§ MR. HENNIKER HEATON (Canterbury)To ask the Postmaster-General whether it was agreed at the Postal Union Conference at Rome to supply reply coupons available for correspondents who wish to get replies to their letters from any place abroad; whether the cost of these coupons is fixed at 3d. each; whether, as the postal rate to the United States of America has been reduced from 2½d. to 1d., the price of a reply coupon to that country remains unaltered at 3d.; whether he will institute a system of exchange penny postal stamps with every part of the British Empire and the United States of America, so that a correspondent who wants a reply to his letter may be able to send a British stamp that can be exchanged at any Post Office in the Empire or the United States of America for a stamp similar of value, the accounts to be adjusted half-yearly, or more often, if necessary, by the Governments.
(Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) Under the system adopted at the Postal Union Congress at Rome, a reply coupon can be bought at any Post Office in this country for 3d. and exchanged for stamps to the value of 2½d. in almost any country, thus affording a convenient means of prepaying the reply to a letter or transmitting a very small sum of money. Contrary to expectation the demand for these coupons has so far been very small; and unless the demand increases, as the system becomes better known, I do not consider that there is sufficient reason for 466 creating a coupon of lower value, for which there is less necessity, and for which, therefore, there would probably be even less demand.