§ Mr. SNOWDENasked if the Postmaster-General can see his way to adopt the system of night letter-telegrams at a reduced rate on similar lines to the practice of the Western Union Telegraph Company of America, a practice which has achieved great popularity and success?
§ Mr. HERBERT SAMUELI do not think that the night letter telegram system would serve a useful purpose in this country where the circumstances are altogether unlike those of the United States. There are no distances involving a delay of days between the despatch of a letter and its receipt. In our large towns ordinary letters can be posted at a very late hour, and yet be in time for delivery in most places by the first post in the morning. Telegrams would go to offices which might not be those from which postmen start on their rounds or which might not be open until they had already gone out. If delivery were effected by telegraph messengers this would add largely to the expense of the scheme which even without this addition would hardly be a paying one on account of the employment of staff at high night duty rates at offices where none are now employed.
§ Sir A. WILLIAMSONIs the Postmaster-General aware that the posting of many letters to important places closes comparatively early in the day, long before the hour at which one can telegraph and that it closes frequently at five or six o'clock?
§ Mr. HERBERT SAMUELYes, Sir; there are exceptional cases in which it might be a convenience, but I think it would be little used, and the cost of establishing a proper night duty staff would render its adoption not wholly expedient.
§ Mr. SNOWDENIs the right hon. Gentleman aware that a letter must be posted before five o'clock in the afternoon in London to be delivered by the first post the next morning in Yorkshire and the North of England?
§ Mr. HERBERT SAMUELI should like notice of that question.