in their public libraries; and, whether, in view of this and the similar action of other public bodies, and further, with the object of giving practical effect to the approval expressed by the Home Secretary on the part of the Government to the deputation which he received protesting against a seven-day 926 issue of newspapers, he will consider the propriety of discontinuing all Government advertisements in these papers. I may mention that since I put this question on the Paper it has become inapplicable to the Daily Mail, owing to the proprietor having ceased Am Sunday issue. May I point out, with reference to the action of public bodies upon this question, that such action has seriously diminished the circulation of the Daily Telegraph.
§ MR. HANBURYIt does not rest with the Treasury, but with the responsible heads of the Departments concerned, to make a final selection of the newspapers in which their advertisements shall appear. I can only say that, if the circulation of any seven-day paper should diminish in consequence of the withdrawal of advertisements, the question of employing it for Treasury advertisements might have to be re-considered.