§ MR. HENNIKER HEATON (Canterbury)I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that the loss on the telegraph service amounted during last year to £587,452, or, excluding £130,000 received as royalty from the National Telephone Company, the loss exceeded £700,000, although the total receipts were under four millions sterling (Parliamentary Paper, No. 34, 1901); and that since the telegraphs were taken over by the Government the total logs to the country has exceeded £8,300,000; whether, in view of these facts, he is prepared to lease the telegraphs to a private company, or take any other steps to meet the difficulty; and has he any official 1312 information showing the cause of the increasing loss, now approaching three-quarters of a million per annum, on the working of the telegraph system of the country.
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Sir M. HICKS BEACH, Bristol, W.)The figures mentioned by the hon. Member appear to be approximately correct. The sum of £587,452 is made up of two items, namely, £288,502, the excess of expenditure over receipts, and £298,860, the interest on the capital raised for the purposes of the Telegraph Acts. I think the reason for this loss is that the public and their representatives in this House have preferred to get a return on the capital in the form of facilities for telegraphic communication rather than in the form of revenue; and that the best way to check the increasing deficiency in the telegraph account would be to-discourage, at any rate to some extent, demands for expensive concessions which do not produce any corresponding increase of revenue.