Telephone Service. (Hansard, 16 June 1913)

§ 30. Mr. C. BATHURST
asked the Postmaster-General whether he is prepared to provide rural party-line telephones in all districts where three or four farmers consent to subscribe :3 per annum for their use, or whether such telephones will only be provided in cases where a telephone exchange already exists in the immediate locality or where the revenue likely to result from the establishment of a new exchange is sufficient to meet the outlay of the General Post Office in respect of it?

§ Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL
Rural party lines can be introduced in any rural district where there is already an exchange, and where there are three or four farmers or other residents Who are willing to pay :3 per annum, provided that the other necessary conditions are met. These cheap party lines can only be provided in districts in the vicinity of existing telephone exchanges or where there is enough telephone business to justify the establishment of new exchanges and their connection with the general telephone system of the country, irrespective of rural party lines.

§ Mr. BATHURST
In view of the fact that over the greater part of the rural areas of the country exchanges at present do not exist, does not that involve that the greater number of the village farmers cannot get the benefit of which the right hon. Gentleman has spoken?

§ Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL
It is perfectly true that they cannot get the benefit of the telephone exchange if there is no exchange. We are extending as rapidly as may be, so far as financial considerations warrant, the provision of exchanges in the villages throughout the country, but we cannot establish a telephone exchange in every village irrespective of the loss to the taxpayer of so doing.

§ Mr. BATHURST
Is it not the policy of the right hon. Gentleman to instal no new exchange in a village unless a certain commerical profit is anticipated?

§ Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL
No. Exchanges may be established in villages even though there may be some loss initially, but certainly exchanges are not established if it is inticipated that there will be a continuous permanent loss.