MR. CHARLES M'ARTHUK (Liverpool, Exchange)I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he is aware that although direct cables have been established between Liverpool and Havre, and Liverpool and Hamburg, telegrams between those cities still take at least nearly an hour in transmission and delivery; that cablegrams between the Liverpool and New York Cotton Exchanges are sent and replies received within a few minutes, and that messages despatched daily viâ the United States to Bremen reach that city an hour earlier than messages sent to the same place from the Liverpool Post Office by British wire; that the arrangement proposed by him for telephoning cablegrams after business hours through the Exchange Post Office is insufficient for the requirements of the cotton trade, especially during the cotton 1270 season, and that nothing short of direct telephonic communication between the cable companies and their clients will meet the exigencies of the case; and whether, in view of the importance to commerce of quick telegraphic communication between Liverpool, the Continent, and the United States by reason of the limited duration of market hours, and of the increasing diversion of business from Liverpool owing to the lack of telegraphic facilities, the best efforts of the Post Office will be exerted to remove insufficiencies in the present system to which their attention has been frequently called.
§ THE SECRETARY TO THE TREA SURY (Mr. HANBURY,) PrestonUnder normal conditions the time occupied in the transmission of telegrams between Liverpool and Havre and between Liverpool and Hamburg is about twenty-five minutes in the one case, and thirty-five minutes in the other. The Post Office has no information as to the time occupied in delivery abroad. Any telegrams sent between Liverpool and Bremen by way of the United States would not pass through the Post Office, and the Post Office has no knowledge of the time occupied in transmission, as compared with the ordinary route. The cable company could not adopt the route viâ America consistently with its arrangements with the Administrations concerned. It is hoped that the arrangement recently made for the telephoning of telegrams after business hours through the Exchange Post Office will be found to meet the requirements of the case, and that the arrangement should, at any rate, have a trial. The importance of efficient telegraphic facilities between Liverpool and the Continent is, of course, recognised, and measures for improving the communication between this country and the Continent are under discussion between the Post Office and the Treasury.