§ 118 Mr. JOYNSON-HICKSasked the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that the bulk of commercial 221 cabling is done by the use of private codes; and whether he will consider the licensing of these codes in the event of application by reputable business firms under conditions to be arranged between them and his Department; (2) that of the four codes recently permitted under the censorship two of them are American, one of them is duplicated in the German language and has a large circulation in Germany, and three of them are prior in date to the International Code Convention of 1903; if so, whether he will reconsider the admission of later codes; and (3) that modern codes subsequent to the International Code Convention of 1903 enabled merchants and others to telegraph at from 25 per cent. to 40 per cent. less expense than by the user of the pre-1903 codes; and whether he took any technical and commercial advice as to the codes to be admitted under the censorship?
§ Mr. HOBHOUSEThe question whether private codes could be admitted was carefully considered by the military authorities, who are primarily responsible for the censorship on telegrams; but they are strongly opposed to the adoption of private codes, which, apart from other objections, would probably result in considerable delay owing to the difficulty of decoding them for censorship purposes. The selection of the codes to be authorised was made on the advice of the Board of Trade. The question whether any other published codes can be admitted is under consideration.
§ Mr. JOYNSON-HICKSWill the right hon. Gentleman receive a deputation from the parties?
§ Mr. HOBHOUSEI have seen so many persons on that subject, and I hope I have satisfied so many that I hardly think it is necessary