§ MR. GRIFFITH BOSCAWEN () Kent, TonbridgeI beg to ask the Postmaster General whether he has yet come to any decision as to whether he will give his assent to the proposed sale of the Tunbridge Wells Corporation telephone undertaking to the National Telephone Company; and, if not, whether he can state the cause of the delay.
§ THE POSTMASTER GENERAL (Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN,) Worcestershire, E.After carefully considering the important questions of principle affecting the telephone system of the United Kingdom involved in the application of the Corporation of Tunbridge Wells, I decided that I could not give my assent to the proposed sale except on certain conditions which are necessary for the maintenance of the policy approved by Parliament in the Telegraph Act, 1899. The licence held by the Corporation imposed on the conduct of their telephone undertaking certain important obligations which do not apply generally to the licensed business of the National Telephone Company. The most important of these obligations are the following:—
The National Telephone Company lately accepted as a condition of their licence in respect of the Tunbridge Wells area conditions 1 and 2, and thereby secured, under the operation of Section 3 of the Telegraph Act 1899, as a result of the establishment of the municipal telephone system, an extension of the period of their licence for the Tunbridge Wells area from the 31st December, 1911, to the 30th April, 1925, the date of termination of the Corporation licence. Under these circumstances I wrote to the Company on the 22nd November that I could not give my assent to the proposed sale unless they further accepted as applying in future to the whole of their system in the area the other obligations now attaching to the Corporation system, in order that all telephone business in the area might in future be conducted in accordance with the principles approved by Parliament; and I make a further very important condition. In permitting the extension of the Company's licence in local areas where municipal competition might be established, Parliament intended to place the competing systems on an equality, but it did not contemplate the enjoyment of this advantage without competition. I therefore thought it necessary to secure for the Postmaster General the right to terminate the Company's extended local licence on the 31st December, 1911, the original date of termination specified in their general licence. The Corporation licence, in order to provide for the continuance of the telephone service by the Post Office on its termination, gave the Postmaster General the right to purchase such of their plant as might, on the expiration of the Corporation's licence, be useful for Post Office purposes, on what are commonly known 917 as "tramway terms," that is at its fair market value as plant in use. I have extended this condition to the whole plant of the National Telephone Company existing in the Tunbridge Wells area in 1911. These conditions, coupled with the terms as to rates of subscription, &c., contained in the agreement between the Corporation and the Company, secure all the advantages contemplated by Parliament in sanctioning municipal competition as affecting both existing and future subscribers, and the development of the general telephone system, and I am glad to be able to state that 1 have to-day received from the National Telephone Company an assurance that, having regard to all the circumstances of the case, and looking at the matter not from the point of view of Tunbridge Wells alone, but from the broader standpoint as it affects the position of the Post Office and the Company in the country generally, they are prepared to accept these conditions.
- 1. That the charges for the Exchange service shall be maintained within certain specified limits.
- 2. That no favour or preference shall be shown in the charges made to any subscribers, and that no subscriber shall, as a condition of service, be required to grant way leaves except for the connection of his own premises with an Exchange.
916 - 3. That the construction of all plant shall be subject to the sanction and approval of the Postmaster General.
- 4. That the subscribers in other areas to Exchanges of the Postmaster General, and of his other licencees besides the National Telephone Company, shall have the right to free intercommunication over the trunk wire system, without the imposition of "terminal fees" with the subscribers to the Corporation system, and that subscribers to a Post Office system in the same area shall have the right of intercommunication on terms to be settled by arbitration, if necessary.