HC Deb 12 April 1946 vol 421 cc2261-94

Order for Second Reading read.

1.25 p.m.

The Assistant Postmaster-General (Mr. Burke)

I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

The object of this Bill is to enable the Post Office to borrow the money necessary for the development of the telephone, telegraph and postal systems. The details of the services are set out in the Financial Memorandum attached to the Bill, and it will be seen that of the total of £50 million required £46 million is for the telephone system. The Bill is similar to previous Bills which have been presented at intervals of two or three years. In 1937 the amount authorised was £35 million; in 1939, £40 million and in 1942, £35 million. There is a balance from the last Bill which according to present indications, will last possibly till September, 1946. The amount authorised by the last Bill in 1942 was used solely for developments directly connected with the prosecution of the war, including telephone facilities needed for Civil Defence services and the vast industrial activities associated with the war effort. During the war supplies of labour and materials have been severely limited, and as a result ordinary civilian requirements had to be set aside in the field of Post Office activities as in many other fields. The result is that a mass of arrears of work has accumulated particularly on the telephone side. This explains why the amount asked for in this Bill is larger than that asked for on previous occasions. In addition, the Post Office will take over a certain amount of the plant which was constructed for direct war purposes. The borrowing powers of the Bill will be used to the extent of this absorption of war plant for civilian use.

There are certain difficulties which the Post Office has experienced during the war period, which it is still experiencing and which unfortunately will not disappear for some time to come. A few moments ago I referred to the fact that during the war ordinary civilian needs had to be neglected because of the labour and materials shortage. In the Post Office the labour position was very acute. There was an enlistment of over 80,000. From the engineering staff of 41,000 no fewer than 16,000 enlisted in the Forces, and it was never possible to obtain more than 11,000 temporary recruits to replace them. The result was that thousands of applications for telephone service could not be met, and there is now a waiting list of over 300,000. With the cessation of hostilities demands for telephone service poured in at an increased rate. During the prewar days the average applications per quarter were 105,000. In the first three months of this quarter the number of applications is just double that amount, 210,000. In addition to the accumulated arrears of the war years, present applications have added to the list, and we are now facing a good number of arrears.

We have to make up considerable leeway. In many localities plant in the exchanges and underground cables has been used up and it will be some considerable time before we can tackle the problem of those areas. The borrowing powers of the Bill are necessary to enable us to get the plant and equipment for meeting the waiting list and improving the telecommunication service as quickly as possible. Of the £50 million authorised, at least £17 million will be spent each year, and as far as it is possible that rate of expenditure will be increased in order to improve services more quickly. As a matter of fact, we have already set about the task. During the past few months the Post Office has been installing telephones at the rate of 50,000 per month, or nearly 50 per cent. more than the prewar rate of 36,000. During the next few weeks we expect to reach what is a landmark in this country. We shall instal the four millionth telephone. This is a notable and commendable achievement when we remember the large number of highly skilled engineers who are still with the Forces, and the considerable amount of extra work thrown upon the staff by storm and flood damage.

Fifty thousand telephone installations per month is a record, but the Department plans to do even better and hopes to provide telephones at the rate of 700,000 per year. People today are telephone minded, and we are anxious that the telephone should not be merely a business luxury or a business necessity, but an ordinary domestic amenity. While, therefore, we shall make every effort to improve output, it must be remembered that to provide every subscriber with a telephone there must be a separate pair of wires from his premises to the exchange. This means providing ducts, underground cables and exchange buildings in many cases, and for this class of work, unfortunately, the Post Office is in competition with other Departments and with the building industry generally. Notwithstanding this, the work of providing ducts and cables is already going on and in over 200 towns the work has begun well and plans are in preparation for work in a large number of additional towns. Contracts are ready to be placed in over 100 towns as soon as the contractors can take them, and we are making arrangements to obtain prisoner of war assistance for contractors. The rate of expenditure on ducts and cables will lump from £1½ million per year to at least £4 million per year. Side by side with the laying of cables is the necessity to provide new plant in the exchanges, and already close on £3 million worth of plant has been ordered' from the manufacturers, which will provide some 300,000 subscribers lines at 360 exchanges.

This work will be delayed for some time because the supply of labour is linked with demobilisation, but we are expecting back a constant flow of skilled Post Office engineers into the work of the Department, and we hope that there will be an acceleration in the rate of progress to shorten the period. In the meantime, we have made arrangements for the release of skilled engineers under Scheme B and a number of them are already back in the Post Office service. Side by side with these steps the training of additional men is proceeding, and the services of as many additional trained men as can be spared from the Army Signals personnel have been borrowed. As a result of all these steps, the engineering rank and file staff, which before the war amounted to 41,000 men and at the end of the war was 36,000, will in a short time reach the figure of 45,000. I mentioned earlier that the Post Office will be able to absorb a considerable part of the plant laid down for war purposes. The defence Services have already surrendered a considerable number of trunk circuits, and there are now in use for the public more than 12,000 circuits over 25 miles. That compares with 7,000 in prewar years.

Inland telegraph traffic during the financial year ending 31st March, 1946, was 29 per cent. higher than in 1938–39 the last complete year before the war. This indicates the increase in traffic which has been a constant feature of the war years. During the war it was necessary to introduce as an emergency measure the decentralisation of the telegraph services, and this was done to safeguard our communications against damage from air attack. It had the effect of increasing the number of transmissions per telegram, and the service is handicapped still further by the destruction of the Central Telegraph Office in London as well as the offices in Birmingham, Bristol, Liverpool, Exeter and Plymouth. All these places were vital centres in the telegraph service. We now contemplate reconstructing the telegraph network by the introduction of switching methods, which will be completed in 1947. However, we hope by the end of 1946 to have made sufficient progress to enable us to give telegraph services comparable with our pre-war standards.

In conclusion, may I stress the very high output which the Post Office as a public enterprise, charged with the duty of providing telephone and telegraph services for the community, has succeeded in obtaining in eight months after the conclusion of hostilities. Compared with prewar days, the Post Office is carrying 30 per cent, more telegrams, handling 90 per cent. more long distance trunk calls and is connecting up to 50 per cent. more telephones each month. It will be readily realised that this has meant hard and continuous work by the whole of the staff, and very briefly but sincerely I desire to express my appreciation of the efforts made by the staff during the six years of war, and to state that they have now turned with equal zeal to the tasks of peace so that the public may have the service to which it is entitled and which it is the desire of the Department to provide.

1.35 p.m.

Mr. Grimston (Westbury)

I should like my first words to echo what has just fallen from the lips of the hon. Gentleman as regards the staff of the Post Office. The opportunity does not often present itself, but I would like in this House to pay a tribute to the fine work which from my own experience I know they did during the war. I would also like to tell the hon. Gentleman that I am sure that for any lead which he may give to that staff he will get a response.

He has given us a catalogue of what has been done, and I know the difficulties of his Department very well indeed, particularly at this time. It is true to say, I think, that there is a perceptible improvement both in postal and telephone and telegraph services. However, I was very disappointed in the remarks that he had to make on this Bill. He gave us no views as to the future standard of service which the Post Office should give to the public. I think he had a magnificent opportunity on this occasion to paint on a broad canvas some idea of what are the future plans and how the service can be expanded in a manner in which it can best serve the commercial and private interests of this country-in the time which is coming when those interests will want all the help they can get.

The amount of some £4. million which is being asked for the postal services seems rather small, and I would like to know some more about that. I would give the hon. Gentleman the reason why I consider it seems to me rather small. Perhaps I may recall an incident that happened to me during the war. An American over here, whom I met upon a semi-official occasion, said to me," Well, we will give it to you as far as your postal services are concerned in this country, but your telephones—" and he shook his head. At that time all I could tell him was that the telephone side of the Department was fully occupied in providing the immense amount of work necessary for the defence Services, and that he should not judge by our telephone system in wartime what we hope to make it in the future. Even in wartime, however, he said our postal services were far better than the American. That is merely by the way, to give an outside opinion. I want to know what the Post Office have in mind with regard to the future postal services. I believe it is an axiom, and I think it is a right one, that you want of the postal services three things: first, regularity; second, speed; and third, cheapness, with the priorities in that order.

I believe the best target to go for would be a postal system whereby a letter can be posted anywhere in this country round about six to seven o'clock in the evening, and be delivered anywhere else in the United Kingdom by first post the next morning. With modern methods—with aeroplanes, helicopters, speedier trains, motor transport and the rest of it—that should be possible, but it means considerable capital expenditure and probably the rebuilding of sorting offices and so on. I am disappointed that the hon. Gentleman made no mention of what he has in mind with regard to the future postal services. If the scheme that I have adumbrated is in mind, it will call for a good deal more expenditure than that provided in this Bill, and that makes me ask what he has in mind with regard to the development of the postal services.

I turn to the telephone side. I do not want anything I say here to imply any censure on what is being done by the staff of the Post Office in trying to catch up the leeway to which the hon. Gentleman referred. There is a lot of leeway to be caught up. I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman did not give us any vision of the future. Is the ultimate object to be a trunk demand service over the whole country and, if so, has he any idea when that can be brought about? Also, has he any idea what the density of the telephone service is to be? In future, are the telephone ducts to be put down with the drains and with the water services, with the idea that almost every house will have a telephone if it is wanted? Is he looking as far ahead as that? Again, how much is being done in the way of scrapping old plant in order to put in new plant? In ordinary commercial enterprise there is a far more forward scrapping policy than there is with the Post Office, and the reason is probably not very far to seek. It lies in these words which occur in the Bill: The programme of expenditure and the works to be carried out in each year are subject to the approval of the Treasury. I do not think the Treasury likes to see plant scrapped until it has run whatever was its projected life of service, notwithstanding how obsolete it becomes, and I do not believe you will be able quickly to arrive at a really efficient and widespread telephone service unless the Post Office is prepared to scrap rather more freely than it has done in the past.

There are one or two other points on which I do not ask for answers today, for there will be another stage of the Bill when the hon. Gentleman can reply. I would like to know what proportion of this £46 million will be applied to taking over plant which was installed under the Vote of Credit. During the war a trunk line system equivalent to the whole of the trunk lines system which existed before the war was laid down for the defence Services, so there is already to hand on the main trunk routes a tremendous amount of plant which will be useful for postwar development. On the other hand, there had, of necessity, to be a great deal of work done in remote places, to aerodromes and so on, which will never be of commercial use, or very little. Can the hon. Gentleman give me any idea what proportion of this £46 million will be wiped out simply by taking over plant laid down under the Vote of Credit?

There will be great difficulty for some years to come in getting the buildings that are necessary, and I should like to know how far the question has been explored of using temporary buildings, and possibly of taking over any sort of building which can be given up by the Service Departments, in order temporarily to house the new equipment required for rapid expansion of the service. It always used to be said to me that the trouble with the Post Office was that it could never do anything unless "it put knobs on." That, by and large, is good in ordinary times, but in times like these some "knobs," so to speak, may have to be sacrificed in order to get the service going, leaving the "knobs" to be put on later. I was glad to hear what the hon. Gentleman said about the telegraph switching service, and of the progress made there. I hope that that will shortly be completed, and I have not the slightest doubt that it will result in a much improved telegraph service.

I would stress that at the present time we are living to some extent in a fool's paradise so far as our trade is concerned, because it is a seller's market. One has only to make any old thing in order to sell it. But the time will come, it may be sooner or later, when we shall have to compete in the world and sell our goods in competition with others. There is not the slightest doubt that an efficient postal, telegraph and telephone system in this country can contribute very largely to help our exporting firms and our other firms which also have to meet competition. I hope that the hon. Gentleman and his noble Friend are looking ahead and will not be content, as it seemed to me was a little implied in his speech, with just making up leeway. The hon. Gentleman talked at one moment of restoring prewar levels. We shall have to go further than that. We require a postal service in this country, on the lines I have laid down, which will be second to none. We must certainly have a telephone service which is as good as, or even better than those in America, Sweden and other countries. I hope the hon. Gentleman will not be content with catching up what has been lost during the war, but that he will plan ahead for the time when we shall need the best and most efficient postal and telegraph service we can get. If he and his Noble Friend will give a lead, it will be readily followed by the excellent staff which he has at his command in the Post Office.

1.48 p.m.

Mr. Harry Wallace (Walthamstow, East)

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the staff of the Post Office will respond to a lead. They will certainly respond more readily to a lead coupled with imagination. I know of no institution on which the nation depends so much for efficiency in so many directions as on the Post Office, with its many services—telephone, telegraph, postal, counter and social. I was glad to hear the tributes paid to the staff. They are deserved. I shall not be influenced by what the American, mentioned by the hon. Gentleman, said unless I know, for example, what the American letter carrier had to say about the American's views on their letter services. I am not attracted by persons who visit a country for a week, and then come back and tell one all that there is to know about it. I have been about this country a good deal. I know some towns very well, but I would not like to say that I know everything about them. I am reminded that in the 1929–31 Parliament we heard a lot about the wonderful Americans. When everything is taken into account, I doubt very much whether from the point of view of equipment, maintenance and length of service, their telephone service is so good as the British system. My recollection is that we invest much more capital, and that in consequence our community has a much better telephone system. That is not to say that it cannot be improved.

My hon. Friend indicated that the money he seeks to obtain through this Bill is not the last word. It is an instalment. As I understand it, this sum of money will meet requirements until June, 1948. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Westbury (Mr. Grimston) spoke of there being a seller's market. He wants vision. So do I, but I think that we have to look at this proposal within the limits indicated in the Bill, and its immediate requirements. My hon. Friend gave indications that there was vision on the part of the administration. Indeed, since the war, there are good sign of the right approach to these problems.

As regards the telephone system, I agree, judging from letters I receive from my constituents, that there is indeed an urgent demand for improvement. I am glad my hon. Friend has given indications that his Department appreciate the urgency of that demand, and are endeavouring to meet it on a scale superior to that of prewar. I agree with the hon. Member for Westbury that we do not want the prewar standard to be the limit or the basis of development in the future. An ex-Service man coming home may start up a motor car business. The success of it will turn upon the man having a telephone. The same is true of small tradesmen, etc., but I want to put in a plea for a person who is very rarely mentioned in these discussions of the development of the telephone system. I referred to this matter in the 1929–31 Parliament, and I hope that my hon. Friend will find it possible to give some attention to this aspect of the question. If there is one place in this country which needs the telephone, it is the home of the working mother. I hope, therefore, that my hon. Friend will endeavour to see that the telephone is put into the home of the worker in this country. I would like to see the rental reduced, but I appreciate that that may not be possible. I would like my hon. Friend to give some consideration to whether we cannot devise some easier method of payment of the charges. I am satisfied that the working mother of this country has much need of the telephone, and I hope we will see development in that direction.

The hon. Member for Westbury referred to telephone density. We want to see many more telephones. I would like to see that density increased in the country and rural districts. If the telephone service is developed, as I hope it will be, it may be possible to accelerate the disposal of telegrams, and improve that aspect of the service, about which some hon. Members were complaining the other day. I feel that not enough has been said about the postal side. No doubt my hon. Friend will be saying something later, or on another occasion will be able to deal with it in more detail. I remember that after the last war the administration's plans for development and building lacked imagination, and were too small. Often a building which had been designed by an architect was out of date before the builder was ready to erect it. I, therefore, hope that buildings will be on a large scale. I am not so sure that temporary buildings can be converted into buildings which are suitable for use by the Post Office. They can be used, but very often the temporary building is a waste of money.

After the last war sometimes so much time elapsed between the drawing up of the plans and the time when the builder got to work that opportunities were lost. I hope my hon. Friend will get an improvement there and, if he has to talk to the Treasury, I hope he will talk pretty strongly. I make bold to say, and I put it very modestly, that hundreds of thousands of pounds were lost to the community as a result of the delay among the several Departments. I wish that the Postmaster-General had greater power and was able to act quickly in the interest of the community and for the speedier development of the services.

On the postal side they use millions of mail bags. Mail bags get into a very filthy condition. It is not possible to say to what extent that condition contributes to the sickness which arises among the staff. I know what the dust from bags does to the temper of the wives of the men when they go home after handling for a day dirty, filthy bags. A system is needed by which mail bags can be cleaned frequently and periodically. I think perhaps the secret lies in the erection of suitable laundries. I hope my hon. Friend will keep in mind this much needed improvement. I am told, for example, that laundries exist in Germany for this purpose and I believe the Germans were ahead of us in the methods employed for cleaning mail bags. I was told that the German Post Office made quite a reasonable revenue out of the by products resulting from the cleaning of mail bags, the dust and so forth. That sounds strange, but I was assured it is correct. I suppose science can make use of anything.

I want to emphasise that if there is one thing the staff would appreciate it is that a real serious attempt should be made to deal with the cleaning of mail bags. I believe the solution lies in the utilisation of money for the erection of laundries in which these bags could be cleaned periodically and frequently. If necessary, I hope my hon. Friend will have the courage to experiment. The staff would cooperate and I am sure the experiment would succeed. If my hon. Friend could be the first to bring revenue to the British Post Office from the by products resulting from bag cleaning, I think he would earn a place in the memory of the staff.

Finally, I thank the hon. Member for Westbury and my hon. Friend the Minister for their generous references to the staff of the Post Office and the service they gave during the war. During that period there was one thing you could always rely upon in London; postmen turned up in the morning with the letters though the enemy had blitzed us like hell all night.

1.59 p.m.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Thomas Moore (Ayr Burghs)

Happily, I am not tied by past or present service in the Post Office to withholding any criticisms that I may seek to make in respect of the telegraph or telephone services. I think the Minister made a very persuasive speech but it was obviously an ex parte state- ment. The only criticism I could make of it is that it lacked a sense of urgency. It is a sense of urgency that should bestir every Government Department today. In perusing this short and apparently innocuous Bill, the first word that I have to criticise is right in the first line—the word "development." That does not seem to me to be a suitable word for this occasion. One can develop a bad habit, a cold or a disease. Many bad habits have been developed in our public telephone service. I would suggest that the Minister and the Parliamentary draftsmen should think again and put in the word "improvement" and then let them read the Bill. How much more convincing and comforting to this House and to the public it would be. It would then provide for, raising capital for the improvement of the postal, telegraph and telephone systems. I propose to put down an Amendment to this effect in Committee and so my remarks today will give the Minister an opportunity of anticipating my efforts.

It seems to me we are rather fortunate to have this Debate today. It gives the House an opportunity of discussing the original example of this odd, but now very prevalent, policy adopted by the Government, of nationalising our industries. Here we have the original nationalised service. I would have thought that the Government, with this example in front of them—or possibly, behind them—would think twice before embarking on further nationalisation proposals because, believe me, the postal, telegraph, and telephone services are by no means as satisfactory as the Minister tried to show. I do not know whether he studies the daily Press or whether he receives the average number of letters sent to Members of Parliament. If he does he will have got the same impression as the hon. Member for East Walthamstow (Mr. H. Wallace), namely, that all is not well with the telephone, telegraph, and postal services in this country. I am not going to deal with the Post Office itself because, although it leaves much to be desired—particularly as regards pens that will not write and blotting paper that will not blot—it passes muster: I should say that during the war we have not had much to complain about. A considerable amount of vision has been shown especially in regard to airgraphs. The introduction of airgraphs showed great vision and imagination. It brought happiness and comfort to many thousands of people at home as well as abroad. Apart from that, I think the Post Office has been a little weak in the development —or the improvement, to come back to my own word—of our system.

pass to the telephone system, and on this I have something to say. I think the system is simply deplorable, especially if compared with the United States of America. Let us examine it under its various somewhat lamentable headings. I was not convinced by the Minister when he used those usual parrot-like cries about "labour" and "material." The war has been over for eight months now. With the present Armies of Occupation on non-operational duties throughout the world, we do not, we cannot, use all the signals staff who were torn from the Post Office and telephone services and deposited in the Army and Navy. They cannot be needed there now. They must be getting back their skill and training and returning to their old jobs. The material for the telephone instruments cannot be in very short supply. Where are the instruments released by the Forces? I know they are not of quite the same type but they would serve a very useful purpose distributed among the homes of our people. Let us consider the question of instruments. In the average hotel or boarding house in this country—I will not deal with homes—there is one instrument on the ground floor. Suppose a call comes through for a visitor at that hotel when lie is shaving, dressing or having his breakfast. Some little time elapses until he gets downstairs to the instrument. Many things happen during the interval before he reaches the instrument. First, the call is cut off. Then the young lady who wields all power at the exchange gets tired. Then the caller gets tired. Then a trunk call intervenes, and finally the unfortunate usee "—I can think of no better, or worse, English—has lost his breakfast, has missed his bath and, incidentally, has lost his temper too. In America, where I had the privilege of spending a month or two before the war, there are instruments not only on every floor, but practically in every room and, generally, there is a portable instrument on every breakfast table. The hon. Gentleman will, no doubt, repeat that he has all these wonderful plans for supplying millions of instruments, but we want them now.

Mr. Cobb (Elland)

The hon. and gallant Gentleman will agree, I think, that the usual planning, time in factories before the war was at least eight months from the time of starting to plan, until the article was produced.

Sir T. Moore

I thought I had dealt with that point a few moments ago when I referred to the vast numbers of instruments which must have been released from the Services. I should say there are thousands of them; I do not know what they are doing.

Then I come to the vexed question of wrong numbers. Why should there be wrong numbers now that the automatic dialling system is in force nearly everywhere? Last winter I asked the Minister a Question on this point, and he complacently answered that only 1.5 per cent. of Londoners, and slightly less outside London, had to suffer this inconvenience. Well, I had five wrong numbers the morning I put that Question down, and so I was somewhat hesitant to accept his answer. But suppose we do accept it as approximately accurate, what is the result? It means, on the assumption that one-third of our population—that is, about 15,000,000—are telephone users, there must be 5,000,000 wrong numbers annually. That is a fantastic figure which I do not believe any Postmaster-General can justify. Then I raised another question with the hon. Gentleman, and asked who paid for these wrong numbers. Of course, he could not answer, because with the dialling system the Post Office cannot possibly know when there is a wrong number. The result is that the Post Office today are raking£40,000 a year into their coffers, to which they are not entitled and which we pay.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Hubert Beaumont)

I am afraid the hon. and gallant Gentleman is on a wrong number now. He cannot deal with the charges which are made.

Sir T. Moore

I thought that I was probably straying, and I will not pursue the matter. However, the Minister might bear those points in mind and refresh his memory about the questions that I raised last year.

There is one other point to which the public attach some importance and which this money is obviously designed to cover, and that is the issue of charges. As hon. Members know, one receives monthly a yellow form with a lot of hieroglyphics on it which mean nothing to the recipient, and, I imagine, very little to the sender.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

Again the hon. and gallant Gentleman is out of Order. He cannot deal with charges.

Sir T. Moore

Then I will have to develop the argument on other lines. Might I, therefore, refer to the present system by which a subscriber endeavours to get a toll call, a trunk call, or that very golden voiced operator who is secured by dialling "O "? I must say the Post Office choose their voices well. They are always very pleasant voices to listen to, but the result is not always as satisfactory or pleasant as the voice. What I want to bring to the notice of the House, and what the country want to know, is why, if one dials "TOL," "TRU" or "O" the result in each case is precisely the same—silence. Possibly the Minister could give me some explanation of that queer happening. Of course, sometimes one hears those girlish voices discussing events of the previous evenings with their boy friends. That is a diversion—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

It is a diversion into which the hon. and gallant Gentleman cannot go any further.

Sir T. Moore

I accept your Ruling, immediately, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, and I would not for a moment consider taking advantage of your kindness. It may appear that I have stressed the lighter side of these complaints and troubles from which the public are suffering, but I wish to impress on the Minister that this deficiency—I am afraid one must regard it as such—in the present telephone system occurs at a most critical period in our history when, as the hon. Member for Westbury (Mr. Grimston) said, we are trying to re-establish and recapture our foreign and even our own domestic trade. The telephone is a fundamental channel by which this trade can be recaptured and re-established. The Post Office is an important channel, but I think the telephone is more important. Therefore, I ask the Minister to pay attention to that phrase which I used at the beginning of my speech—" a sense of urgency "—because it is by the result of his efforts that this country will more quickly feel the warm winds of prosperity than by any other.

2.13 p.m.

Mr. H. Hynd (Hackney, Central)

I propose to detain the House only a few minutes to put forward what I regard as an item of priority in the spending of this money which we are now considering. Those of us who occasionally get leisure to go to the cinema or to the theatre are often highly amused when we see a character making a telephone call. On dialling a number, he is immediately connected with the person with whom he wishes to speak, and it has often occurred to me that he cannot possibly be dialling some of the exchanges with which I have the misfortune to deal. I live—and I am now speaking from bitter experience—in a borough which is partly covered by the Tudor Exchange. I hope the Minister will take notice of that name. I also have the honour to represent a constituency which is served—or not served—by the Clissold Exchange. Would the Minister please write that name down, too? Those two exchanges are on the manual system still, and there is no doubt that we do not get anything like the same efficient service from those manual exchanges that we get from the automatic exchanges. The Minister will have had a resolution from the Hornsey Borough Council, passed unanimously, complaining about the system at Tudor Exchange. I hope he will be able to give some priority to the changing over of that and the Clissold Exchange to the automatic system.

In criticising the manual exchanges I am not criticising the staff. I have taken the precaution of seeing for myself the automatic and the manual exchange systems at work. It is clear to anyone who does so that defects are not the fault of the staff. The way in which the numbers come up on the illuminated panel at a manually operated exchange do not give the staff the full opportunity of connecting subscribers. That is entirely the fault of the system. The sooner we can get all exchanges, in London at any rate, made automatic the better it will be. The change is essential.

During the war, London was very well served by its telephone system, which was the nervous system of the capital. As a very humble cog in the Civil Defence system in those days, I developed a tremendous admiration for the telephone system and for the postal service.

The telephone system was one of the wonders of the war in London. I cannot speak for any other part of the country. It saved us many times. It saved many lives during the raids. The weak spot always was that in our district we had to use an out of date exchange. We could never depend upon getting the response, which took very much longer than upon the other system. I almost feel a bit suspicious because of the way the hon. and gallant Member for Ayr Burghs (Sir T. Moore) is agreeing with me. I had better say something on which I do not agree with him. From what I have already stated, hon. Members will believe that I developed a tremendous admiration for the postal and telephone services during the war. Contrary to what the hon. and gallant Member said, I regard that admiration as a very good argument for the efficiency of a nationalised service. Now we know where we are. Perhaps we are not entirely in agreement.

I agree with the hon. and gallant Member that the telephone has become something more than a luxury. It is now a necessity in every home. I do not go so far as to say that the instruments which were used for war purposes could be utilised. It is not easy to imagine some of the mothers of the country operating field telephones. Nevertheless, the sooner we get telephone instruments in every home the nearer we shall get to being a civilised nation. In supporting the spending of this money which we are asked to authorise, I urge the Minister to spend some of it in converting the Tudor and Clissold exchanges into automatic exchanges as early as possible.

2.19 p.m.

Major Diģby (Dorset, Western)

I add my plea that a reasonable portion of this money should be spent upon the development of the telegraph and telephone services, particularly in rural districts, where the population is very spread out. I am convinced that the Post Office could do a very great deal that has not been done in the past. I understand the difficulties of the Post Office. They are the same as the difficulties of other Departments and undertakings. Nevertheless, the time is coining when we must look forward. I, in common with one or two other hon. Members, was disappointed that the Assistant Postmaster-General had not more to tell us about his plans for the future. We need to look again at the Post Office and to get, once again, the Rowland Hill mentality.

I put a Question the other day to the Assistant Postmaster - General as to whether he was willing to raise the weight of parcels accepted by the Department. At present the limit is 15 lbs. When the parcels post was first introduced in 1878, seven lbs. were allowed. Since then, there has been an increase of only eight lbs., contrary to the practice of many foreign countries. I understand that a parcel weighing 22 lbs. can be sent abroad. I cannot understand, therefore, why it is so difficult to raise the weight of internal parcels above 15 lbs. The matter is of importance to people who live in country districts an extremely long way from the nearest railway station. If things are sent to them by rail, all kinds of complications are caused. If they can receive heavier parcels by post they would be able to get things delivered to their doors in a much more convenient way. The change that I am suggesting would be an enormous help to them. In these days of motor vehicles I do not see why it should not be possible. I hope that the Assistant Postmaster-General will give the matter further consideration.

Another important matter is postal delivery. I hope that some of the money will be spent upon the postal deliveries. In the hamlet where I live, my letters are delivered at 11.30 in the morning by an unfortunate postman who has to traverse an enormous area before he reaches me. I can see absolutely no reason why that man should not have either a motor cycle or a van. He would be able to accomplish his job so much more efficiently. I hope this will be the kind of development which the Assistant Postmaster General has in mind.

Mr. Walkden (Doncaster)

Has the hon. and gallant Member considered trying to deliver letters, or even groceries, from door to door in a rural area, using a motor cycle or a van, as compared with using a foot cycle? May I ask also whether the hon. and gallant Member thinks it is going to be easy to deliver these 22 lb. parcels he is asking the Department for?

Major Diģby

This is a different question. The Minister has not yet agreed to increase the size of parcels. Postmen to whom I have spoken agree that it would be very much better. I should like to read an extract from a local newspaper: The postal arrangements of this town are most unsatisfactory. We do not get our London papers and letters, even by sending for them, until after 10 o'clock, and the Northern letters do not reach us until the second day after they have been posted at Birmingham, Cheltenham, etc. The newspaper goes on to say that representations have been made about the matter. The Assistant Postmaster-General may think that we have nothing to complain about, that it is reasonable to have to wait two or three days before we receive our letters. Let me tell the Assistant Postmaster-General that this newspaper cutting is exactly 100 years old. It is dated 1846 and is from the "Western Gazette." Surely the Minister ought to set himself a higher standard than that today? The time has come when the Post Office has got to look forward again. In 1846 Rowland Hill's reforms had just been introduced. The time has come to look forward once again and see whether, in the light of modern developments, we cannot do a little better.

Only yesterday a Question was asked on the subject of telegrams. A custom, about which I had not heard before, is developing in rural areas, whereby telegrams are received by post the following day. If somebody wished to communicate by post they would, presumably, send a letter by post. If they send a telegram it means they are in a hurry. I hope that this practice, which might conceivably have been justified in wartime, will stop at once, because it is most unfair and causes the greatest hardship to a number of people.

In regard to postal and telegraph services, I am a little disappointed that only £4 million out of £50 million has been allocated for development. With the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Ayr Burghs (Sir T. Moore), I hope for improvement as well as development. In comparison with the £46 million which is being set aside for telephone development, million seems to be very small. I hope we shall hear more about this, because I am perfectly certain there is room for a great deal more improvement. I am very glad that £46 million is being set aside for the improvement of telephones, because we get uni- versal complaints about them, particularly in the country. They are constantly going wrong. I know that in many cases it is due to the fact that the lines have been neglected during the years of war. However, we do now need a higher standard.

The time has come when every village and hamlet is entitled to a public call box. As has been said on the other side of the House this afternoon, quite rightly, the public is much more telephone minded than it used to be. There is a very real demand for the services of a telephone. In my village I am the only person who has a telephone. I know, from the number of people who want to borrow it, just what that demand is. I understand that a public call box cannot be installed in a village until there has been some kind of guarantee by the local authority that it will pay, or something of the kind. I hope the Assistant Postmaster-General will correct me if I am wrong. If that is the case, I think that restriction should be removed. The people of this country, even if they live in isolated places, should have the advantage of being able to go to a public call box. I am convinced that in the long run, so far from being a heavy charge on the very large profits of the Post Office, it would pay.

I hope that when the Assistant Postmaster-General is deciding how this money is to be spent he will bear these developments in mind, that he will use his imagination, and that he will think of the unfortunate people who live far from any town.

2.29 p.m.

Mr. John Edwards (Blackburn)

I am very glad indeed that my hon. Friend the Assistant Postmaster-General and the hon. Member for Westbury (Mr. Grimston) have used the occasion of this Debate to express their appreciation of the war work of the Post Office staff. I am quite certain the staff of the Post Office will welcome this recognition of the work that they have done. I must admit that I can understand the impatience of the public at the present time at the very low standard of telephone efficiency, compared with what it was before the war. There is also impatience at the long delays in getting new telephone services. I must say, however, that some of the criticisms are very wide of the mark, and the remarks of the hon. and gallant Member for Ayr Burghs (Sir T. Moore) were, I think, a complete travesty of the situation. He urged the Assistant Postmaster-General to have a sense of urgency. Time and time again I wanted to interrupt the hon. and gallant Member in order to ask him to have a sense of proportion.

I would like to show the House how these difficulties appear to me, looked at from the angle, mainly, of the engineering personnel of the Post Office. What was the situation? At the outbreak of war the engineering department lost about a quarter of its staff from the word "Go" because such a large proportion of them were either in the Reserve, or in the Territorials. It was only after a time-lag of some two years that the department began to replace the men who had gone by women, and to train them for skilled work. I do not think it is commonly appreciated that the Post Office has provided for the Armed Forces and the Civil Defence Forces all their communications in this country. The engineering and telecommunications branches of the Post Office have done, here in Britain, what would have been done by a corps of signals for an expeditionary force. Is it commonly known that the communications for Bomber Command, Fighter Command, Central R.A.F. Station and the so-called Whitehall "Q" station were all maintained exclusively by Post Office personnel? What does this mean? It means, that during the war the Post Office was concentrating the whole of its efforts on providing communications for the Services and for other essential war purposes. It would have been quite impossible for that to have been done without the ordinary subscriber being sacrificed to some extent.

The concentration on war work means that there is a tremendous leeway to make up. During the years of the war, development—by which I mean the expansion of the telephone service—was impeded. Apart from the new lines necessary for war purposes no ordinary development was proceeded with at all. It therefore follows that we cannot overnight, nor in a relatively short space of time like eight months, make up for the six years during which time the ordinary work was suspended. That is a point that hon. Members who make criticisms must remember. Do not expect the impossible. Do not expect because war has come to an end that, therefore, automatically it is possible to put in hand all the work that would have been done, had there been no war.

I think, too, we should recognise that there is an acute shortage of equipment and plant of various kinds. We should understand that, not only was the Post Office concentrating on war work, but the makers of Post Office equipment and the contractors were doing the same. Not more than 20 per cent. of the output of the manufacturers' equipment was forthcoming to the Post Office during the years of the war. The quicker the manufacturers are able to turn over to ordinary peacetime production and give the Post Office a substantially increased output of equipment, the sooner we can look for improvements in some respects.

Without being able to develop the matter in detail, I would point out that the Post Office has in front of it, if it uses this money wisely and properly, tremendous technical opportunities. There is no reason why we should not proceed to make the telephone system completely automatic. There is no reason why, as the years go on, we should not increasingly work towards the idea/ of having only one operator for each trunk call, whatever the distance involved. There is no reason why we should not extend direct dialling so that we can achieve that aim. There is no reason why we should not increasingly use co-axial cables and multichannel carrier circuits. Expensive equipment is needed, but this equipment gives much more effective results and will, in the end, save money. If we take advantage of the opportunities now presenting themselves to us, not only can we look forward to an increasingly fine service in this country, but we can also expect that British telephone standards will hold the field in many parts of the world.

To compare Britain with America is most unfair; it is to compare a country which has been in the front line of the war with one which has been nowhere near the front line. Had it not been for these last six years of war, the service would have been improved almost out of recognition. The energy and enthusiasm which went into the work in the years before the war can now be put into the work again. If, however, we are to spend this money as wisely as I think we should, we must see that a fairly substantial proportion of it is devoted to research, because we cannot continue to live on the past. Our equipment must be brought up to date, and I would urge that more money should be spent on the research side.

I am, I think, in a position to say that any words of praise spoken about the service of the staff during the war are not misplaced and that in the Post Office there are thousands of good, keen workers who are proud to work for the State and are ready to play their part in the development of this fine service.

2.37 p.m.

Mr. Cobb (Elland)

I will not detain the House long, because, like other hon. Members, I am interested in the discussion which is to follow. This however is a fascinating subject and many of us would have liked to spend more time on it. I would add my word in support of the congratulations already offered to the Post Office staff. It is inherent in the type of equipment used in automatic exchanges that continual and careful maintenance is necessary. The reason why there has not been that maintenance is, as has been said, because we have not had the people. I am sure that when the men get back on the job, we shall see the telephone department giving us the good service which we got before the war.

The Post Office is the largest Government monopoly up to now. Our Government have the finest chance in the world to show what a good Post Office service can be like. I hope they will make full use of this opportunity to prove that a Government monopoly can give the public a fine, cheap and efficient service. We can do many things with the Post Office that have not been done in the past. When the building situation is a little easier, why cannot we make the post offices of all our main towns the finest buildings in those towns, and why cannot we make the internal arrangements of our post offices a means of serving the public cheaply and efficiently? These things involve research into new methods for handling and training Post Office staffs. Here is a wonderful field of opportunity for the Post Office. As to sub-post offices, these, as' a rule, are run by private shopkeepers. Why should they not be brought up to date? Why should not the Post Office allocate labour and money for bringing these small shops up to date and making them brighter and more cheerful centres of their small communities?

Now I would like to deal particularly with the telephone and telegraph services. At the moment, as the Assistant Postmaster-General said, the accent is on production and new apparatus, but I think he will agree with me that in a few years from now, sales are going to be the real need because the cost of a service of this description depends on density. In order to get density we must go out and "sell the Post Office" to the community. We want to see a telephone in every home; we want the public to become telephone and telegraph minded. I would like the Assistant Postmaster-General to tell us what are the future plans for doing this. Is he making market surveys, or preparing to make surveys, in order to find out what kind of telephone service people want, and what they are prepared to pay for it? What is he going to do to ensure that every household in the country becomes telephone minded and wishes to have the telephone installed? To do this we have to find out the facts, and to find out the facts we ought to prepare market surveys now, so that, in the long run, we can get the best and cheapest telephone and telegraph service in the world.

2.42 p.m.

Mr. Walkden (Doncaster)

I rise to participate in this Debate only because of the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr. John Edwards). I represent a provincial constituency, and the fact of residing in London causes one to feel a great sense of gratitude and a great admiration for the remarkable work done by Post Office workers during the difficult days of the war. One appreciates how they overcame difficulties despite some of the foolish criticism that came from hon. Members opposite. I did not hear the hon. and gallant Member for Ayr Burghs (Sir T. Moore), but I did hear in this House the other day a comment about the delay in getting telephones installed. If the Assistant Postmaster-General wishes, I could let him have a collection of letters of appreciation which I have received from people who have written to me on the subject. I do not know that he favoured me particularly—although I must bear in mind that we are both members of the same trade union. But, frankly, I have wondered how on earth the Post Office have done it. I can only believe it is because of the experience which has been gained and the improvements which have been made during the war years. With a much depleted staff, the Post Office have been able to appease the most aggrieved of our constituents who write letters because they cannot get a telephone installed overnight.

Having said that, I come to the difficulties of the villages. I feel that the hon. and gallant Member for Western Dorset (Major Diģby) struck the right note when he referred to the fact that his home is pestered by people knocking at the door who wish to borrow his telephone, because it is the only homestead in the village that has one. That is socially wrong. There should never be a test applied by the Post Office as to whether a village should have a telephone for its residents or not. The test should be: Do people live there, and are they entitled to a service? I would carry the matter a stage further and recommend that some of the money should be spent in educating children in elementary schools in the use of the telephone. With the dialling system, and all the other different contraptions that are coming along in telephone kiosks today, it would not be a bad thing to see that when a child reaches the age of 11 plus some section of its school lessons should include instruction in the use of the telephone service. It is not that it is unduly complicated, but a lot of people seem to find difficulty and make mistakes, which delay others who wish to use the telephone.

I should like to mention also the arrangement whereby the village grocer acts as a postmaster It is an unearthly mixture and mess up, in these village post offices. I see no reason why the postal service should be cluttered up to such an extent that it is difficult to find the right counter at which to buy stamps. Remembering what can be done by the Department in other directions, I ask the Assistant Postmaster-General why research cannot devise a suitable type of counter which could be mass-produced, which would greatly add to the efficiency of the service. Such a scheme would be to the advantage of the village grocer, and would help him to run the sort of service we expect. I believe that it would be a good thing if we could mass-produce counters, tills and registers, and the various other equipment which are essential in running a post office.

Earlier today, reference was made to the services of the London Passenger Transport Board. During the last six months, the extension of the service in the London suburban zone has been amazing, but I cannot say the same thing so far as despatch and delivery of mail are concerned. I believe that we are back in 1893 in our deliveries. There is nothing on which to commend the G.P.O. corps, when, during weekends, in order to send a letter 12 miles from Charing Cross to a town of 70,000 inhabitants, you have to post at 3.30 p.m. on a Sunday afternoon. We did not have that 20 years ago. The Home Secretary, who resides a few miles from my home, would have to make a long journey to get rid of his correspondence so that it will get into the post for his constituency. I am referring particularly to Sundays, because we do not have a chance to clear all our letters during work days. I make this appeal, because there are many people like myself who consider that we should have late collections at 5.30 or even 8 p.m.

2.47 p.m.

Major Hauģhton (Antrim)

I too should like to pay my tribute to the work which has been done by the Post Office during the years of difficulty. I want to put in a very strong plea for the prewar two deliveries a day for the country districts in Northern Ireland. This is required, especially by the factories throughout the Province. I believe that two deliveries a day as well as more frequent collections of mail would go a long way to stimulate trade between Northern Ireland and this country. I cannot associate myself with hon. Members opposite who would like to divorce the Post Office from the grocery shops, which are such a feature of our villages. We look forward to the clay, not so far distant I hope, when we shall be able to buy acid drops and bull's eyes at the same time as we buy our postage stamps.

2.48 p.m.

Mr. Viant (Willesden, West)

I have been rather interested in the criticisms which have been made regarding the Post Office, from various parts of the House. I do not say that they have been unduly harsh, but the thought has struck me that as yet, this House has not laid down that the postal services are to be run as a service—and what I mean by that is, run to serve the needs of the community. When I was at the Post Office, we could establish a call box in a village only when we gave justification to the Treasury for its installation. In short, every service, telegraph, telephone or postal, had to show an economic result. Up to now, the House has not passed legislation laying down that the Post Office is to give service irrespective of economy. The Department has been cribbed and crabbed by the fact that each installation had to give an economic return to the Treasury. Since the findings of the Bridgeman Committee, there have been modifications in that regard, but until some change is effected in the conditions in which the Department can serve the State, there are bound to be opportunities for criticism. It is impossible to develop a service in villages, or in areas where the population is small, except with the cooperation of the ordinary private trader. We are bound to use their establishments for postal services.

I ask the Assistant Postmaster-General to give us some idea, if he can, as to the intentions of the Department in regard to the development of the telephone service. I have a letter from the local chamber of commerce, in my constituency, protesting strongly against the inadequacy of the service. We have a dual service, the manual and the automatic. Since the manual service depends upon the human factor it was inevitable that there should be a deterioration during the war, because the best servants were taken for more important duties and apprentices and novices had to be brought in and trained. I hope that we are now getting beyond that and that we may have some hope of the automatic service being more fully and thoroughly developed.

Sir T. Moore

In the opinion of many hon. Members who have spoken—including myself—the automatic service is much more deplorable than the manual service.

Hon. Members

No.

Mr. Viant

I beg to differ from the hon. and gallant Member in that regard. On every hand I have heard nothing but praise for the automatic service, as compared with the manual service. The auto- matic service is far in front of the manual service, and I hope that the Department will not hesitate in pushing forward its development. I have heard comparisons between the telephone service in this country and that in America, but it is no use comparing the American service with ours. I well remember when I sat on the Front Bench and defended the Department. In those clays the Liberal Party had brought out the "Yellow Book" advocating the development of the telephone service as a palliative to the unemployment problem, and almost every clay it was my duty to answer questions at that Box in regard to the service. Often I had Norway, Sweden, and America quoted by way of comparison. If our service could have been installed as the Norwegian service was installed at that time, we could have run it at a very much lower cost.

If comparisons are to be made with the telephone service in America, let us consider the conditions there. A study of them will reveal that from the very beginning the architects and builders of that country set out to assist the telephone service to make the general public telephone conscious. In the development and setting out of their buildings they devised ways and means by which the telephone could he installed at a minimum of expense. In addition, the public authorities made provision for the laying of telephone cables, whereas here we have to split up concrete roads and paths for the purpose, and, in these days of reinforced steel construction, even to cut through steel and concrete. Having mentioned that, I would appeal to the Assistant Postmaster-General to look ahead. I ask the Postmaster-General himself to confer with the architects and builders of this country to see whether it is not possible, even at this late stage, to introduce some procedure similar to that adopted in America. This would cut down the cost of installation and reflect itself economically in the charge for telephone service.

3.0 p.m.

Mr. Burke

I appreciate very much the kindly expressions of good will and appreciation of the services of the Post Office in the past which we have heard and I am sure the staff will also welcome them The hon. Member for Westbury (Mr. Grimston) said he thought we were a little complacent, that we were not looking far enough ahead, and that we lacked vision.

He wanted to know all about the telephone service in the years ahead, what plans we had, and whether we were going to set as our ideal a telephone in every home. That was also the burden of the remarks of one or two other hon. Members. This Bill is not planning the millennium; it is only asking for £50 million for the next two years. I concentrated on telling the House, because I thought it was necessary, that our immediate problem was to get over the arrears that have accumulated and to effect such development—or if the hon. Member prefers, improvement—of the service as was possible—not merely to return again to prewar standards but to improve upon them. That is a task which will take up the whole of the next two years with the supply position, both of labour and materials, as it is at the present time. The hon. and gallant Member for Ayr Burghs (Sir T. Moore) said, "Why talk about labour supply and materials? That is a parrot cry." Unfortunately it is not —it is a very great reality. The hon. and gallant Gentleman knows something about the book trade, I believe. I tried for a long time to order a certain book, and I am still waiting for it after six months.

Sir T. Moore

Give me the name of the book.

Mr. Burke

I will get the book, but not until the labour and materials are available.

Sir T. Moore

The hon. Gentleman is not perhaps dealing with the suggestion I made that there must be many thousands of instruments released by the Ministries and Service Departments that could be used at least as a temporary measure.

Mr. Burke

I will deal with that a little later. I can assure the hon. and gallant Member that in the case of the telephones, it is not the instruments that are wanting. We could give him half a dozen instruments and he would not be able to ring up anybody. If his instrument were out of order as often as he is out of Order in the House, it would not be of much use to him. The hon. Member for Westbury said that he thought I should say more about the postal services, and he said that we needed speed and regularity of service.

Mr. Grimston

I put regularity first.

Mr. Burke

He said that we ought to set ourselves the ideal of posting at 6 o'clock anywhere in the country and delivering the letter the next weekday morning anywhere else in the United Kingdom. The plans that have already been announced in the House will go a long way towards that, but there again, it is not a question that we ourselves can decide. We can collect letters here in London, but unless the transport services can be made to fit in, we cannot deliver them at the far end of the country. Our plans have to be made to fit in with the plans of other services. The hon. Gentleman said that we ought to spend a lot of money on helicopters. Those are things that we cannot get in five minutes. They have to be made, the planes have to be bought. He said that we are spending only £4 million on the postal services. As a matter of fact, it is a sum of only £2,250,000 But the postal service does not mean capital charges, except in regard to buildings, and for the next two years buildings are out of the question. The hon. Member said that the Post Office seems to want "knobs" on buildings. We have not got the buildings to put knobs on, and we cannot get them. That is the real difficulty, and that is why the amount for the postal services is small as compared with the others. We are not content with things as they are, and we shall try to get the improvements made as quickly as possible. The hon. Gentleman asked how much of this money might be used in absorbing the lines from the services. The amount is not known exactly, but discussions are going on. The amount may be anything from £10 million to £15 million. I was very pleased to hear the tribute to the Post Office from the hon. Member for East Walthamstow (Mr. H. Wallace). He said that we ought to have a telephone in every home, and with that, of course, as with other ideals, I quite agree. I mentioned that in my earlier remarks. The hon. Gentleman knows that, on the question of bags, he was in communication with me some time ago, and I have promised to look into the matter.

I have to some extent dealt with the remarks that were made by the hon. and gallant Member for Ayr Burghs. He told us what is happening in the United States of America. I cannot speak with experience of the United States, because I have not been there. It must be a very impressionable place, or some of the people who go there must be very impressionable. One has to remember, in comparing the United States with this country, that the United States have not been knocked about as this country has been for the last six years, and did not have the same experiences in the last war. The United States have been able to go on with their improvements and to carry on their work very largely without wartime interruptions. When one goes round our blitzed cities and sees what an enormous amount of work has to be done before we can talk about planning for the future, one realises that America is in a very fortunate position. I understand that they have concentrated on telephones, which are their speciality; but there are other things concerning which we can tell them that we are far superior to them.

The hon. and gallant Member for Ayr Burghs again raised the question of wrong numbers. When people get wrong numbers, it is not always the fault of the operator; it may be the fault of the person making the call. The hon. and gallant Member said that there must be a considerable number of wrong numbers in the course of the day. Let me remind him, however, that at the present time, with a much reduced staff, they are putting through 189,000,000 trunk calls a year, with a staff which has not had the experience of the prewar staff. If occasionally there is a wrong number, I beg the hon. and gallant Gentleman to remember the many occasions when he gets the right number. It is, unfortunately, true that many people tend to concentrate on the odd time when things slip up. If some Bill Sykes murders some Nancy of the slums tonight, all the newspapers will blazon it forth tomorrow morning, and forget about the thousand and one feats of kindness and mercy done in those places. It is the same with the telephones. We hear all about the wrong numbers, but we seldom hear about the good work that is done.

Sir T. Moore

With regard to the automatic dialling system, is there any human element that enters into the working of the system? How does a wrong number occur with the automatic system?

Mr. Burke

The machines that work the dialling system are extremely sensitive. They ought to have a good deal of attention and maintenance. During the war they have not received it. I am not a technician, but I understand that the slightest particle of dust will upset the arrangement. Hon. Members know what has been happening in buildings around this place, with the breaking down of concrete walls, and so on. It might very easily be that the reason the machines are not as efficient at the present time is that people have been concentrating on another job, as was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr. John Edwards). The hon. Member for Central Hackney (Mr. Henry Hynd) asked me to say something about the "Tudor" and "Clissold" manual exchanges. I know the problem there. It is a problem of catching up with arrears. If the war had not broken out, there would have been very few manual exchanges in the country. Most of them would have been automatic. We have reached the point where 66 per cent. of the exchanges are automatic. Here, again, the problem is to set about making more of the exchanges automatic. It is not only a question of finding equipment, but a question of buildings, and in the case of the "Tudor" exchange it may be that, with the best will in the world, we may not be able to solve the problem until we can get building labour. It is not a question of unwillingness, but of sheer inability to do anything because of the physical facts.

One hon. Member suggested that we ought to have brighter post offices in villages. I agree, but consider for a moment all the things that are wanted out of £50 million in two years. One hon. Member wants motor cars and motor cycles to deliver telegrams and heavy parcels. Another hon. Member wants automatic exchanges in place of manual exchanges. Brighter post offices are wanted. One hon. Member wanted a telephone in every village and hamlet. Wherever there is a post office there is a telephone, and wherever the village is not large enough to carry a telephone it is necessary to ask the local authorities not to guarantee to bear the loss, but to make a contribution, otherwise we should be in this position, that wherever there is a cluster of houses the people would say "Give us a telephone." It may come to that finally, but at present we have to ask ourselves,

Is there really a justification for an installation, arid will there be a sufficient call on it? How do we measure that? Not by asking the local authority to bear the cost of it. But to show that they are satisfied with the demand we ask them to pay us over a period of four or five years a maximum of £20, which is only the cost for one year. It is to make perfectly certain as far as we can that the expense is justified. It does not recompense us for the telephone.

The hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. Walkden) wanted special counters and tills in grocers' shops. There again to meet all the requirements would be impossible at the moment with the shortage of materials and so on. If the hon. Member wants a post office in every village then it would not be £50 million for which we would be asking for the next two years, but an amount much beyond that. I am afraid we must confess that it is impossible to have a Crown post office if that is what the hon. Gentleman has in mind in every village. It cannot be done. I have listened with a great deal of sympathy to the suggestions made by hon. Members. I am certain that as far as the circumstances allow, they will be taken into account. We will do what we can to give the fullest possible service to the people. We are not by any means content, but we do want the service to be as efficient as possible. In this Bill we are setting down what we think we can immediately tackle in the space of the next two years to restore the service and to put it in the way of becoming the efficient service we want it to be.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House for Monday next.—[Mr. Joseph Henderson.]

POST OFFICE AND TELEGRAPH [MONEY]

Considered in Committee under Standing Order No. 69.

[Mr. VIANT in the Chair]

Resolved: That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session, to provide for raising further money for the development of the postal, telegraphic and telephonic systems and the repayment to the Post Office Fund of moneys applied thereout for such development, it is expedient—

  1. (1) to authorise the payment out of the Consolidated Fund of such sums, not exceeding in the whole fifty million pounds, as may be required for the purposes of such development or of such repayment;
  2. (2) to authorise the Treasury to borrow, Dy means of terminable annuities or by the issue of Exchequer Bonds, for the purpose of providing money for sums so authorised to be issued or of repaying to the Consolidated Fund all or any part of the sums so issued and to authorise the payment into the Exchequer of any sums so borrowed;
  3. (3) to provide for the payment of such terminable annuities, or of the principal of and interest on any such Exchequer Bonds, out of moneys provided by Parliament for the service of the Post Office, or, if those moneys are insufficient, out of the Consolidated Fund."—(King's Recommendation signified.)—[Mr. Burke.]

Resolution to be reported upon Monday next.

ESTIMATES

Professor Gruffydd discharged from the Select Committee on Estimates; Mr. Horabin added.—[Mr. Joseph Henderson.]

SUNDAY CINEMATOGRAPH ENTERTAINMENTS

Resolved: That the Order made by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, extending Section r of the Sunday Entertainments Act, 1932, to the City of Leeds, a copy of which Order was presented on 5th April, be approved."—[Mr. Ede.]

Resolved: That the Order made by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, extending Section 1 of the Sunday Entertainments Act, 1932, to the County Borough of Gateshead, a copy of which Order was presented on 5th April, be approved."—[Mr. Ede.]