§ MR CHARLES M'ARTHURI beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he is yet in a position to announce if the postal regulations will be so modified that the cable companies may telephone to their clients cablegrams received after business hours, and that the addressees may telephone replies for transmission by submarine cable, without being subjected to the delay involved in sending such messages through the Post Office.
§ MR. HANBURYThe Postmaster General hopes to secure the co-operation of the American cable companies in an experimental arrangement made to expedite the delivery of cable messages at Liverpool. Between the hours of 8 and 387 9 or 9.30 p.m. such messages will be telephoned direct from the Exchange Post Office, which immediately adjoins the offices of the four American cable companies, to those addressees who are subscribers to the system of the National Telephone Company, and the subscribers will also be able to telephone their replies direct to the Exchange Post Office. This arrangement will save the time hitherto occupied in conveying messages by hand between the offices of the cable companies at the Exchange and the head post office, and it will be made permanent should the use made of it prove sufficient to justify such a course.