POST OFFICE AND TELEGRAPH (MONEY) BILL

HC Deb 05 December 1957 vol 579 cc621-98

Order for Second Reading read.

3.49 p.m.

The Postmaster-General (Mr. Ernest Marples)

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

The first thing that I did when I knew that the Post Office had to submit the Bill to the House was to look at the previous debates. I found that there were two features of those debates. First, the Postmaster-General who opened each debate always spoke for a very long time, and a disproportionately large amount of that time was spent upon the accounts and the relationship of the Post Office with the Treasury. I hope that as we have introduced new accounts that difficulty will he minimised upon this occasion.

The second thing that I found about each of these debates was that the Postmaster-General emphasised the past achievements of the Post Office—which are considerable—instead of looking at the future. On this occasion I think that it would be for the convenience and assistance of hon. Members if I spent some time in looking at the way in which the Post Office sees the future, and the methods it proposes to adopt to tackle future problems.

I thought, therefore, that I would first speak about the accounts as shortly as possible—and any questions which hon. Members raise will be answered by my hon. Friend the Assistant Postmaster-General—then look at the telephone section of the Post Office, especially towards the future, and finally at the postal side.

We have made an alteration in the accounts this year which I hope will commend itself to the House. Shortly, it is that the amount of borrowing that we shall do in the Post Office in future will be determined more realistically, and will be done after we have taken into account the amount of money which the Post Office ploughs back into the business. As you probably know, better than any other hon. Member, Mr. Speaker, the Post Office is both a business enterprise and a Government Department, and in that respect is unique. It therefore has to keep two sets of accounts—a commercial account, which shows the profit and loss in the best traditions of commercial accounting, and a cash account, so that it conforms to Parliamentary requirements.

I want, first, to deal with the commercial account. There are two features which are deserving of attention. First, depreciation is based not upon historical costs, but upon current values. That was decided in the White Paper of 1955. Secondly, the commercial account is used to decide the charges which are made to the public. From that there flows the conclusion that the depreciation charged in the commercial account is matched by income from the public. The Post Office collects from the public, by way of charges, what is charged as depreciation.

For the first time the cash account, which is kept from a Parliamentary point of view, is brought into line with the commercial account, in this way: The amount that the Post Office charges as depreciation in the commercial account, and which it receives in cash, is now ploughed back into the business and used to purchase any assets which the Post Office wants. Secondly, any extra capital which is needed will be asked for in this House by way of Bills similar to that which is before us today.

That is realistic, and I think that it clear up a great deal of the confusion which has occurred in the past. In the next two years the Post Office will be spending about £180 million on capital expenditure. Of that, £105 million will be by way of depreciation, and ploughed back into the business by the Post Office. So 57 per cent. of our capital requirement, or £105 million, will be found from internal charges and the balance of £75 million will be borrowed from the Treasury, via the Bill.

That is the simple and commonsense method which will be adopted in the future, and which will bring the cash account into line with the commercial account. I think that it will enable us to spend far less time wrangling about this point in the future than we have spent in the past, and I hope that this change commends itself to the House.

Of the £180 million in the next two years, most will be spent on telephone development, and the House will always have in front of it broad details of the way in which the Post Office intends to spend the capital which it gets, whether by way of depreciation or by borrowing. Of the sum of £180 million, the vast proportion of £167 million will go to telecommunications; £6 million to telegraphs—mostly Telex—and £7 million to postal services. These changes have been blessed to some extent by an outside firm of chartered accountants whom I asked to make recommendations. Messrs. Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co. came into the Post Office, examined what we were doing and made recommendations.

I am reasonably happy about the changes which are taking place, but there are one or two aspects about which I am not yet wholly satisfied. First, the Post Office, alone amongst large commercial undertakings, has to keep two sets of accounts—a commercial account and a cash account, as I have said, which is wasteful. Other large concerns, such as I.C.I. and Unilevers, do not have that imposition. All I would say at the moment is that I am not happy about the position and, therefore, propose to examine it more closely during the following year.

The second reason why I am not happy is that the Post Office is a large commercial undertaking—about the second largest in the country—and employs 350,000 men, which is almost equivalent to the number of people in seven constituencies. That is why I think it should be run as a business. Anything which tends to impede that business, such as methods of procedure, should be examined extremely carefully.

I believe, nevertheless, that in common with other nationalised industries it should be subject to the overall limits of capital investment and should first inform the House, and also the Treasury, of its broad objectives. The detailed composition of the programmes of the Post Office, however, is another matter, because it is clear that the Post Office must exercise its own commercial judgment. General policy demands that; otherwise, it cannot run efficiently. As a child of private enterprise I am bound to stand by that principle. It is quite absurd to suppose that the minute details of commercial investment programmes can be effectively controlled by any outside authority.

Having said that about the accounts, I hope that that aspect of the Bill will have a tranquil passage in the House, although I realise that the course that the House may adopt is unpredictable.

I now turn to the presentation of the accounts. This year we have adopted a new form of presentation of the commercial account report.

Mr. C. R. Hobson (Keighley)

It is the right colour, too.

Mr. Marples

It is the right colour from the point of view of the Post Office, but the wrong colour politically. The account has been streamlined; it is more lucid, and clearer than in the past, and the report is cheaper. It was formerly 3s. 6d. and now, in line with general Post Office policy, it is 2s. 3d.

I want to take the House into my confidence on the question of the commercial account. I had to decide whether we should start a new type of account this year or wait until next year and improve it still further. I decided that it was far better, this year, to commit the Post Office and everyone else to a new form of account which would be understood, even though it were not as perfect as we could make it. I should welcome any suggestions from hon. Members between now and next June on how to make that set of accounts and report very much better. I hope, therefore, that with that very short explanation I can get rid of the actual cash side and come on to the business side of the Post Office.

The amount of money that we in the Post Office have for telephone investment has never been enough in the past, is not enough now and never will be enough in the future. That applies to almost every expanding business. Debates in the House have raged round that point for many years, but I suggest that we have missed two things. The first is whether we are getting value for money. It is no good deciding to give so many millions of pounds to a business unless we know that that business is spending it wisely. I wonder whether we have had purposeful direction of pure science and shrewd timing of applied science in the past. We should look at the long-term programme very carefully, therefore, and that is what I propose to do today.

Secondly, when we have an asset, do we use it to the maximum of its possibilities? Quite frankly, we have not done so in the past. For example, in the White Paper "Full automation of the Telephone System," which was introduced on 13th November, we started a new set of telephone charges from 1st January next. I tried to explain to the House how we arrived at the method of making the charges cheaper. There were two stages. The first stage was the stage which is to start on 1st January and the second stage was the subscriber trunk dialling, which is to start next year. I do not think that the House quite appreciated how the first stage came about. Therefore, I will try to explain again.

At present, if a person dials from Sloane, or Mansion House, or Holborn he is allowed to dial to a very small area. The dialling is done automatically and the charge is registered on a meter which is very like a speedometer. If a person wants to dial to Watford in the north, Croydon in the south, or Slough in the west the machine is capable of dialling those numbers but, because of the complicated charging system, the Post Office has insisted that the subscriber dials the operator first. The operator then gets the call, and that is expensive. Secondly, the operator records the call on a slip of paper and times it. That is expensive. Thirdly, a series of clerks have to sort out these calls afterwards, bill them and charge them to several million accounts. There are 150 million slips of paper every year, which make a formidable task.

Fourthly, and even more important, the Post Office has to keep people on duty for 24 hours a day just in case a person makes a call to one of these places. It is the most wasteful feature of all, particularly as machinery already installed can actually dial the required number automatically. Therefore, by an alteration of the charging system we have done a great deal to simplify matters.

The new arrangement does not apply only in London. I said to the Post Office people, "Is there not an example that we can get in the country which some hon. Members might appreciate? If that example could be allied to somebody who had held office in the Post Office, it would be more effective than ever." I therefore looked at the telephone system at Keighley, in Yorkshire, because that constituency is represented by the hon. Member who is to wind up this debate from the Front Bench opposite, and who is very knowledgeable on Post Office matters, he having been Assistant Postmaster-General.

At present, one can dial direct at Keighley to six exchanges. As from 1st January, with existing equipment and without one pennyworth of additional capital, people will be able to dial to 28 exchanges, or almost five times as many. At present, one can dial to 7,999 subscribers, of whom I hope the hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. C. R. Hobson) is one, but after 1st January one can dial to 59,902, which is more than seven times as many, with the existing equipment.

Another specific example is that from Keighley, in Yorkshire, to Burnley, in Lancashire—Yorkshire being the second-best county and Lancashire the premier county—it will be possible to dial direct after 1st January for 3d. Hitherto, it has been done manually for 1s. I claim that that shows exactly how we have not been using our existing equipment to the full. Those who take part in debate in the House might perhaps take that into consideration when we are discussing matters of this kind.

All this means, from the point of view of the Post Office, that in the year begining 1st January next we shall save £2 million in wages and salaries. We shall also deal with the operators in the most humane manner, as I shall show later. Secondly, and even more important, is the fact that £10 million worth of equipment—and that is a very conservative estimate—would have been scrapped under the old system, but now can be used for many years. That gives the Post Office a great deal more money to play with in other directions. Therefore, I maintain that value for money in what we spend now and the maximum use of our existing assets is equally as important as the capital sum that one manages to squeeze out of a reluctant Chancellor of the Exchequer, to whatever side of the House he belongs.

I have found that in business the first question asked is, "Where is your largest asset and what use are you making of it?" I found, in the Post Office, something which, frankly, surprised me. It was that the biggest single asset that the Post Office possesses is the cables which lie buried under the streets. The Post Office has £150 million worth of money buried under the streets, and it is adding to it at the rate of £11 million a year. The first question to be asked is, "Can we make more use of that equipment, in the same way as we have already made more use of the exchange equipment?"

Mr. William Shepherd (Cheadle)

Will my right hon. Friend say what will be the net effect on Post Office finances of these changes in the charges for dialled calls?

Mr. Marples

The changes will actually cost £8 million, of which £2 million will be saved. We shall also have the use of the £10 million which I have mentioned and which was taken into account in the increase of tariffs previously announced. The Post Office revenues for the following year, which I estimated when I asked the House for an increase of £42 million to meet increased wages, have taken that into account. The assessment which I then made of Post Office finances still stands.

What I found on the question of these underground cables was most illuminating. With electricity, if there is a main trunk running through the street each house can tap off that main trunk quite easily. The same applies to gas mains, but that does not apply to telephone cables. Every telephone subscriber must have two wires which run direct to the exchange from his house. They are his exclusively, whether he is two miles or three miles away, or just one mile away. The House will see how expensive that can be.

The scientists have not yet found a way of doing with telephones what is done with gas and electricity. Therefore, one comes to this: how can we use to the best advantage the existing wires which are buried under the street? Let us assume that at present there are 20 subscribers in a street two miles from the telephone exchange. They have 20 pairs of wires, a pair each, going to the exchange two miles away and back again.

I wonder whether we could bring a tiny bit of the exchange to the end of that street, connect the subscribers to that particular part and then run four pairs of wires, instead of 20, to the exchange, thus saving 16 pairs of wires for the most part of two miles? If we did that, we would use to the maximum capacity the wires we buried. That is one of the moves that we are now tackling to bring this tiny bit of equipment—it is called the automatic line concentrator—into operation, and we are intending to press on with that just as fast as we possibly can.

I come to another point. I wonder whether the House knows how much it costs the Post Office to to connect a telephone subscriber. The following figures are very rough, but they will at least give the House an idea of the magnitude of the cost. The telephone itself costs £9, the equipment at the exchange costs £16, but the wires under the road cost £85. That is a total of £110. It is, therefore, quite clear that any saving that can be made could best be made on the wires.

We have found in the Post Office that it would be possible to use thinner wires and lose efficiency but, at the same time, get a better telephone which is more efficient and so make up for the loss of the signal in the wire itself. As we can make a better telephone for the same cost as the existing one, we shall save a considerable amount in the cost of wire.

We shall save not only on the wire itself, but on the method of laying that wire. We have, under the roads, ducts which now house a certain number of thick wires. If we have thinner wires we can get far more of them into an existing duct. One of the most expensive operations in the world is civil engineering, as I well know, as one who has had something to do with civil engineering. I am doing great injury to the private enterprise interests I represent, because we shall not tear up those metalled roads and put in bigger ducts, but will put in thinner wires and get half as many again into the existing ducts. That will save an immense amount of money.

Now I should like to look at the exchange itself. In all business affairs a person wants to keep in his mind what is his ultimate aim. He may never achieve it, but he wants to know what it is so that all the intermediate steps will be in that direction. The aim with the exchange equipment is that we should have an all-electronic system, suitable not only for tiny laboratory experiments but such as will withstand the rigours of day-to-day wear in the public service.

In 1960, at Highgate Wood, we hope to have the first ail-electronic exchange in operation. In passing, Mr. Speaker, I should like to say that I am glad that it is to be at Highgate Wood, because that was in the constituency of a very old friend of mine, Sir David Gammans, who played such a large part in the Post Office for many years as Assistant Postmaster-General.

We want an all-electronic exchange, first, because it is cheaper to produce. Electronic equipment, unlike mechanical equipment, is not precision made. Secondly, it is cheaper to maintain which, as most hon. Members will know, is of prime importance. Then, it takes slightly less room to house and is lighter which means that the foundations—and again I am taking away from the civil engineering industry—will also be lighter. Finally, it is more adaptable to the automatic line concentrator that I have already mentioned. That is what we aim to get.

How has this exchange equipment been achieved? It has been achieved by what is known as the Joint Electronic Research Committee. J for joint, E for electronic, R for research and C for committee—it is known as J.E.R.C. The Joint Electric Research Committee is a partnership between the Post Office and private enterprise, with the Post Office in the chair. We have pooled ideas, and have allocated specific tasks, some to the Post Office and some to various private firms. We have avoided duplication and have concentrated our effort.

I should like to associate myself with a supplementary question recently put by the hon. Member for Openshaw (Mr. W. R. Williams), who asked whether that did not mean that the Dollis Hill research engineers had done extremely well. The answer is, "Yes". The Dollis Hill research engineers have done a fine job of work, in co-operation with private enterprise—which is what I think should happen. I do not see why we should always have this competition between a nationalised industry and private enterprise when, in point of fact, they can be complementary and not competitive. I shall say something more later on that point.

I come to a third point about telephones, which is better known than the two I have already mentioned but, again, looks into the future rather than mirrors the past. It has been spectacular, and the dividends have been greater, especially for the trunk calls. I refer to the coaxial cable, introduced long before my time. It has immense possibilities. Before the war, when you, Mr. Speaker, were Postmaster-General, there were two pairs of wires for every conversation on trunks, and one pair for local conversations. But a single coaxial cable can now actually carry 960 conversations at the same time, by using different frequencies.

The problem we shall face in the future when subscriber trunk dialling comes in will be this. We shall want more trunk lines than we now have, and we shall want them because, next year, it will be possible to phone from Bristol to Aberdeen—a short conversation—for a few pence—about 5d. or 6d. Therefore, when we let the public loose on dialling on trunks as they now dial for local calls we shall want more lines, but the question is, "What shall we do?"

There are two things that we can do. The first is to put in another duct and another coaxial cable. An alternative is to make better use of the existing coaxial cable, which, as I say, with repeaters at every six miles, conveys 960 conversations. If, instead of laying another cable, we put in an extra repeater—that is, a repeater every three miles—one of two things happens. First, we can double the number of conversations from 960 to 1,920, or we can have the existing 960 conversations plus a television channel.

I do not know whether hon. Members quite realise that television is not just as simple as relaying from a transmitter to a receiver. The Post Office is called upon to take very good programmes and to give good definition from Manchester and Birmingham to London, from the studios to the transmitter, and so on. What we really want is to get interchangeability, on the lines we have, between telephone calls and T.V. and sound broadcasting.

By the use of these repeaters we shall double the capacity of the existing investment buried under the ground, instead of putting more investment there. We have the best network of coaxial cables in Europe, and I hope that when subscriber trunk dialling starts we shall ultimately save £15 million a year by getting the subscriber to dial for himself, instead of having it done through an operator. The ultimate aim of the Post Office should be defined, because we ought to know which way we are going with telephones.

I think we should arrive at the position where anyone anywhere can pick up a telephone and speak to anyone anywhere else, subject to three conditions. He should be able to do it quickly, clearly and at reasonable cost. We can do that only if we have a long-term plan clearly defined and if we sweat the equipment and not the men, and we make the decision now to stand for a long time ahead.

As hon. Members will see if they have studied the recent White Paper carefully, decisions have now been taken on policy for the next decade. We have settled group charging, which starts on 1st January, which will alter the whole telephone system. Dialled trunk calls will start next year from Bristol and will spread rapidly afterwards. For the next ten years the way of telephone policy is charted. Provided that we work hard enough, we shall have a telephone system to be proud of which will give us extremely good service at reasonable cost.

Having dealt with the telephone, I want now to come to the postal side. The postal side is a far harder nut to crack than the telephone side. The methods of handling the mail at present are the same as they were a hundred years ago. They are the same as they were a hundred years ago all the world over. The question is: Are we satisfied that that should go on, or should we alter our methods? What is the problem? I would like to take the House through the way I looked at it when I first went to the Post Office.

Mr. W. R. Williams (Manchester, Openshaw)

I would like the Postmaster-General to enlarge on that point, because in my experience there have been very big radical changes. They have not been fundamental changes, but changes of procedure. I think we ought to be clear on that point.

Mr. Marples

I will certainly gratify the hon. Gentleman's wish, and enlarge on that.

Basically, the procedure in the Post Office now, for example, in sorting, is precisely the same as it was a hundred years ago. A man has in front of him a framework, with 48 pigeon holes. It is 48 because that is the extent to which his arms will reach. He reads the letter with his eyes and puts it in the box by hand. If we cling to that method we shall never reduce the cost of the postal services. Basically, the methods are still the same. There have been refinements. Our ultimate goal has not been clearly defined. I shall attempt to define it this afternoon and I shall mention a number of things which I am sure the hon. Gentleman has in mind.

What happens in the postal services during the time from when a letter is posted to when it is received? Suppose the former Postmaster-General asked me to a very expensive lunch at the Savoy at his expense and he sent me a letter from Caerphilly, in South Wales, to Wallasey, in North-West England. What happens to that letter? The hon. Gentleman would post it in a pillar box at Caerphilly, or probably he would send his hired man out to do it for him. Then one of the postmen would collect it from that box and take it to the Caerphilly Post Office.

Mr. S. O. Davies (Merthyr Tydvil)

It is "Caerphilly" with a long "a".

Mr. Emrys Hughes (South Ayrshire)

No, it is with a short "a".

Mr. Marples

I accept the correction of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. Davies), but not the correction of the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes).

Mr. Hughes

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that I was born only a few miles from Caerphilly?

Mr. Marples

That explains a lot of things which I have not understood in the past.

At Caerphilly, the letter would be faced so that the stamp came the right way. Then the stamp would be cancelled so that I could not use it again. After that, at Caerphilly—I will be glad when I reach Cardiff—it will be sorted into one of the 48 pigeon-holes by a third postman, who will put it in a box to Cardiff. The first postman collects it from the pillar box, the second one puts it in the facing machine, and the third one puts it in one of the boxes.

The letter then goes to Cardiff and is sorted. The postman puts it in a pigeon hole, one of another 48, to Wallasey. Then it is put into a small bag to Liverpool. At Liverpool, the small bag is forwarded to Wallasey. At Wallasey, another postman comes along, picks it out and puts it into one of 48 boxes for a specific postman at Wallasey. Postman No. 5 has then touched it. It then goes to postman No. 6, the man who will deliver it, and he puts it into a box for a particular street. We have had six postmen touching that letter, four of whom have been engaged in sorting. Unless we crack that system, the postal services will never be cheap.

Of the total cost of the postal services, manpower accounts for 70 per cent. It amounts to £120 million a year. Of that, sorting amounts to £40 million and the cost of delivery is £30 million.

Mr. E. Shinwell (Easington)

What is the average cost of delivering a letter?

Mr. Marples

The right hon. Gentleman can do that arithmetic by dividing £30 million by the number of letters the Post Office handles a year. I cannot do it on the spur of the moment, but I will write to the right hon. Gentleman and let him know.

Mr. Shinwell

It might be cheaper and easier to deliver our own letters.

Mr. Marples

That may be so.

I would like to concentrate on the sorting problem. It is the delivery problem which catches the eye of the public, but the sorting problem is of equal importance. My business friends have proffered advice to me since I became Postmaster-General. Everybody knows how to run the Post Office except the Postmaster-General and those who run the Post Office. My business friends say to me, "Why do you not sort in the way we carry out the punch card system?" When there is a punch card system in operation—for instance, Powers-Samas machines—we have two conditions. First, there is a standard product which is the right shape, the right weight, the right thickness, and with a straight edge. The second condition is that there is a standard code. One punches the holes in it at a certain distance from one of the edges.

Neither of those conditions applies to the Post Office. The product concerned is anything but standard. It is an immense variety of size and pattern. There are flimsy envelopes with windows. There are envelopes sent by the tax inspectors, who are asking for far too large sums of money, in which they put a sticky label to be put on another envelope. There are large envelopes sent by lawyers to justify their extravagant fees, with thick, bulky documents inside. We have not a standard code.

Addresses written by people in strange lands far away are generally indecipherable and often wrong. [Laughter.] Those who laugh at that must know that some of the addresses in Scotland are extremely long, and some of the handwriting in Scotland, although excellent in its way, is difficult for a foreigner to read. Therefore, we have not the same conditions in the Post Office.

Let us pause to look at what we have. Here I will agree with the hon. Member for Openshaw. The Post Office has made, at Dollis Hill, an immense contribution to finding and inventing machines which would mechanise a great deal of the sorting, but, basically, we have not yet altered it. They have done a great deal of research work. I will convince the House shortly that our machines are in advance of the world.

We already have, at Southampton, the first electronic sorting machine, which does not sort into 48 pigeon-holes by hand. It sorts into 144 pigeon-holes. It does it electronically and mechanically. The letter comes into a window, and it is read by a postman, who presses a combination of keys in front of him. That information is recorded on the electronic part of the machine and that letter is moved mechanically into the box. That is a tremendous advance. It makes 144 sortations instead of 48. It is much more precise. Twenty of those machines have been ordered during my term of office and the first of them will be available on 1st April next year. It will be installed. I think, at Norwich, but most of them will follow very quickly afterwards.

Mr. William Ross (Kilmarnock)

The right hon. Gentleman should be fair to past Postmasters-General. He has been able to order the machine only because it had completed successful field trials. The idea was started long ago.

Mr. Marples

I did not say otherwise. I am coming to that point almost immediately. The hon. Member is always impatient. He never lets one really finish what one is saying. Had he waited for me to say it at the end of my thesis—it is difficult at this stage, because I am looking into the future—it would have been more appropriate then than when the hon. Member intervened.

As I have said, we are in advance of the rest of the world. This week I telephoned the Postmaster-General of the U.S.A. and the Postmaster-General of Canada. I invited both of them over here, because they both want to see this machine in action. It is the result of intensive years of work of research by the Post Office and it will, I hope, be the foundation on which we can crack this sort of problem. The credit, if credit must be allocated, goes to the scientists at Dollis Hill who persevered through the tenure of office of successive Postmasters-General, never mind a single Postmaster-General.

Sir James Duncan (South Angus)

Will my right hon. Friend refer to the exhibition in the Upper Waiting Hall, where photographs of this excellent machine are being demonstrated?

Mr. Marples

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. It is extremely difficult to explain these technical matters in a speech without any visual aids. One cannot bring cables and photographs into the Chamber. I have, therefore, arranged in the Upper Waiting Hall an exhibition in which various things which will be referred to by myself and by my hon. Friend the Assistant Postmaster-General during the debate will be available for hon. Members.

What the Post Office has to define is our ultimate goal in sorting, so that, in the first place, all the intermediate steps will then be taken broadly in that direction. We must have a machine in which an electronic eye, and not a man, reads the address or the code and actuates a machine mechanically, the machine to sort the letters automatically and the envelopes never to be touched by hand from the beginning to the end. That is the ultimate goal. It is a long way off and it will not arrive in my time or for many years yet, but we ought to define it.

That involves two things. The first is that we may have to have a standard envelope. The machine cannot deal very easily with a thousand different sized envelopes. If a person buys a Rolls-Royce, with a special body, he pays the price for the hand-made job. If somebody wants a machine-made car, he buys, perhaps, a Ford, with its standard length, width and size; he takes the standard product. Without any shadow of doubt, the public will have to decide whether they want mechanisation, with the standardisation that it will inevitably entail, or whether they want a hand-made job and are prepared to pay for it.

I want, therefore, to try to set out the methods that we ought to adopt to try to crack this postal problem. The first concerns research—and this was where I wanted to pay the tribute. I want to pay a tribute particularly to—I ought not, perhaps, to call them Civil Service engineers—the postal engineers at Dollis Hill, which is the finest establishment of its kind on postal research, and to the foresight of the men who started it and to the devotion of those who continued it.

By itself, however, in this modern age, that is not enough. We must have cooperation with other countries in research, because it is complementary and not competitive. I hope, therefore, that we shall arrange that the U.S.A., Canada and ourselves will share ideas in research and pool the results, that we shall have regular meetings to that end and that we shall not have a duplication of effort. In addition, there is an International Committee for Postal Studies, in which every nation is involved, but that would be a much slower process than getting the three countries together.

This arrangement began with a visit by the Deputy Postmaster-General of the United States, who called, in that refreshing, spontaneous manner in which Americans do, at the General Post Office one day without notice. Knowing the characteristics of his country, I agreed to see him; they are like that over there and one must accept it. We had a sherry, at my expense and not at Post Office's expense. Then we talked about this problem. That was in the late summer. As a result, a team of five G.P.O. officials went to study mechanisation in Canada and in the United States. They returned last Saturday and on Monday we had a Press conference.

Mr. Ness Edwards (Caerphilly)

Oh, that is very important.

Mr. Marples

Surely it is. I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman ridicules something like that. If the Post Office does not take the public into its confidence, it will not get where it wants to get. The public have a great part to play in this. They have decisions to make. If the right hon. Gentleman wants me to go further, let me say that on Tuesday I telephoned the Americans and the Canadians and they have agreed to come over here. The late Sir Stafford Cripps started the Anglo-American study groups or teams which went over to America to learn from the Americans.

Now, an American-Canadian group is coming here, in the reverse direction, to learn what we know. They will be here early next year. We shall have, I hope, an exchange of patents, and so on, and I hope that between our three countries, with the resources, the enthusiasm and the money of the three of us, we will crack this problem far quicker than we would do otherwise. My first point, therefore, is that we should not go it alone in research.

My second point is that the public has a great part to play. I am starting a scientific survey early next year to find out what the public expect and want from the postal services. Do they want several deliveries by hand every day, one a week, or what do they want? Do they want a first-class mail or a second-class mail? After all, we are servants of the public. Let them say what they want. But when they say what they want, they have to pay for it. They must make up their minds. How far will they co-operate with us? Are they prepared to use coding? We may have an intermediate stage in which the postman himself puts the code on the envelope from the address.

Will the public ultimately be prepared to have a code number? After all, they have code numbers for motor cars and for telephone numbers and already, to some extent, in addresses, because when they write to this House, for example, they use the code "S.W/". Will they take that further and have a series of five or six letters or numbers which would enable a machine to do the work which the men now do?

We must wait for that report from the public. I hope that people will not write direct to me with their ideas, because we shall have the survey done scientifically and I shall have only to pass the results to the committee. When we know what the public want, would it not be a good idea if we chose an experimental town for a trial, to see whether the public would accept the code method? So much for the public.

Now, about the Post Office. The Post Office must assemble, first, what it thinks is practical and can be done, and secondly, the reaction of the public. There is, however, a great difficulty. It is extremely difficult for any Government Department to tell the public what they want, because if it does, the public never believe what it says, whether it is right or wrong.

As a matter of principle, the Post Office will have to consider the appointment of a committee of business people and representatives of the public to advise the Postmaster-General of the day, and when the information has been assembled the Postmaster-General will know what to do. We could invite the assistance of businessmen who conduct fairly large enterprises, and perhaps some who use the Post Office a great deal, such as the pool promoters. They could give the benefit of their valuable advice to the Postmaster-General. Whatever they said, the public would accept more readily than anything the Postmaster-General might say. That is one of the things I propose to do—if I am still in office.

I am not just making a speech about this, because I have done precisely that thing with, the telegraph service and this is the first announcement about it. I have appointed a committee with these terms of reference "to advise the Postmaster-General on the future place of the inland public telegraph service as part of the communication facilities of the United Kingdom." The Chairman is Sir Leonard Sinclair, Chairman of Esso, and I am grateful to him for agreeing to undertake the task. He will have the assistance of a number of other committee members who will have the benefit of the public survey which we have carried out. All the facts will be placed before them and they will be at liberty to make any inquiries they wish. At the conclusion a report will be published. Therefore, one of the major headaches of the Post Office, the telegraph system, will be subject to this scrutiny and we shall see how we get on then.

I have mentioned the telephone and postal services and I wish now to refer to a number of sundry items. First, I will deal with buildings. We should have more prefabrication and standardisation in our buildings. We have started a joint research and development group with the Post Office and the Ministry of Works. I meet them once a month and receive a report about what they are doing; although for the last nine or ten months I have been so busy that I have not been able to devote the amount of attention that I would like to this side of the business. But I propose to do so during the coming year.

The second thing is the question of partnership with industry. I see no reason why there should always be wrangling between a nationalised industry and private enterprise. For years there has been a great partnership between the Post Office and private enterprise. It has been growing and I want to make it grow faster. Technical development has been steered by a joint committee under a Post Office chairman.

I have mentioned the electronic exchange. We cannot turn out the working equipment as quickly as the rest of the world unless we pool our research efforts, I do not have only Post Office requirements in mind. I hope to meet the chairmen and technicians of various firms during the next week or so—certainly before Christmas—to see whether, as Postmaster-General, I can take any positive action to assist in the export of modern telecommunications in partnership with private enterprise. I shall offer my suggestions to them and ask for theirs. If they do not want my suggestions, or if they have no suggestions of their own to offer, I cannot be blamed, because I shall have done the best I can.

I was struck by what happened in the case of a near-eastern country, after the war. I learned from a Post Office official that we were competing with Germany to sell equipment to a Near Eastern country. In Germany, they had only a single manufacturer and the Postmaster-General went out to this country himself and dined and wined a number of people. Several groups of manufacturers visited the country and, finally, one of the engineers went out and the initial order for equipment was "bagged" by Germany. The initial order was the most important because subsequent orders followed naturally.

Therefore, I propose to offer my services, such as they are, to private enterprise firms to see whether we can get even closer together and cement the partnership, and create a satisfactory and fruitful dollar-earning source for the benefit of this country.

The third thing I wish to mention among the sundry items is the question of aesthetics—

Mr. W. R. Williams

I had hoped that the Postmaster-General would say some more about building. He seems to have skirted away from that subject after remarking that he wanted more prefabrication and standardisation. I am interested in what he has in mind and I should be grateful if he would say something more on the subject.

Mr. Marples

I have a great deal more to say, but I have been speaking for 50 minutes, and it is a difficult matter to condense all that one would like to say—

Mr. Williams

But this is important.

Mr. Marples

It is all important, but I do not want to bore the House. However, if the hon. Gentleman wants to know about buildings, I will tell him.

I want to interest the trade union representatives and bring them in with me to decide what equipment we should have in the buildings. We should make counters prefabricated so that they can be slung together, and they should be made to one individual architectural design instead of having a different design for each Post Office in the country. I am anxious to do again what I did to assist my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister when he was at the Ministry of Housing and Local Government and I was Parliamentary Secretary.

I want to do something about telephone exchange equipment—the hon. Gentleman asked me about this and he must forgive me if I take time in answering him. This is what happens now about exchange equipment. The Post Office erects a building at Bournemouth as an exchange building to last for twenty-five years and cover all the requirements for that period and then a quarter of it is filled with equipment. Three-quarters of the building is wasted completely as a capital investment because it will not be used for twenty-five years. There will be no revenue from it and, what is more, there will he the expenditure of maintenance, and so on.

I wart to try to get 2,000 or 3,000 lines of exchange equipment completed, together with the building, and erect it so that it can be extended by units. We require standardisation in building while, at the same time, paying due regard to aesthetics. I can assure the hon. Member that there are many ideas running round in my mind. That matter has not been neglected, but one cannot do everything at once. Standardisation and mechanisation do not necessarily mean ugly buildings although people may think they do. Take letter boxes, for example, for which we have now decided on a standard pattern with the right type of aperture, and so on. The Council for Industrial Design, for which I have a great regard, has helped. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle (Mr. Shepherd) for persuading me to consult the Council.

I hope to do something about telephone kiosks. The present kiosk was first constructed of cast iron in 1920 to a design by Giles Scott. I think that the idea was absolutely brilliant at the time, but during the intervening thirty years we have found new materials which would enable us to construct the thing differently; and it is the structure which decides the line, the aesthetic line, which can be adopted. With the Council for Industrial Design and the Royal Fine Art Commission we have decided on three designers who will submit designs for a new type of kiosk. I shall erect a number of samples and ask people what they think of them. If they do not like them, we will not have them; if they are good, we will. I cannot say more. The three people who are submitting designs are Misha Black, Neville Conder and Jack Howe, all eminent in their respective spheres. This is the first time it has been announced.

My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister often quotes Trollope. One of the ways in which people have gone wrong is in trying to make some construction conform with aesthetic considerations by camouflaging it. During an argument in this House with the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) I said that the real difficulty about the Central Electricity Authority was that it was trying to build power stations which looked like cathedrals, while the cathedrals looked like power stations—

Mr. Ross

No.

Mr. Marples

That is perfectly true. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman can make his contribution to the debate later and I shall listen with great interest.

In the early stages of the power stations they put Portland stone round them. Why did we want to have Portland stone around the power station which faced the Yorkshire Copper Works, at Leeds, and is never seen by anybody except the people who work there? More than £100,000 was wasted in that way, and we did not get value for our money. It reminds me of the remark made by one of the characters of Anthony Trollope about a woman who never appeared until 11 or 12 o'clock in the morning, when she was heavily rouged. He said that she spent far too much time constructing the decoration and too little on decorating the construction. The materials that we use are a very necessary factor in the aesthetics of our buildings.

I come to the last of the four points, which is about the forms which the Post Office sends out. Matters like automation, standardisation and mechanisation should not mean lack of the human touch. The forms which the Post Office send out—this applies to a lot of other Government Departments—are very rigidly phrased and sometimes give offence. We have set ourselves to reword all the forms sent out by the Post Office. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] It will be some time before we reach them, because we have stacks of the old forms.

I would quote from the Daily Mirror of Tuesday, 26th November, in which that dispassionate gentleman, "Cassandra", gave us great credit for this change. He said: Applications for unpaid telephone bills after the first demand have hitherto been masterpieces of threatening incivility. The custom has always been to growl away about the line being disconnected and how much it will cost you to get back on the service again. I welcome the primrose mood of the new application. Then he went on to say what was said.

Mr. Ede (South Shields)

Has he paid his bill?

Mr. Marples

I come to an even greater testimonial. I have never yet in the whole of my experience in this House, twelve or thirteen years, had a compliment from South Wales. The right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale and the right hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Ness Edwards) have made eloquent speeches, using mellifluous phrases which fell melodiously on the ear. Their speeches never disagreed with me on broad policy but only on small details.

Mr. C. R. Hobson

That was not the right hon. Gentleman's experience at the Ministry of Housing and Local Government.

Mr. Marples

I have had a letter from Caerphilly, dated 21st November, from quite a big business firm there. I would like to read it to show the impact of this new idea on the public. It says: Dear Mr. Marples". That is a good start. This makes up for what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Caerphilly did in his constituency. The letter goes on: I should like to congratulate you on the new wording appearing on letters from the Post Office Telephone Organisation chasing up the payment of telephone accounts. It is with much less displeasure than usual that I shall be sending my cheque to your office in Cardiff. I sincerely hope that this changed outlook by a Government Department will spread throughout our country and that we shall no longer get pleasure out of deliberately withholding accounts so as to see how rude some of them can get. All I can say is that if someone from South Wales pays his account promptly and, in doing so, thanks me for the letter I sent him, it is a red letter day in my experience.

Now let me get back to the human side of automation—we have to get some automation into the Post Office—and then I am through with my speech, over which I have taken too long already. Let us look how mechanisation affects various people. For the scientists there must be a long-term plan and purposeful direction, because their efforts have to be tried out in the field, under the most rigorous conditions and not in the laboratory. Administration must have new thinking and development. It has to alter procedure. We have to get more technicians who will ultimately take up administration than we have had in the past. Only then can they appreciate how to help the public to help themselves.

Now I come to the staff. Scientists, administrators and the public may have difficulties with automation, but it is of absolutely vital concern to the staff. In the White Paper on automation I have a paragraph on consultation with the trade unions. I will not bore the House by reading it, but I commend the reading to hon. Members. I start off by saying that the greatest problems of automation are not in the technical field; the human problems are much greater. I believe that to be true. Automation means more men and women displaced, a smaller staff is required and career prospects are jeopardised. I must be very careful in this House when I mention trade unions, because there are trade unions and trade unionists—

Mr. Harry Randall (Gateshead, West)

It is very refreshing to see a White Paper once in a while in which "trade unions" are mentioned rather than "staff associations", which has been the phrase used for many years.

Mr. Marples

Some trade unions like to co-operate late in life while others want to co-operate earlier. The Post Office trade unions—I say this honestly as a product of private enterprise—are absolutely first rate. Never had I better trade unions or staff associations to deal with. Generally speaking, in private enterprise one decides what machines to introduce and says to the staff, "How can you manage with them?" I believe that is not going far enough.

I have a policy committee which advises me on mechanisation and I have appointed two people to it. One is Mr. Smith, General Secretary of the Union of Post Office Workers, and the other is Mr. Hodgson, Chairman of the Staff Side of the Post Office non-Engineering Whitley Committee. They are on the committee not necessarily to solve the problems although they can make a contribution if they want. They can spot the problems for their unions. Co-operation can hardly be taken further than that.

There is a great deal of work to be done in the Post Office in the next fifteen or twenty years, long after my time. The Bill is an improvement on previous methods and I commend its Second Reading to the House with great confidence not only because of what has been done in the past over a period of years, but because of the spirit which animates the Post Office. I hope that the House will give the Bill a Second Reading without a Division.

4.59 p.m.

Mr. Ness Edwards (Caerphilly)

The right hon. Gentleman has been good enough at least to exceed the efforts of all previous Postmasters-General. He has made about the longest Second Reading speech we have had on a Post Office Bill. We shall wait and see whether it is the best.

Much of it has been related not to the matter under discussion but to a description of the future. It has been obvious that the right hon. Gentleman has been infected with the enthusiasm that all his predecessors have had when they went into the Post Office, which is an extremely interesting place. I do not think any ex-Postmaster-General has come from the Post Office without a great deal of affection for that institution and a great deal of praise and appreciation of the Post Office staff.

One would like to put it this way, that all Postmasters-General like to bathe in the reflection of the technical achievements of the staff of the Post Office. What the Postmaster-General is able to talk about on the Floor of the House is largely the result of what the backroom boys have done. In a way, he takes credit—I do not object to that at all—for what his office has performed, but, as the right hon. Gentleman will appreciate from his speech today, what one sows one does not always reap in the Post Office. Successors come along to reap the harvest, the seeds of which others have sown.

When the right hon. Gentleman talked about the goals of the Post Office, I thought he was retelling to the House a speech I heard by one who was held in most affectionate regard there, old Archie Gill, as he was called—Sir Archibald Gill, Engineer-in-Chief of the Post Office for many years. He was associated in the automation of the Post Office service with Sir Gordon Radley, then head of Dollis Hill and now the Director-General. I suppose that, in that sense, the degree of automation which has been talked about and is mentioned in the White Paper is really the harvest of the work of Sir Archibald Gill when he was Engineer-in-Chief.

One of the things which worried me at the Post Office was that there was so much to do and so little capital with which to do it. One had to decide what came first. We had to have a set of priorities, and in the short time that I was at the Post Office the first priority was its financial relations with the Treasury. This afternoon the right hon. Gentleman has ignored the first consequences of the White Paper of 1955. In-the White Paper were laid down the principles which were embodied in the first full year of the present commercial accounts which are associated with the Bill.

I can only come to the conclusion that, us the right hon. Gentleman has not talked about the alleged £3 million "in the red" this afternoon, he wants to keep it out of the debate. Quite frankly, I thought he would deal with it. After all, the Post Office seems to be in a mess financially. We have had three revisions of the Estimates this financial year. We have had three White Papers. We have had changes in charges galore—up one day and down the next—but we have not had any discussion or explanation of what has taken place.

As the right hon. Gentleman said in his Press interview, this is the first year in which the Post Office has been "in the red" for something like twenty-one years. I quote the Daily Telegraph. The "twenty-one years" does not matter; it is the first time for very many years. With the exception of the four years of the Second World War, this is the first time the Post Office has been "in the red," or alleged to have been "in the red," since 1913 when Sir William Peat decided on the form of commercial accounts that were to be provided for this House.

The real position is that the £3 million by which the Post Office is alleged to be "in the red" hides a real operating surplus of £18 million. Let us not be deceived by the headline about a £3 million Post Office loss. If the method now employed in this set of accounts and this form of presentation had applied since 1913, with the exception of the four years of the Second World War, the Post Office would have been "in the red" every year. One would have thought that the right hon. Gentleman would have dealt with that side of the matter, if only for the sake of the reputation of the Post Office.

The handling of Post Office finance by the Postmaster-General in this matter leaves much to be desired. On a number of occasions, I have asked him to try to indicate how the accounts now provided compare with the results of previous years. I call in aid a Question he answered on 30th October. As he wants the Post Office to be treated as an ordinary commercial undertaking, this is very refreshing. The right hon. Gentleman said that, under the principles applied to commercial and industrial firms by Inland Revenue rules for the years 1956–57, the Post Office would have been £15.7 million better off. If the same rules were applied to 1957–58, it would be £16.9 million better off. If the ordinary Inland Revenue rules were applied to the Post Office, instead of its being allegedly £3 million "in the red", it would actually have a £18 million pound surplus. Even if the £5 million now set aside in lieu of taxation were taken into account, the actual surplus this year on these accounts would be £13 million and not a loss of £3 million.

The right hon. Gentleman has very good Press relations. I should imagine that he is the envy of every Minister in the Government. Instead of talking about the new form of accounts, which makes the Post Office look blacker than it is, he has talked about automatic sorting by E.L.S.I.E., which has broken down charges, and G.R.A.C.E which is for reducing charges on the telephone service. Today, instead of talking about the accounts which, after all, will determine what he is able to do in the Post Office, he has brought in the new J.E.R.C. In that sense, the right hon. Gentleman is not playing fair either with his office or with the House.

On the accounts, I wish to refer to the report issued by the accountants, who, I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will agree, have always been advisory accountants to the Post Office. There is nothing new in the Post Office's consulting Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co. After all, Sir William Peat was head of the firm. I welcome the initiative of the right hon. Gentleman in this matter and congratulate him upon it. When he announced the report, I pressed him for a sight of it. He had spent public money on getting a report on a public undertaking, but he said it would be an embarrassment to place it in the Library of the House.

During the Recess, further Questions were put on the Order Paper asking the right hon. Gentleman to reconsider his answer and to produce the report. On the Wednesday when he was due to reply to Questions, he was able to say that the reply had been supplied the day before in a written answer and that a copy of the report was in the Library. I make no further comment on that except to say, that as he admitted, that is not the report he announced in his reply to me.

This is a document which has been supplied at the request of the Director of Finance and Accounts, and it is dated 3rd October. It is a very much revised report and is in an entirely different form from that which the right hon. Gentleman gave. I make no point about that and I am not suggesting that there is any point of substance, but what amazes me is the right hon. Gentleman's reluctance to allow the House to see a report on, as he himself calls it, a Government undertaking. Nevertheless, we now have the report.

In the first place, let me say that I completely support the right hon. Gentleman in his general approach to relations between the Post Office and the Treasury. I am glad that he has at last rejected the view of his two predecessors and of some of his hon. Friends and has embodied in the accounts a step in the direction of his general view that the Post Office is a commercial undertaking, ought to be treated as a commercial undertaking and ought to be allowed to use its money for its own purposes. In that I am completely with him, and I can assure him that he will get all the support I can possibly give him.

Let me quote from the report to show the House in authoritative terms what we have been contending ever since 1951. Perhaps some of my hon. Friends have sometimes been a little bored with my insistence upon these financial matters. Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Company say: A fundamental difference between the two Accounts is that the Cash Accounts treat the Post Office as part of the Government —and here is the important part of the sentence— while the Commercial Accounts treat it as a separate entity, with the Government as a third party providing finance and hitherto raking the surplus. All the profits the Post Office earned were taken by the Treasury. Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Company state the position clearly and authoritatively.

Hon. Members should read the Memorandum issued in relation to the Money Resolution. It says, inter alia: It is now proposed in the Commercial Accounts to plough back into the business the full sum provided for depreciation. This sum will be used to finance any capital expenditure. … At last the Post Office has the right to use its own depreciation fund for its own capital development, and in so far as the right hon. Gentleman has won that battle with the Exchequer and the Treasury, I congratulate him. Millions of pounds of Post Office money has been involved in the past in this relationship with the Treasury. The right hon. Gentleman is on the right road, emphasise this to my hon. Friends the Members for Keighley (Mr. C. R. Hobson), Openshaw (Mr. W. R. Williams), Gateshead, West (Mr. Randall), and, in particular, the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross), who have assisted in the general fight to free the Post Office from the financial domination of the Treasury. Perhaps, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, you, too, will have a recollection of a very famous character in the House, the late Sir Herbert Williams, the one man who understood the mysteries of Post Office finance. It is time to salute Herbert Williams who, if he could look down upon us, would do so with a certain amount of amusement at this complete reversal of the traditional method of treating the Post Office.

The argument about the rate of depreciation and whether it should be primary cost or replacement cost, in so far as it affects the Treasury, loses much of its force. Whatever it is, the Post Office will keep it; that is the important thing. Nevertheless, it has a great deal to do with the charges imposed on the Post Office, because the higher the depreciation cost the greater must be the revenue and the higher must be the charges. I remember that last July the right hon. Gentleman increased his charges not only to provide for increased wages but to provide a supplementary depreciation provision of £18 million. Obviously, if he had not had to do that, the charges which he then imposed could have been cut by half.

There is one other point to which I want to draw attention and on which I would welcome the right hon. Gentleman's consideration. Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Company state: Within these limits we have been instructed to make such comments as we think might be helpful. What I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to do is to let the accountants look at the situation without limits. Let them examine completely the form of the accounts and make recommendations over the whole field, and let him then consider them. I refer him in particular to page 7 where they said that this raises the old question of whether the Post Office, which always pays its loan capital back over 20 years, should have a depreciation fund at all. They said that a depreciation fund is quite foreign to the method of financing Post Office development and foreign to the local authority concept. I make no declaration about this, but I should like it to be examined again. The right hon. Gentleman said that he would look at some of these matters again. Will he look at this? If all the capital has to be borrowed on a 20-years basis, that could turn out to be far cheaper than creating a depreciation fund. The right hon. Gentleman might be able to cut the charges very substantially. I am not saying that I have come to that conclusion.

There is one other point mentioned in Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Company's report to which I should like to draw attention. The right hon. Gentleman has obviously read the report of the previous debates and he knows the argument about the difference between historic cost depreciation and replacement depreciation. But whether we have depreciation on a replacement basis or not, it throws up the other question which is mentioned in paragraph 22 on page 9 of the report. The report says that if the current assets were revalued, which is the parallel to replacement depreciation, The Balance Sheet, if so remodelled"— and they are talking about these accounts— would throw up a substantial surplus. I understood the right hon. Gentleman to comment that that is on capital account, but the size of the depreciation in the balance sheet is certainly related to the value of the assets. After all, it is the size of the depreciation charge which has to be taken into account in deciding the charges made to customers.

I leave the matter there and ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider the points which I have put forward, because I assure him that here I speak both for myself and for my hon. Friends. We have no objection to the Treasury acting as the banker to the Post Office but we object to the banker telling the client that the earned profits of the client belong to the banker and not to the client.

It has always amazed me that on this matter we have never had vehement protests from those engaged in the Post Office, since when they have asked the Postmaster-General for a piece of the cake which they have created, the Postmaster-General has said that he is sorry, but the Treasury has had the cake. The amount which remains with the Post Office is very often the factor which determines how mean or how generous the Postmaster-General can be towards his employees.

However, I hope that the Postmaster-General will continue on these lines, but I ask him to insert the operating profit in the presentation of the accounts. In the old form of accounts, for example, those issued last year, the operating profit was shown, but for some reason it has been omitted from this form of presentation. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to compare page 20 of the Post Office Commercial Accounts and Report with page 20 of the accounts for 1955–56. He will see that the real test of the efficiency of the Post Office is its operating profit.

I hope that in having paid the right hon. Gentleman some compliments I have atoned for the past. Perhaps I can associate myself with the firm in Caerphilly which wrote him that nice letter. However, Postmasters-General often get nice letters and they are not so exceptional that one has to quote them. I thought it was amusing that the Postmaster-General should have quoted only one letter. The general experience of Postmasters-General is that they get very many letters of appreciation of the very valuable service rendered by the Post Office.

Mr. Marples

Not always from Caerphilly.

Mr. Ness Edwards

I agree, and not always from Wallasey. It will be very interesting to see what happens. I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his better pronunciation of "Caerphilly" It is improving with time.

I move to a subject on which I shall cease to be congratulatory and on which one has to be much more critical. The Government came to power on a promise to mend the hole in the purse, but, to use a colloquialism, they have not half put it across the Post Office public. Every year since 1951 we have had announcements of increased charges, and in some years we have had two such announcements.

One example is that of the residential telephone user for whom the telephone is a great social convenience. I have in mind farmers, old people, folk living in isolated places and children living away from sick parents. What have the Government done for them? In 1955, the rent was increased by £2 and from 1st October, this year it has been increased by another £3. The 100 free calls have been abolished, and on 1st January, 1956, call charges were increased by a quarter. That class of person has to find £6 or more to have a telephone installed.

That reminds me very much of the Budget statement of October, 1955, when the then Chancellor said: The adjustments which my right hon. Friend is proposing"— increasing the rent by £2— will bring us nearer to a position in which the waiting list consists of persons who are prepared to pay the economic price for the service."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th October, 1955; Vol. 545, c. 219.] In other words, what the right hon. Gentleman was obviously doing was making a frontal attack on what has haunted all Postmasters-General since the war, the waiting list.

To make telephones too dear for ordinary folk was to attack the waiting list, but that came in a year when the trading profit of the telephone service was £15.6 million. Of course, the £2 increase did not do the job, and it was only when the right hon. Gentleman became Postmaster-General that a blow was struck at the waiting list. The right hon. Gentleman went one step further. He increased rents by another £3, and by that produced the greatest contraction in the telephone system in the history of the Post Office. More than 100,000 people asked to have their telephones removed. What the story will be at the end of this year, when people get their bills for the previous six months with the increased charges which have operated since 1st October, is anybody's guess.

Mr. William Shepherd (Cheadle)

Is the right hon. Gentleman telling the House that he believes that the Post Office should have continued to subsidise residential subscribers, or does he approve of the increase in prices?

Mr. Ness Edwards

If the hon. Member will allow me to make my speech in my own way, he will see what happened. The fact is that nearly every farmer in the country has his telephone subsidised, even with the present increased charges. Every person who lives in an out-of-the-way place has his letters subsidised by the people who live in heavily populated areas. The same principle applies to telegrams.

Mr. Shepherd

Does the right hon. Gentleman approve of residential subscribers as a class being subsidised at the rate of £3 or more per year? That is the simple question which I am asking him to answer.

Mr. Ness Edwards

I do believe it, because here is a fringe use of capital which is already invested. This is the Kingsley Wood outlook. Kingsley Wood said that one invested capital in cables, in telephone equipment, in all the switching gear inside all the exchanges, and that the main reason for doing that was to provide a service for the business user. That having been done, one came to the fringe user. If those costs are averaged, all the additional use by the residential subscriber becomes "bunce," even though the capital investment is still there to provide for the business subscriber. It is a fringe use, and in that sense the residential subscriber ought not to bear as full share of the burden as the person who uses a telephone as part of his business.

I spoke of the size of the charges which the right hon. Gentleman imposed in July. He said that he had to raise an extra £42 million of which eleven-twelfths was to meet wage awards which had been agreed or would be agreed. He was cheered for having had the courage to increase the charges, but it was obvious to me that some Post Office services were in danger of being priced out of the market, and I did not feel satisfied about the form in which those charges were to be made, nor was I satisfied that the charges were also to preserve a supplementary provision for depreciation of £18 million.

It is true that the right hon. Gentleman was very clever in the way in which he did it. He insisted that this was going to pay wages. For the first time, as it were, Post Office workers were to be treated properly. He was talking through his hat. The method of assessing Post Office wages has been for many years to follow the wages of similar work undertaken outside the Post Office. It is true that in 1955 a settlement on the subject of what was similar work was entrusted to a Commission, but that was in 1955. That Commission was to decide what were the rates outside for similar jobs inside the Post Office, and that was what the right hon. Gentleman was proposing to meet in the charges that he was making.

On 1st October, up went the charges, ostensibly to meet the wages. Then, of course, we had a change. During October there was a new wages policy. The Prime Minister made a speech about wages. The Chancellor of the Exchequer made a speech about wages. In the meantime, 100,000 people had left the telephone system. Then, on 13th November, we got the new announcement. The right hon. Gentleman hides it under automation, hut, in effect, he was announcing that he was abandoning £8 million of his revenue. Charges went up on 1st October, in the middle of November he abandoned £8 million of his revenue, and two days afterwards he refused to accede to a wage claim on the part of those people who had made automation possible. I think that all requires explanation. The right hon. Gentleman has not attempted to explain it.

The same people who cheered him for putting the charges up cheered him for putting them down. It reminds me very much of a story that I heard of someone who had his watch and chain pinched. Eventually he got the chain back. People complained that he was not grateful. So he replied, "What about my watch?" The right hon. Gentleman puts the charge up by £13 million and then abandons £8 million of his revenue, all within a period of six weeks. All I can say is that that form of handling finances does not appeal to me as being the right way to handle the Post Office.

The right hon. Gentleman has talked a lot about automation. Let us get this in its proper perspective. Automation started with the first dialling system. It was done in this way. We first automised the local exchange by putting it on the dial system. We thus eliminated the operator straight way and we eliminated the manual recording of the calls. The next step was to group exchanges. That meant new exchanges, and it also meant central exchanges and new cables. That was the second step, and it is the second step which the right hon. Gentleman has announced. The third step is to link up the new group of exchanges with the trunk system and transform the trunk system into an automatic dialling system. Those are the three stages—the three stages which have been talked about for many years.

In fact, one of my predecessors, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dearne Valley (Mr. Wilfred Paling), making a speech on a money Bill, referred to the automatic dialling between London and Bristol. I know that the right hon. Gentleman has been talking about it, too. It is coming into operation at the end of next year. This talk about automation ought not to lead people from discussing what the right hon. Gentleman was really doing, which was to abandon £8 million of his revenue, which he had said previously he wanted to pay for wages. On the following day he said that he was not going to pay it for wages, and that Post Office workers would have to go to a wages tribunal.

The right hon. Gentleman brought out G.R.A.C.E.—group routing and charging equipment—but that was first mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman who occupies the Chair of this House, Mr. Speaker. At all events G.R.A.C.E. came forward. She was dusted, and was something new for the Press to talk about instead of the accounts that really matter. I looked at the Press the day after the right hon. Gentleman made the announcement to see what would happen. More people were talking about G.R.A.C.E. than about the accounts. Only one unpretentious, provincial paper asked the right question. It was not one of the celebrated newspapers; it was a paper circulating in Wales. The commentator asked: "Why put up the charges in October to pull them down in November?"

I would put to the right hon. Gentleman three considerations. Was it necessary to put them up so high in October, even for the reasons which the right hon. Gentleman gave? If so, why did not he keep them up, or have the reasons for the increase changed? Are the wages not to be paid which are provided for in the increased charges? Has the amount which it was thought right to pay Post Office workers in July, and which the Postmaster-General flamboyantly boasted about, ceased to have any validity? The House voted the money to pay the wages, and yet the Postmaster-General told the workers—two sets of them—"You cannot have these wages."

Perhaps there is another consideration. Have the increased telephone charges been so catastrophic in relation to the telephone system that the right hon. Gentleman has had to give it a shot in the arm? These are the three considerations and perhaps the Assistant Postmaster-General will be able to deal with them.

I have some sympathy with one of the Post Office trade union officials who complained to me about what was happening. He said, "The Postmaster-General put the charges up to give wages, and the day before he meets us he gives away £8 million of the £38½ million he raises by new charges, and then says we cannot have the money." It was his belief that the Government had obtained a very large proportion of these charges under false pretences. Those are the things that I wanted to say generally about the Post Office accounts.

I would say to the Postmaster-General, particularly with regard to the outlook of the telephone system its aims and what should be done, that he is carrying on in true Post Office tradition. In other words, he is following the road laid down by his predecessors on both sides of the House. There was unanimity in the view that the telephone system must be made completely automatic. I think that there we were both guilty of an omission when the right hon. Gentleman made his announcement about automation in this House. I failed to pay a compliment to Dollis Hill, and I am afraid he did, too. Anyhow we have made amends for it today, because the credit for automation, particularly in the London service, rests with Dollis Hill in the first place, with the Joint Committee, to which the right hon. Gentleman has referred, and with the electronics industry presided over by the Post Office. It is their work which is really making automation possible. On the other hand—do not let us be under any illusion about it—full automation of the Post Office telephone system is not due for a long time. It will require a lot of new exchanges, a lot of new cables and a lot of work. It will depend very largely not upon the capacity of the technicians but upon the amount of capital which the right hon. Gentleman will have at his disposal.

I saw the original machinery at Dollis Hill, as the right hon. Gentleman has probably done. Frankly, I cannot see a way out of the problem, but I think it is right to use the brains of people in any part of the world in order to solve this problem. When the right hon. Gentleman speaks of a new advisory committee, is he paying due regard to his present advisory committee? He already has a very responsible committee, and I should have thought that these matters ought to be put to that committee rather than that a new one should be created.

The right hon. Gentleman, as I have said, has not dealt with his Department's accounts in the course of his long speech. He has given us a rather gilded story of the possibilities of the future and of the objectives of the Post Office. One would have thought that his first obligation was to make clear to the House how he has handled the Post Office finances and justify the results of the expenditure. He should at least have ensured that the Post Office was not made to appear as being in the red to the tune of £3 million when, if he had applied the formula which has been applied since 1913 up to last year, when the Post Office made a commercial surplus of £18 million, a similar surplus could have been shown.

5.42 p.m.

Brigadier Terence Clarke (Portsmouth, West)

I should like to ask the Postmaster-General one or two questions and to make one or two suggestions. Before doing either, however, I should like to congratulate him on his excellent speech in which he told us exactly what the Post Office will do in the future. I believe he is the first Postmaster-General I have known to make such an excellent statement to the House. Any derogatory remarks from the other side of the House are due purely to jealousy, in view of the failure of the party opposite to achieve similar success in the past.

Mr. Ness Edwards

I should make it quite plain that there is no jealousy on the part of any former Postmaster-General about any success which the Post Office may achieve, no matter who may be the Postmaster-General.

Brigadier Clarke

Naturally I would not accept that there was any jealousy on the part of Mr. Speaker, but it would seem unnatural to me to suggest that Postmasters-General are different from other people in that respect.

The Postmaster-General spoke of automation and told us that he intended to ask the public to assist the Post Office by saying whether the Post Office is giving them what they want. I should like to suggest a further development of the ordinary P.O. box system where visitors can collect their mail. That system could be further developed if people were asked to put their mail in a certain sized envelope. Perhaps they might even be allowed to post it for ½d. less than the ordinary love letters and less essential mail. My right hon. Friend might get a very ready response from such a scheme. Firms would be quite happy to collect their mail from certain accessible places and, no doubt, a considerable amount of work would be saved to the Post Office in delivering the mail. Moreover, firms would get their mail more often than they do now.

I believe the Postmaster-General could make telegram charges cheaper. I know that we lost over £1 million last year on telegrams, and the previous Postmaster-General told me categorically that if he could price telegrams right out of the system, he would be very pleased because they were an expensive luxury which the Post Office did not like. Certainly by increasing the charges of telegrams we are making this an almost impossible form of communication.

I suggest that people should be allowed to send telegrams to a telephone number, thus requiring no delivery and it should be possible to do this much more cheaply than to send a man on a motorcycle to deliver telegrams. To send a telegram to an ordinary telephone number would cost the Post Office very little indeed and, therefore, it should be possible to allow this form of telegram to be sent much more cheaply.

Mr. W. R. Williams

Will the hon. and gallant Gentleman take it from me that it would not be any cheaper, because somebody would have to dictate the telegram to the telephone number just the same?

Brigadier Clarke

On the contrary, it would be a great deal cheaper, because at the moment when a telegram is dictated on the telephone it is followed by the delivery of the telegram for confirmation. If the local post office is aware that the addressee on a telegram has a telephone, the telegram is dictated and then the addressee is asked whether he wants the telegram sent to him for confirmation. I usually decline. I suggest that people who are already paying heavily for their telephones should have their telegrams sent more cheaply. If the Post Office would only think of reducing costs instead of continually increasing them, we might find that there were sufficient telegrams sent to enable the telegraph system to pay once again as it did in the past.

My final point is this. I may be told that I am out of order, although I understand that as we are voting money today for cables for the B.B.C., among other users, one is not out of order in asking the right hon. Gentleman to use his influence to bring the B.B.C. up to date. A lot of money is sent to the Post Office for this item.

I should like to refer in particular to the B.B.C.'s prejudices on certain subjects such as racing. Why the B.B.C. should refuse, as it used, to give the names of horses which win races, beats me completely. I agree that in the last ten years or so the B.B.C. has done this, but we are never told the prices at which the horses win. Why should we be treated as children and not be allowed to know the price at which a horse wins?

When the B.B.C. is televising the animals walking round the ring, one is never given the prices, but I.T.A. does give this information. Why should one be allowed to do it and not the other? Is there a prejudiced person in the B.B.C. who thinks that he can tell us what we can do and what we cannot do?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Charles MacAndrew)

I agree with the comments, but they do not arise on this Bill.

Brigadier Clarke

Having got it off my chest, I apologise for being out of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I hope the Postmaster-General will not forget what I have said.

5.48 p.m.

Mr. William Ross (Kilmarnock)

While the Postmaster-General was making his excellent speech—I hope he will take that as a compliment, for although it was long, I think most of us enjoyed it—there were occasions when I thought he should have spent a little more time dealing with the actual Bill and the accounts of the Post Office. Apart from that, I would say that the subject matter is of considerable interest to everyone.

I had occasion to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman and he rather knocked me down by telling me that I was eternally impatient. I have been a member of the Post Office Advisory Council for nearly ten years. I do not know for how long the right hon. Gentleman has been Postmaster-General, but I have sat under at least six Postmasters-General. When I hear the Postmaster-General delivering what has become more or less a "Marples story," in which he describes how he has considered a problem and, after consultation with his business friends, has decided that something should be done, I recollect those years of discussion on the Advisory Council.

When the right hon. Gentleman speaks of some machine that will bring an aspect of the Post Office up to date, I recollect that that machine was perfected by his own engineers and that it had had its field trials and had been proved successful before the right hon. Gentleman became Postmaster-General. I thought it was a little unfair of the right hon. Gentleman to delay his references to the work of his predecessors and of the engineers who have been dealing with these problems for such a long time. I hope to come back to one or two of his points later.

First of all, I regret very much that there has been so much knocking of the Post Office during the past year. Although the Postmaster-General may fail to talk about it enough, there is no doubt at all that the Post Office took a terrible knock, and confidence was very much undermined, certainly among those who felt that the last thing they were prepared to give up was the telephone, when he raised the rental charges and other charges as he did during the year. I should like to have up-to-date figures about it. What is the position as regards subscribers now? Have we a waiting list at all?

Mr. Marples indicated assent.

Mr. Ross

I wish we could have been told.

Mr. Marples

I do not want to be discourteous to the House, but it is very difficult to make a comprehensive speech. Whatever one does, one is bound to miss something out.

Mr. Ross

Surely, the right hon. Gentleman will agree that one of the most important things which happened in relation to the Post Office during the year was the increased charges, and the reaction of the public is something we want to know about. A tremendous number of people gave up the telephone. It is all very well to talk about new kinds of equipment which will make the telephone more readily available to everyone, but in the first place we must not only obtain but keep our subscribers.

The Post Office needs once again to be in a position where it is free to sell the telephone to people. We shall be able to do that only if the terms are reasonable. I am quite sure that no one, looking at the position today, even with the changes the right hon. Gentleman has announced in connection with the area call, will see much prospect of being able to bring back all those private subscribers who gave up the telephone. The truth is that the residential subscriber dials within his own area; he seldom dials outside. This is one of the facts that the right hon. Gentleman pointed out. The most uneconomic factor in the telephone system is the residential subscriber who pays his rent and uses the telephone probably very little beyond what was the old free call. There is little doubt about that. It is, therefore, of no great advantage to the residential subscriber to be given a wider area over which to call. That in itself will not bring back many of our lost subscribers.

What we must do is to make it possible eventually to lower the rental. There can be no doubt that we must face that as one of our problems in the future, having in mind the question whether the number of people taking the telephone will justify our carrying on with our schemes. I sincerely hope that we shall receive a response from the public in that.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Ness Edwards) a former Postmaster-General, said that we had won some battles. I should not be too sure about the battle with the Treasury, and I am perfectly certain that the Postmaster-General himself would not accept that the battle has been won. The arrangement we have is to last only five years. Although the Post Office has a certain capital reserve, it is not a very big one at the moment; it is building it up. I think it consists only of the formerly built up supplementary depreciation payment coming to about £18 million, and the amount this year which will bring it up to about £34 million.

If the Post Office wants to draw on that capital reserve, is there no control? I am perfectly sure that there is still general Treasury control over the capital investment of the Post Office just as there is on everyone else.

The right hon. Gentleman himself said that he was concerned to do all he could to build up co-operation between the Government undertaking, the Post Office—I prefer to call it the nationalised undertaking—and private enterprises having manufacturing interests and selling interests both at home and abroad in respect of telecommunications equipment. He wants to do all he can to help. It is vital to those manufacturing interests that he really should win the battle.

I should like to read something from the annual report of the Telecommunication Engineering and Manufacturing Association: Since telecommunications are operated by the State, they are always an easy target for a Chancellor of the Exchequer who wishes to put the brake on capital investment, and, although the Post Office bought more equipment last year, their estimates were, as previously reported, cut to the extent of £5 million by the Treasury, in spite of the very considerable number of people waiting for a telephone to be provided. The Association did not regard it as a very happy augury for the new arrangements in relation to finance that, in the first year, there should be such a cut. I think representatives of the Association made their attitude perfectly clear when they met, if not the right hon. Gentleman himself, certainly his predecessor, the right hon. Gentleman who is now getting a bit mixed up with the Press and public relations. It is plain that we must still battle on. The Post Office must be given more freedom if we are to attain the objects the right hon. Gentleman has outlined today, and we cannot do it with the type of Treasury control which we have now.

I must confess that I am not very happy with the new accounts. I knew my way around the old ones and could spot all the things I wanted, but I have found a little difficulty with these. That is why I regret that the right hon. Gentleman did not spend more time on them.

I feel that we must underline the changes which have been made in relation to the £5 million which must be paid to the Treasury and the changed policy in relation to the calculation of depreciation which has led inevitably to showing the Post Office as having a deficit of £3 million. I made one or two calculations about it. We are paying additionally to the Treasury this year about £2.7 million, and £15.7 million additionally for depreciation. If those sums of about £18 million had been added in we can see that, from these two calculations alone, there would certainly have been a considerable surplus.

We are paying the whole depreciation. Depreciation was about £45 million. That is all going as cash to the Treasury, without anything necessarily coming out, because, as far as I can see, anything coming out is coming out through advance of capital on which the Post Office is being charged currently about 5 per cent. That is the figure in the Report, and it may be higher by now. Increased interest charges last year represent one of the factors leading to the deficit even within this form of accounts.

I notice that there is stress once or twice in these accounts upon the fact that the Post Office has to be debited in respect of interest charges in relation to its liabilities to the Treasury, but I have not seen any report as to what the Treasury credits to the Post Office.

The Assistant Postmaster-General (Mr. Kenneth Thompson)

It is in there.

Mr. Ross

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be able to give me the actual information. These things are of considerable importance in getting a dearer picture, but we do not get as clear a picture from the new form of accounts as we did from the old.

One thing which I regretted the right hon. Gentleman said was that in relation to Post Office work—I presume he was referring to the sorting of letters and the rest—we had made no advance and methods were still the same as they were 100 years ago.

Mr. Marples

Basically.

Mr. Ross

The conveyors, the separators and the parcel sorting machines were never even dreamed of 100 years ago. Is it a matter of policy for the right hon. Gentleman to take an unrealistically gloomy picture and then to tell us what is to be done, knowing that it has been done for quite a long time, so that he can say, "Look what a clean, brilliant new sweep we have made"? That is not good enough.

Over the course of the 100 years, a gradual process of mechanisation has gone on steadily. If there has been any intensification of it, it was done about two years ago, when increased priority for mechanisation was given by the establishment of the Mechanical Aids Committee within the Post Office itself. It is from that source that we have had the speeding-up. It really should not be suggested to us that the electronic sorting machine and the other items are something new which have been thought out overnight.

I, too, pay my tribute. In referring to the advances which have made us the most up-to-date country in the handling of mails, I do not understand how it can be said that we are doing the same things as we did 100 years ago. The fact that we are in this proud position now is due to Dollis Hill and to the devotion and dedication of the men who work there. Throughout the Post Office, all ranks—the men we see and those we do not see, the postmen, the people behind the counter and those in the engineering research units—are dedicated to their own establishment and to the Post Office, which possesses its proud history mainly because that spirit exists and has been fostered.

I want to pay a tribute also to the Minister. I think he has done his share in fostering that spirit, and we want to make sure that he continues to foster it along those lines; but we must watch him in case he begins to regard it as Marples' Post Office instead of the General Post Office. I am wondering whether or not some of the advances we have made are due to the fact that Sir Gordon Radley is the first engineering Director-General we have had. Certainly, we have in him the kind of mind that is needed for the task ahead. There is no doubt that we must keep ahead in these various ways.

The Postmaster-General said that a business committee was to be appointed to advise him on what the public wants and how the Post Office should develop. Does this mean that he is scrapping the Post Office Advisory Committee, on which, as he knows, there are business men from different parts of the country? I wish the right hon. Gentleman had said more about the scope and nature of the new committee. There are already in the Advisory Committee men of considerable experience, whose interests in the Post Office are of much longer standing than mine. In setting up his new committee, the right hon. Gentleman need not imagine that his action will not reflect itself on the existing committee and in the eyes of the public. I hope we shall get some clarification from him.

The right hon. Gentleman had something to say about Scotland. Incidentally, if he wants to do anything for Kilmarnock, could we have a few more—I do not mind whether they are the elaborate now ones or what he has left over of the old ones—telephone kiosks on the Onthank and Bellfield areas of Kilmarnock's new housing scheme? If he does not know how to spell the names of these places, I will be glad to provide the information.

The right hon. Gentleman was not very happy today in his references to Scotland. He said that we came from places with names that were difficult to understand. I am very glad, Sir Charles, that you were not occupying the Chair at the time, for I am sure that you, like me, would have been enraged. Surely, the right hon. Gentleman is not complaining about the word "Kilmarnock". He probably sees it on every Johnny Walker whisky bottle which he notices in the shops.

It was bad enough for the right hon. Gentleman to make that comment, but he then said that our handwriting was very bad. Educationalists in Scotland have always prided themselves on the quality of our handwriting. It was unfair of the right hon. Gentleman to say it, even if he did so jokingly.

Mr. Marples

I said that it was difficult for a foreigner to decipher.

Mr. Ross

If that is the outlook of the Postmaster-General, it explains a great deal.

There has been considerable controversy over the action of the Postmaster-General concerning a request from Scotland which we regard as highly important. I was born in the town of Ayr. I represent Kilmarnock. Just as in Ayr was born Scotland's national bard, Robert Burns, I represent Kilmarnock, where the first copies of Burns' poetry saw the light. On 25th January, 1959, we shall have the two-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns.

I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman sincerely understands or appreciates what Robert Burns means to Scotland, and, indeed, to Scotsmen all over the world and to people in those parts of the world with whom they have come in contact. He has been asked by the Burns Federation to consider the possibility of issuing commemorative postage stamps in January, 1959. He has not been at all sympathetic and has brushed the idea aside. Indeed, on the last occasion that a telegram was sent to him about it, I was shocked at his answer. He said: Kenneth Thompson's letter must be regarded as final. No useful purpose would be served by such a meeting. He had been asked to meet a delegation. What would he lose by doing so? He would have the chance to explain exactly what difficulties exist, if difficulties there are, and how insurmountable they are. He could give an explanation to these intelligent Scots—and not only to Scots; some of the members of the Burns Federation are English. The appeal of Burns goes far beyond Scotland.

I understand that it was suggested that if this proposal relating to Burns were to be allowed, the Post Office would need to consider, in the language of the former Postmaster-General, other illustrious people. Scots would say that there are not very many people who are quite so illustrious. But even if there are, and we are prepared to admit it, there would not be a two-hundredth anniversary of their birth every week, and the same thing should be done in their case.

The precedent was broken by the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor. I have said that it having been breached once it should be breached again, and that this was one of the occasions on which Scots would insist that due regard should be given to their rights by issuing postage stamps to commemorate the birth of Robert Burns. I represent in this House, among other people, Lord Rowallan, the Chief Scout, whom I am to meet either tomorrow or the next day about another matter. I do not deny the worthiness of the Scout movement and the great good that it has done in the world, but I would emphasise the good that has been done by Robert Burns and his poetry. His passion for humanity and his proclamation of the Brotherhood of Man have been a powerful force for peace throughout the world.

I feel that the Postmaster-General has not properly understood, and certainly has not shown any sympathy for what exactly this means not only to the people of Scotland but to people throughout the world. On 25th January, 1959, there will be celebrations by many people in a hundred languages and they will sing a song that the right hon. Gentleman has sung. I wonder whether he knows that Robert Burns wrote "Auld Lang Syne", the song of brotherhood that is sung all over the world.

I sincerely hope that the right hon. Gentleman will remember that precedents have been broken and that difficulties can be surmounted. It is far better to commemorate rather than battles and castles the man who is held in high esteem all over the living world. World-wide celebrations will be held and the focal point will be in Scotland in 1959. The least that the British Government can do is to arrange that a commemorative stamp should be issued. I ask now whether the right hon. Gentleman will be prepared to meet a delegation of Scottish Members of Parliament to discuss this matter, because I cannot take it that a letter written by the Assistant Postmaster-General shall be regarded as final while there are still people who call themselves Scots and Scottish Members in the House.

To those who are hesitant about this I would quote the words of Robert Burns himself. He said: In gathering votes ye werna slack, Now stand as tightly on your tack. Don't claw your lug And fidge your back And hum and haw, But stand up straight and gie your crack Before them a'. It means, "All right, do not say one thing in Scotland and do another thing here." I hope that Scottish Members will insist that the Postmaster-General looks at this matter again. I am perfectly sure that this proposal can be carried out.

6.15 p.m.

Mr. William Shepherd (Cheadle)

I do not intend to be drawn into discussions about the place which Robert Burns occupies in the world of poetry. I am sure the Postmaster-General will deal with that in his own way. I am surprised that there is so little interest in the affairs of the Post Office today. It must be a source of regret to my right hon. Friend and to many other people.

It is surprising that there is not a greater interest, because usually shareholders—and after all we are the shareholders' representatives in this connection—turn up when things are not so good. We have been told that price increases in the last twelve months have been very disagreeable, and I should have thought that there would have been evinced a much greater interest in the proceedings today.

However that may be, we had from the Postmaster-General a most interesting speech in which he gave us a glimpse of the technically progressive side of Post Office activity. Some hon. and right hon. Members opposite are perhaps a little critical that my right hon. Friend is too publicity-conscious, and the direction in which some of the credit has gone may perhaps be a little galling to them. The Post Office has been a flower that has bloomed unseen, and a great deal of the work done by Dollis Hill has been unknown to the vast majority of people. I hope that right hon. Members opposite will swallow what personal advantage my right hon. Friend may gain in realising that if lie succeeds in putting over the Post Office as one of his predecessors, Sir Kingsley Wood did, he will be doing something of immense benefit to those who work in the Post Office.

I have one word of criticism of my right hon. Friend's speech. I know that it occurred accidentally, but I felt that in emphasising the technical and technological side of the work perhaps my right hon. Friend did not pay sufficient tribute to the men and women who work for the Post Office. However much we may increase the supply of mechanical devices, this great business will depend upon the loyalty and devotion of those who work for it. I am sure that my right hon. Friend agrees.

Mr. Marples

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for mentioning that. Although I took a long time to speak, I jettisoned what were to have been the concluding passages of my speech because many of my hon. Friends were saying that I had been too long. I want to make it as clear now, as I did in the Press conference on Post Office charges, that the staff has worked very hard these last twelve months. It has given devoted and loyal service, with an immense skill and patience and assiduity, which to me has equalled anything I have experienced in private enterprise or elsewhere. I failed to say this in my speech only because several hon. Friends were hastening me on.

Mr. Shepherd

I understand my right hon. Friend not saying everything because I, too, was wondering when he was coming to an end.

I congratulate my right hon. Friend upon securing some sort of change in the arrangements for capital and depreciation. The battle with the Treasury has been a long one, and, in the main, it has been lost in the past. I congratulate him on winning at least one stage of the victory. Anything that makes the Post Office commercial accounts less uncommercial is to be welcomed. It is also important that the Post Office should obtain a much higher reserve than it has at present. It is quite absurd that a business of this size has existed all these years with no real reserve. It should be carrying a much more substantial reserve, and I hope that in the next ten years that will be achieved.

My approval of the change in the method of accounting is not limited merely to approval of the benefit which will come to the Post Office. It is most important to get this relationship of Government enterprises and the Treasury correct. I feel that as time goes on we shall find that many nationalised industries now being put out as trading corporations will have to be brought under a better form of Parliamentary control. One of the difficulties of doing that has been the relationship between the Treasury and a Department like the Post Office. Any change of a progressive character that we make which will eliminate these difficulties will pave the way for more effective control of nationalised industries in the future.

On the vexed issue of telephone charges, I had occasion to interrupt the right hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Ness Edwards). There seems to be an extraordinary amount of woolly thinking about them. When I interrupted the right hon. Gentleman and asked whether he supported a subsidy to residential subscribers, he said, in effect, "It is only a marginal, fringe activity of the telephone service". This is not true. The residential subscribers on the Post Office substantially outnumber the business subscribers. There are about 2.6 million against 1.8 million.

I cannot see why the Post Office should for any reason whatever be compelled to provide residential subscribers with telephones at lower than cost. If we were concerned only with the Post Office we should think that, but if we are concerned with the wider aspect of the effect on the economy our reasons are doubled. Why should we devote capital resources, which are scarce, to providing additional cables and equipment to give people telephones at lower than cost to us? We are merely diverting capital resources from what might be profitable export outlets to give people in residential areas telephones at less than cost.

I should like to have a telephone at less than cost as a resident, and all my constituents would, too, but it is proper that in viewing the nationalised industries of this country we do not try to make a party point out of these things. We ought to recognise that the duty of the Post Office is to provide telephones at the lowest conceivable cost to every class of subscriber but to realise that the Post Office has no duty at all to subsidise any subscriber of the telephone service.

I want to say a word about the attitude towards the Post Office, because there is much of what I might term an unfortunate attitude towards it in this country, largely because some individuals cannot see any good at all in a public service. Some people, of course, cannot see anything bad in a public service. I think we ought to end this blind approach and take an adult approach to the question of public services and nationalised industries. I do not for a moment deny that the Post Office is a very fine organisation and that it does an extremely good job, but that in no way detracts from the fact that I think that by and large the greater part of the activities of this country, economically and industrially, ought to be run privately. The reason is that I recognise that the Post Office is an organisation which is particularly suited to nationalisation. It is a business which depends upon system; it depends upon everybody carrying out their jobs in a systematic manner. It benefits from a highly intelligent centralised control, but many other forms of business activity die on that diet. While I praise the Post Office, therefore, it is not because I believe that nationalisation is a superior form of organisation generally, but because I believe that nationalisation is particularly suited to this kind of activity.

In the interests of the staff, we ought not to indulge in such petty and in many cases wholly unjustified criticism. On occasion, I have had to say one or two things about the Post Office and its staff in a complimentary way, and I have been much impressed by the way in which that has been received by the staff. The morale of the Post Office is its greatest asset. Without its morale it would cease to be the efficient organisation that it is. While I shall criticise the Post Office in a minute, and while I do not believe that criticism ought to be silenced, it ought to be responsible, and it certainly ought not to be malicious.

The Postmaster-General stressed the need for mechanisation in postal delivery, and I hope that he will get somewhere with this. I say that in a qualified way, because there are many hurdles to overcome before we reach the state of affairs where the magic eye can do this work. On the whole, people in this country like to be individualist. It is one of the major differences between this country and the United States We do not accept standardisation. We think that standardisation in the things that we do or wear is unnecessarily limiting, but in America there is a very ready acceptance of standardisation. I have very considerable doubt whether we shall get the public acceptance of the standardised envelopes and coded addresses. I hope that we shall, but I have very great doubts.

Mr. C. R. Hobson

In all fairness, the point ought to be made that we have a far more efficient postal service than America and that we are more mechanised than the Americans, even without standardisation.

Mr. Shepherd

Indeed we are, but we are coing to an era in the postal service where we are to consider the prospects of mechanised sorting, and I was suggesting that on the whole the Americans have a better chance of getting the standardardised envelope and the coded addresses accepted than we have because we are much more individualistic as a nation. Nevertheless, I reinforce what my right hon. Friend said. People must face the realities of present-day costs if they want to refuse to conform to the new ideas. In this country we have had a number of services like rent, postal communications and coal placed at our disposal at absurdly low prices for a very long time, and it is hard for a great number of people to realise that that era has passed and that we are entering into an era of relatively high costs in respect of a number of things, in the same way as happened in America a long time ago. As my right hon. Friend said, people will have to decide that if they want their individualistic approach they must pay for it.

May I touch on one or two things about the postal service? On the whole, we have a good postal service, but I am disturbed about the extent to which we have labour turnover in the postal service. This is a serious drain on the efficiency of the service, because knowledge of a particular walk is of especial importance to postmen. I hope that the new rates of pay which are being introduced will reduce the amount of labour turnover in the Post Office. Here I enter a word of criticism—I hope that we shall get smarter postmen than we have. There are far too many slovenly postmen about today. I am not saying that every postman who walks about is slovenly; of course, that is not the case. The majority of postmen are smart. But it is bad for a service to have an untidy man walking about in a uniform or what one guesses to be a uniform. Sometimes one is not quite sure what it is. I hope that those in the unions who are responsible will try to get their members to realise that if they are a public service and want to stand high in public esteem, part of that pattern is, when they appear in public, to be smart and to keep themselves looking neat and tidy.

Mr. W. R. Williams

I am interested in what the hon. Member has said. One of the complaints of postmen throughout my long experience has been that, in order to be smart, they would like to have the best form of uniform and a replacement of that uniform in order to retain that smartness. I am satisfied that if the hon. Member is able to convince his right hon. Friend that a more frequent issue of uniform would help towards that smartness, the postmen would be the first to accept it.

Mr. Shepherd

I have no doubt that with a more liberal distribution of uniforms the postmen might look much smarter, but there is such a thing as care and preservation of uniforms, wearing a cap and buttoning up the jacket. I am saying that in many cases—I do not say anything like a predominant number—the postman is not a good ambassador for the business because he does not keep himself as smart as he could, even with the limitations of the present issue of uniform.

What does my right hon. Friend intend to do about these wretched letter boxes which people are putting at the bottom of doors? In times of labour scarcity there is no point in delivering letters to people who will put their letter box at the bottom of the door. If everybody had their letter box at the bottom of the door there would be a much larger labour turnover in the Post Office than there is now. Certainly there will be much higher cost in delivery. My right hon. Friend said that he was inviting various bodies to devise the ideal letter box. I am not so much concerned about the ideal letter box as the position it occupies in relation to the building. It is grossly unfair to expect postmen who have to carry a fairly substantial load at the start of their walk to bend down and put letters into letter boxes at ground level.

Another point of minor importance I wish to speak about is the postal orders which have been issued. The present postal order is really a frightful mistake. In fact, when I first saw it I thought it was a misprint and the machine had not quite got the colour of the ink on to the paper. It looks a washed-out affair. The type faces are all jumbled up in an unreadable mass. If the old postal order had been bad I would not have grumbled so much. But the old postal order was of sounder design and a well printed and well produced piece of paper.

The new postal order in no way compares with the old from the design aspect. In an organisation like the Post Office we expect to see progress. I think that every massed-produced paper in the Post Office is important to prestige. I hope that the Postmaster-General will put out to one or two designers the chance of designing a new postal order with elegant type faces which is easily readable and well printed. I know that it can be done, and I hope that it will not be long before the present postal order is superseded.

I should like to say how much I think the counter staff in post offices has improved in the last decade or so. When I was a boy I was afraid to go into a post office and face those monsters behind the grill, particularly the female monsters. I was very glad that the grill was there in case I was bitten. Today that has changed. A genius decided to mix some men with the ladies. That seems to have had a quite remarkable effect. This matter is important. I am certain that a large number of people took their pattern of the average civil servant from those rather fearsome ladies who sat behind post office counters. Today, I am sure that a lot of people realise that a change has come about and that on the whole the Civil Service has benefited from the improved relations between the counter staff in post offices and the public. I for one am grateful for the great improvement which has taken place in the last decade or so.

In conclusion, the progress that the Post Office is now making has to continue because, as we all know, applied science is the key to modern industry. No less than any other organisation can the Post Office refuse to play its part and take advantage of applied science. There is great scope for it in the Post Office. I hope that the progress will be pushed on as hard as possible. I am convinced that my right hon. Friend will do it if anyone can.

Whatever we do to improve the mechanical set-up of the Post Office by applied science, it will always remain a business which rests much upon the men who serve it. There is a great deal of attraction and prestige in the words "Royal Mail". Men in the Post Office do not go to work; they go on duty. That service to the community is something which is of great value to us as a nation. It has enabled us to have the best and the cheapest postal service in the world. It is due, in the main, as my right hon. Friend said not to any mechanical marvels, but to the sense of duty of those who serve the Post Office. I hope that in the future those who want to criticise these men—and they must be open to criticism—will realise that, although it may have its shortcomings and costs may be rising, we still have the cheapest and best postal service in the world.

6.35 p.m.

Mr. Emrys Hughes (South Ayrshire)

I will not detain the House more than a few moments. I intervene in this debate only because I wish to endorse the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross). He appealed to the Postmaster-General to think again about the possibility of issuing a Burns stamp in 1959. I am not sure he realises the very strong public opinion there is about this matter, not only in Scotland but by Scots everywhere.

My hon. Friend was not making merely a parochial or constituency point. He was putting a point of view which is widespread and which, I believe, is prevalent on the benches opposite. I am sure that if he consulted the Secretary of State for Scotland, who, together with the Prime Minister, knows something about the opinion that prevails in this matter, he would realise that this is not an ordinary request.

I submit to the Postmaster-General that there is a precedent. In August this year those of us who were at the Inter-Parliamentary Union Conference in London had the opportunity of buying the special stamp which commemorated the Conference. If a special stamp is issued for the Inter-Parliamentary Union, I suggest that a precedent has definitely been created. While we all agree that the Inter-Parliamentary Union is an international organisation, it is also true that the celebration of the Burns bicentenary will also be a great international celebration as well. I know, for example, that delegates are coming from all parts of the Commonwealth and from many other countries, including the Soviet Union. Why should it be that the Soviet Union has a Robert Burns stamp yet the country of his origin has no Burns stamp at all?

The Minister shows great imagination in many of his administrative actions, and I believe that he is open to conviction on this matter. He has plenty of time to think about it during the next year. I ask him to respond not only to Scottish opinion but to national public opinion and international public opinion, too. Thousands of people will be coming from all parts of the world to Scotland and London in connection with the celebrations. It would be an act of commonsense and an act of imagination and enterprise to publish a Robert Burns stamp to mark this unique occasion.

6.39 p.m.

Mr. C. R. Hobson (Keighley)

I, too, am surprised at the sparse attendance for a debate upon this Bill, which involves the granting of a considerable amount of money. One can only put it down to the fact that it is an exceptionally foggy day.

This debate provides an opportunity for us to review the whole work of the Post Office. Normally, we have these money Bills every two years, but the Postmaster-General stated that that was not going to be the practice in future. I gather that we are going to have this kind of Bill as and when the money is required. Previously the custom has been to ask for a sum of £175 million, whereas the Bill asks only for £75 million, for reasons which the right hon. Gentleman has given. I should like to know whether the £75 million will last for the normal two years.

The Opposition have not been able to have a Supply Day for a debate on the Post Office. We have had the usual twenty-six days, but such are the sins of omission and commission of Her Majesty's Government that we have had to choose far more important matters than the Post Office, which is an efficient and prosperous business concern. Here we are concerned with a Department with a capital of £1,000 million and a staff of 360,000. It is therefore our duty to review the undertaking very carefully.

I pay tribute to the commercial buoyancy of the Post Office. It amazes me how, when the traffic continues to grow, the Post Office is able to absorb millions of pounds in increased wages and transport costs without having to increase its charges. It is only this year that we have had an increase in what I always call the basic postal rate, front 2½d. to 3d. This is only a 100 per cent. increased over the pre-war rate, and there are very few commodities whose prices have not been increased to a greater extent. I am amazed at the criticism the increase has received in the Press. The price of newspapers has risen by 150 per cent., compared with the Post Office increase of 100 per cent. in its basic charge.

I should like to have the breakdown for wages and extra costs in the Post Office from 1945 to the present day, or to the nearest available date. The relevant figures must be available. The reason for the increased charge has been the increase in wages and the Post Office workers were certainly entitled to an increase. The trade unions would have been failing in their duty if they had not applied for it. Taking the normal yardstick, and comparing the wages of Post Officer workers with those of the average worker before the war, and before the latest increase, one finds that the Post Office workers certainly deserve the rise.

I should like to know something more about the outstanding application of the Post Office Engineering Union. When the right hon. Gentleman informed the House of the increased charges I asked him whether they included a settlement of the claim of the Post Office engineers, and, if my memory serves me right, his answer was in the affirmative. Apparently, however, the claim has not been settled. I do not know whether it is because of a disagreement about the figure, but the matter is now to go to an arbitration tribunal, whereas the right hon. Gentleman led us to believe that it had been settled—as he will see if he refers to his reply.

We should do well to remember the normal practice and the normal machinery which exists for seeking wage increase in Civil Service unions, namely, the machinery of the Whitley Councils. The validity of a claim is continually examined by expert witnesses at the arbitration tribunal. For ordinary commodities shopkeepers can raise their prices almost as they wish, as can businesses, but when wages are involved a very complicated procedure has to be followed. The Post Office claims have managed to survive this test, and the men and women in the service have received the increases to which they were entitled.

Many tributes have been paid to the Post Office staff. I pay tribute to their rational approach to the introduction of automation. There is no Luddite attitude towards new developments. That is true in the case of the mechanisation of trunk switching and through-switching in telegraphs. There is a progressive attitude to these matters.

In addition, a tremendous amount of work is put upon the staff. Who would like to be a counter clerk? If there is any extra work which affects the whole of the population, the Government always give it to the Post Office, and the grade that usually has to carry it out is the counter clerk. I have hurriedly scribbled out a few jobs that he has to do. He has to deal with stamps, postal orders, money orders, pensions, savings bank transactions and dog licences, and he must know the multifarious rates which exist for letters, printed packets and parcels. He also has to deal with telegrams and, last but not least, Premium Bonds. I never cease to admire the work done by the counter clerk.

It is my duty to ask the Postmaster-General a number of questions, and I will deal first with the postal side. What is the attitude of the Department to the many requests which have been made by small organisations, including people who are just beginning to promote companies, who seek to carry out their own deliveries, or to negotiate arrangements with the Post Office for the bulk delivery of letters at a lower rate if they are sent to the Post Office at a certain time? A decision must be taken on this matter, because many more applications will be made.

Secondly, what is the Department's attitude to the bulk postage of printed matter from abroad to this country? Many firms are having matter printed and posted abroad where the rate is often subsidised by the Government concerned. This means a loss of revenue to the British Post Office on matter which should have been printed and posted in Britain. There is an increasing tendency to print matter abroad, but I believe that it can be prevented under existing Post Office regulations. A decision must also be taken on that matter. I do not know how many foreign countries subsidise printed matter in this way, but I think that many do, and I know that Holland does.

Reference has been made to buildings. Post Office buildings in many areas still leave a lot to be desired. Some should be entirely scrapped and new ones built. Whitehaven is a very bad example. I hope that steps are being taken to build new ones. I should also like to know the present position about the new West Central Office. How is that scheme going on? Then there is the extension of the Post Office underground railway. I happened to be Chairman of the Committee which considered the hybrid Bill in connection with that matter.

The retaining of staff in these days of full employment does not depend solely upon wages. There is shift work in the Post Office, and, as an old shift worker, I know how onerous it can be. Welfare also enters into the matter. It is very difficult to provide satisfactory welfare conditions in old and obsolete buildings, and so I hope some attention will be given to them.

I intended to speak about mechanisation but as the Postmaster-General has given us a very up-to-date survey of what has been attempted in that field I propose to say no more on that subject, except to wish the scheme well and success to the contemplated developments.

The engineering section of the Post Office is vast and complicated. The telephone repair service is very efficient and continues to improve. Many people do not appreciate the speed with which repairs are carried out, not only small ones at home but major ones which result in many cases from the weather. What is the position about new buildings and new telephone exchanges? There has obviously to be a change of design because of the contemplated new scheme. One of the difficulties that we experienced in meeting the requests of people to be connected to the telephone was that one in five of the existing exchanges were so full that it was impossible to put more equipment into them.

The added difficulty which the right hon. Gentleman has to face results from the first action taken by the present Home Secretary when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1951, which was to cut building. The Post Office had to carry the knock, too. Apart from the difficulties remaining from the war years, there is increasing difficulty because of that action of the former Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Let us look at two weaknesses which still continue in the telephone service. The hon. Baronet the Member for Dorset, South (Viscount Hinchingbrooke), who is not here at the moment, has frequently raised one of them, and I have raised it by way of Question and answer but have never got very far. It is a difficulty which the Post Office had when I was there, and it includes the speed of answering phonograms. Something must be done to improve it. There is delay at peak load in dealing with directory inquiries, and I can well understand it, but I cannot understand the delay that occurs outside business hours, I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will look into these matters.

My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Openshaw (Mr. W. R. Williams) said that he welcomed any reduction in telephone charges. It would be churlish of me to do otherwise, but I wonder whether the reductions have been made in the best way. There is obviously a theoretical saving as the result of automation, but even the Department cannot be quite sure about it. If there is, it will grow greater. How shall we apply it? That is a reasonable question.

The right hon. Gentleman has enlarged the radius of the ordinary call, and in London this abolishes the toll call and reduces the trunk charges. I wonder whether that was the best way. There is a reason for debate and difference of opinion on this point. I should have thought we could have helped the residential subscriber, despite what the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mr. Shepherd) has said. The residential subscriber has been clouted on the head and slapped on both cheeks. First, he has had his rental put up; secondly, his free calls have been abolished; thirdly, his call rate has been increased. He really has suffered. I may be told that the residential service is not an economic proposition but that is true of other services of the Post Office. I would have felt inclined to apply whatever surplus there might be for the benefit of a residential subscriber.

Figures have been worked out by the gentlemen of the Press. I put one of them to the test myself. The average number of calls which the ordinary residential subscriber makes works out at pretty nearly 1s. a call, now that the free calls have been abolished, whereas he can go to a call box and make a call for 4d. I believe that many former subscribers are doing so. My hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) said that one of the reasons for the falling off in the waiting list was the high cost of the residential telephone. It is probably too late for the right hon. Gentleman to change anything, even if I could convince him in argument, but if there is a surplus on the telephone side for distribution I hope he will not forget the residential subscriber.

I enjoyed the right hon. Gentleman's fun about Keighley. The only thing I have against him is that he started to compare Lancashire with Yorkshire. I do not intend to fight the Battle of the Roses again. I ask hon. Members to look very closely indeed at the maps that were sent to them recently by the Post Office. They will be most interesting. I do not think all hon. Members have tumbled to the idea. The right hon. Gentleman could not have taken a worse example than Keighley. I admit that he can go to Burnley or to Westmorland. I would not like to say how many miles it is; perhaps thirty. We can go to Bradford. The right hon. Gentleman even went so far as to say that 59,000 subscribers would be affected.

So far as I can see, Leeds is left out. The circle in my map is broken, and, therefore, I assume that Leeds is out, although the amount of telephoning between Keighley and Leeds is considerable. There is no hon. Member present from Sheffield, so I suppose I can say that Leeds is the prime city of my native county, and I think I am right in that. I hope that hon. Members will look carefully at their maps. I am not blaming the right hon. Gentleman or his Department for doing it because they obviously wanted revenue.

Are we ever going to do anything about a 3d. bit coin-box in our call boxes? Surely it is not beyond the wit of Dollis Hill rapidly to alter the mechanism in the boxes. I gave full marks to the engineers when adjustments were made for the weight of four pennies instead of the weight of three. If we can do it with tanners and bobs, surely we can do it with the 3d. bit.

I used not to accept the idea of a timing arrangement in call boxes, but in railway termini where many large call boxes are in use I think it is necessary to limit the call to three minutes. We see people waiting in the cold while some young lady is ringing up her beau. Usually the women are at fault. We ought to do something about it. I say that seriously.

There is a deficit on telegrams; there always will be a deficit. I welcome the new committee of inquiry, but I assure the right hon. Gentleman that there must be a considerable space in the archives of the Post Office containing reports on the telegrams service. I do not know what can be done about it, but I am rapidly coming to confirmation of the idea that I had when I was at the Post Office, that a serious review must be made of having the Department on a care and maintenance basis. The telephone is killing the telegram, and this is bound to happen. We do not want redundancy to arise; people have to be absorbed. We have to keep a telegraph service for strategic reasons. I hope that matter will be looked at very seriously.

I should like to know if the through-switching of telegrams has been completed. There has been a scheme under consideration for a long time. The amount of mechanisation done in the telegraph service over many years has shown that the Post Office is fully aware of this problem of reducing the deficit. It has tried every expedient, spent thousands on mechanising the service, increased the cost of greetings telegrams, and done all sorts of tricks, but none of them has worked. Therefore, an inquiry is necessary.

Reference should be made to a backwater of the Post Office and to the very important work of the wireless branch and ship-to-shore radio. How is it getting on? That subject seems to be tucked away and we never hear about it. It is a sort of silent service.

As a more immediate matter, I want to raise the whole question of wireless interference. The Post Office is responsible for suppressing it. How many regulations have been laid under the Wireless Telegraphy Act, 1949, dealing with this problem? All the time the right hon. Gentleman is speaking about interference in wireless reception there is propaganda from radio manufacturers making v.h.f. sets, but v.h.f. is becoming the subject of quite a considerable amount of interference. It is no good saying that people have not got the right aerials, because interference comes from motorcars, motorcycles, television sets and household apparatus. People want to know how many regulations have been laid and whether any further ones are to be laid to deal with this problem.

A final section to which I want to refer is the maritime branch and the cable ships. Reference has been made to the work done by the "Monarch". I should be glad to know whether there are any other large schemes in hand for that vessel. It has certainly been a very good dollar-earner for Britain. It has just completed the Pacific cable, and there has been the laying of the Atlantic cable, which was a joint undertaking by the Canadian and United States Governments. What is the position about the fleet? The "Alert" is finished. It is an old ship which was reconditioned. We had it from the Germans as war compensation. Are we to keep the fleet, or is Cable and Wireless to do this work? A decision should be taken on whether the fleet is to be extended, or kept to four vessels, or whether—as I have heard rumoured—Cable and Wireless is likely to do some of the work. That should be cleared up, if only for the sake of morale.

The Post Office does a first-class job economically and efficiently, and it is certainly the finest Post Office in the world. One has only to talk to Americans to realise that. An American will say, "Guy, your postal services are good!" That is something of which those of us who have been associated with the Post Office are proud. We are proud to pay tribute to the efficiency of the Post Office, and, in relation to present price levels, the costs are not unreasonable.

7.5 p.m.

The Assistant Postmaster-General (Mr. Kenneth Thompson)

This has been an interesting debate in many ways, in that so much has been said in praise of the Post Office from all sides of the House that it is a little difficult to regard oneself as replying to a critical debate. I should explain to the House that the right hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Ness Edwards) had to leave the Chamber. He mentioned to me before he went that he had to go, and we quite understand the reasons for his not being here at this stage of the debate.

The right hon. Member based a fair amount of his criticism of the speech of my right hon. Friend on the fact that my right hon. Friend had not devoted the greater part of his speech to discussing the accounts. I think we ought to keep clear in our minds precisely what is the nature and purpose of this debate. None of the exciting, imaginative developments my right hon. Friend was able to describe to the House would be possible unless we had first put the finances of the Post Office on a realistic, businesslike basis. The accounts we have published make it perfectly clear that that is precisely what we have been trying to do.

This is not something that has happened overnight. The process began some time ago and has been continuing steadily until we have now arrived at the stage of the money Bill. We have reached the position in which our accounting is on a reasonably firm and readily recognisable commercial footing. We set aside sums of money for depreciation and we draw in new money from the Treasury as a result of this Bill, a sum only sufficient to equal the new investment we want to undertake, and the charges which we make to our customers are based upon the economic value of the services we render to them resting on that realistic accountancy basis.

Mr. Ross

The hon. Gentleman said that the Post Office sets aside sums of money and can draw upon depreciation allowances. Is it not a fact that there is a depreciation account and also a supplementary account?

Mr. Thompson

The facts are quite clear, and the hon. Member would do himself a service if he would try to avoid confusing his own mind. We are setting aside from our revenue sums equal to the proper amount due for the depreciation of the assets we use. We have that money available for ourselves. The hon. Member can perhaps satisfy any doubts that remain in his mind by refreshing his memory from what is in the Bill. We are asking for a sum of £75 million, which we hope will last us for about two years. That compares, or contrasts, with the sum of about £175 million or £185 million in other recent money Bills. The difference is the sum of the resources we re-create for ourselves by setting aside proper depreciation sums.

That is good commercial practice, and it is on good commercial practice that all the operations of the Post Office rest at present. We are dealing, as I am sure the House realises, with a very big business. We have 50 million customers. We have 359,000 employees. The sum total of our cash transactions with our customers, including the agency services we render to other Government Departments, is about £5,000 million a year. We employ 359,000 men and women on our staffs and occupy 10,000 buildings. We have 4½ million telephone subscribers using 7¼ million telephones. We booked for them last year 3,750 million local calls and 321 million trunk calls. We handled 10,000 million pieces of mail for them. It is a large business, measured by any of the normal standards that one applies to a business.

Not only have we put our accounts on a recognisable commercial footing, but we have put our charges on a commercial footing, too. This is a matter which has interested several hon. Members who have taken part in the debate. It has been suggested that we might have approached our charging system in a different way, first of all in July when we had to raise our telephone charges and, secondly, last month when my right hon. Friend was able to announce new and refreshing changes in the telephone charging system.

It will help, I hope, to remove doubts from the minds of some hon. Members who have criticised this system if we begin at the very beginning. My right hon. Friend explained to the House how under the new system of charges we have made it possible for the telephone system and all its installations to be more efficiently and fully used now than was ever possible before. We could not do that until we had first of all established our charges on a sound economic footing. That means obtaining a reasonable economic rent for the telephones that we instal. It is not the slightest use installing a telephone at a sum greatly less than it costs us to put in a telephone, and to maintain it when it is in, and then to try to recover the deficiency by some other distortion of the charging system. The rent which we charge for a telephone that we have installed bears a direct and proper commercial relation to the cost of installing that telephone, providing the wires for the exchange and the switching equipment within the exchange itself.

Having done that, we make it possible for the machine to be properly and efficiently used, and we can then come to the first stage, to which the hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. C. R. Hobson) has referred, at which we say to our customers or subscribers, "Within that system that we have arranged on an economic footing we can offer you a better kind of service than was possible when the service was limited by the charging system which pertained before."

We have reached that stage, and my right hon. Friend was happy and proud to announce to the House that the time had come for us to offer this advantage to the subscribers to the telephone system. Nevertheless, I hope that the House will not imagine that it would have been possible to take this further step without first of all having put the system on a proper footing.

The hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) was a little gloomy about the extent to which subscribers to the telephone service found themselves unable to bear the thought of having to pay these extra charges. Let us have the facts on record. There is still a very large list of more than 200,000 people waiting to be joined to the telephone service. This is in spite of the fact that last year, in the year ending 30th September, we joined 400,000 new subscribers to the telephone service, which is more than 1,000 subscribers a day, seven days a week, for the whole of last year. We expect to join a similar number to the telephone service during the twelve months on which we have just embarked.

It is true that there were people who found themselves unwilling or unable to pay the new charges and that between the time of the announcement of the new charges and about a fortnight ago 120,000 people gave notice to terminate their agreements with the Post Office. I should tell the House, however, that normally in a comparable period of time more than 60,000 people give up their telephones. People die, people move, people change their habits, and there is a normal wastage of that order at any time during the ordinary run of the year. I think about 60,000 to 70,000 people can be presumed to have had as the reason for giving up the telephone the fact that we had had to put up the charges.

We are sorry about that. We are sorry to lose our customers. It is our hope that many will come back. In fact, many of them are coming back. We are now receiving letters at the rate of about 500 a week asking us to cancel their cancellations. I therefore believe that the steps which we have taken have been shown to be right. Because we recognise that a certain amount of difficulty was bound to be caused to many telephone subscribers as a result of the change between the time they reached the decision to cancel their agreements and the time they saw the new development and decided to stay within the club, we have decided that we shall not be too brutal or hidebound about the reconnection charge. Where the instrument and the installation are still there many people will pay very little or nothing at all. We shall try to soften the blow to others as best we can.

The telephone service of the country is on a reasonably secure basis, providing a reasonably good standard of service for the great majority of people. We hope to see it continue to develop as well in the future as it has developed in the past.

On the subject of telephone and other buildings, to which the hon. Member for Keighley referred, we have long had a programme of building in the hope of being able to catch up on the arrears caused by various circumstances, such as a lot of war damage, rapid expansion in the telephone services—the postal service has also expanded—new towns being built and new extensions of towns, with great demands on the Post Office. We made a larger number of starts on new buildings during last year than in any year since the end of the war. There were about 170. This was not as many as we had hoped, but we hope to do a little better during the year which we are now starting, and we shall try to keep up the pace.

My right hon. Friend has set the senior officials of the Post Office the difficult job of trying to make it easy to erect new buildings and to have a kind of building which can be reproduced readily from place to place to meet a minimum standard need and still be capable of facile expansion as the demand for more accommodation grows in any area. The telephone service, therefore, is doing reasonably well.

If the House will bear with me, I should like to say a word about the Post Office stamp policy, which has been mentioned in one of its aspects. I hope that the Scots will not think that either my right hon. Friend or I are in any way hostile either to the Scots or to Robert Burns. Nothing could be further from the truth. Both my right hon. Friend and I know Scotland well, and if he loves it as much as I do the Scots have nothing to fear on that account.

I hope that Scottish hon. Members and Scots outside will be ready to accept the assurance that we have tried to bring our minds to a position in which we can appreciate what Robert Burns means to the Scots. It is not given to the Sassenach to share to the full the joy and felicity of reading Burns' poems, but we can try, and I should like to assure our Scottish friends that we have tried, to come to a realisation of the importance of Burns to the Scots and Scotland. On the other hand we have a duty which transcends either what the Scots think about Burns or what we think about any of our national figures, some of whom are no less illustrious than Robert Burns.

We have to think about the policy of the Post Office towards the issue of stamps. That is our duty. We have to try to marry the responsibility of the Post Office for keeping a dignified high level stamp available at all the, different denominations with a proper regard for such considerations as those raised by hon. Members who want us to issue a special commemorative stamp for Robert Burns.

For a long time the policy of the British Post Office has been to treat its issues of stamps with, if I may use the word without offence, a conservative approach. We have sought to have a standard set of high quality and of a design which is acceptable and pleasing to most people both in this country and throughout the world. The central and focal figure in that stamp is the portrait of the Monarch. That has always been the case. It is subject to slight variations around the frame and around the head of the Monarch, but the Monarch's head is the predominant and over-riding feature of the stamp. That has been so for a great many years.

One of the results of that, not without some importance, and certainly not without prestige importance, is the fact that the British postal authorities are not called upon to put on our stamps the name of the country of origin. We are the only postal authority in the world to which that applies. We issue special stamps from time to time; and hon. Members were quite right to draw the attention of the House to the fact that this year we issued a Boy Scout Jamboree special stamp and a little later, in September, a stamp to mark the forty-sixth Conference of the Inter-Parliamentary Union which took place within this Palace this year.

Those issues did not set a precedent of the kind which hon. Members were trying to argue. They were not commemorative stamps in the sense in which philatelists, the Post Office, or even hon. Members themselves, would understand that term. They were special issues but not commemorative special issues. Even the Boy Scout stamp did not commemorate the birth of the founder of the movement. It happened that the Jamboree in connection with which the stamp was issued was timed by the Boy Scout Association to coincide with the birth of the founder of the movement, but that had no relevance to the stamp itself.

After all, the Boy Scout movement is in a quite different category, with respect to the Burns movement, from those other things which have been suggested as worthy of the issue of a special stamp, for instance, in commemoration of the bicentenary of the birth of Robert Burns.

Mr. A. Woodburn (Clackmannan and East Stirlingshire)

Am I to understand that if the Burns federations all over the world have a conference that will be the sort of thing which will justify the production of a special stamp—as distinct from the birth of Robert Burns?

The hon. Member seemed to think that the only people who knew anything about Burns were the people in Scotland. He cannot have seen films in which people have sung "Auld Lang Syne" in cowboys' camps; he cannot have heard "Auld Lang Syne" sung on the wireless many times; he cannot know that even in Moscow people begin to think that Robert Burns was one of their poets; and that the Americans, as Robert Ingersoll pointed out long ago, think that they appreciate him far more than do the Scots. He cannot know of the many pilgrimages of Americans to Burns's cottage; he cannot know that Ingersoll's poem is framed there as a tribute not from Scots to a Scot but from Americans to a Scot.

If the hon. Member is suggesting that the only people in the world who appreciate Burns are himself and the Postmaster-General, he cannot have yet realised that many of his own poets, including Wordsworth and Byron, paid tribute to the work which Robert Burns did in destroying humbug—

Mr. Speaker

The right hon. Gentleman will pardon me if I remind him that we have still some time to go to 25th January, 1959.

Mr. Thompson

The right hon. Gentleman is a little ungenerous. I went out of my way to say that we have tried to draw away any veil which might be presumed to exist between an English Postmaster-General and a great Scottish interest, a great United Kingdom interest, a great world interest. That is what I have been trying to explain to the House.

Mr. Woodburn rose—

Mr. Thompson

I was hoping that I could bring the House back to the point, given a little time and opportunity to do so.

There is that difference between the two events. Every boy of every kind in every land and of every age is concerned, either nostalgically or in fact, with the Boy Scout movement.

Mr. Ross

Not the Boys' Brigade.

Mr. Thompson

It was on those grounds that the agreement was made to issue special stamps in connection with the Boy Scout Jamboree.

Mr. Ross

The hon. Member will appreciate that in that there is a break with established tradition.

Mr. Thompson

No. There is a marked difference between the two cases.

Mr. Ross

I am not now comparing the one with the other, the Boy Scout movement with the Burns movement. I am comparing what the hon. Member said about the tradition of British postage stamps and the suggestion that the break in tradition was made by that issue this year.

Mr. Thompson

I have done my beat to give the House information. I have tried to explain that there is a difference between a special issue of a stamp and a commemorative issue of a stamp. That is where the discussion began. I have clearly failed to make the point with the hon. Member for Kilmarnock, but I can only do my best. There is a world of difference between the two cases.

We do issue special stamps and I hope that nothing I have said to the House will lead people to believe that we do not. We shall issue more special stamps and we shall issue new stamps in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Jersey, Guernsey, and the Isle of Man. There will be no special stamps in England; they will be only for the other countries making up the United Kingdom. Stamps which have been designed and selected by Scots for use within Scotland will be issued in Scotland; similarly, special stamps will be issued for Wales, Northern Ireland, Jersey, Guernsey, and the Isle of Man.

It is our hope that the first of these stamps, the 3d. denomination, of which there will be six kinds representing each of the different countries, will be available some time during the middle of next year, and that the larger denominations of 6d. and 1s. 3d. will be available later, in the fall of next year.

We also intend to issue in July of next year a special stamp in connection with the British Commonwealth and Empire Games which are to be held in Cardiff. I do not want anyone to get the impression that the Post Office never issues new stamps. What we say is that there are difficulties which cannot be easily overcome in deciding when to issue a new stamp to mark any event. After all, England herself has some poets, not without merit and not without distinction. I am not quite sure whom Wales would want to commemorate, but there is a long list of distinguished people of all kinds, in England, Scotland and elsewhere, who would have at least a claim for commemoration of this kind equal to that of Robert Burns.

Mr. Emrys Hughes

Why not those as well?

Mr. Thompson

There is a simple practical problem with which we have to deal, of how we are to issue the stamps and what kind of stamps they are to be. We start from the fact that our stamp has as its predominant design the portrait of the Monarch. Is the stamp to be faced with the portrait of Robert Burns? Is that the way it should be? I doubt that that would give pleasure to everybody, even to all Scots.

Mr. Emrys Hughes

If that objection were put to the Monarch, the Monarch would not object, because she is half Scots.

Mr. Thompson

It is important that my right hon. Friend should reach a decision before the matter goes to the Monarch. We should not want to put the Monarch in a position which she might find difficult or embarrassing. That is one of the difficulties which has to be faced by those who want us to issue a special stamp in connection with Robert Burns. We have given a great deal of thought to the matter.

I have tried to convince the House, I hope with some measure of success, that we have tried to see the matter from the point of view of the Scots themselves and of those who like the poetry of Robert Burns—and I include myself among those who spend a fair proportion of their time, usually very late at night, singing "Auld Lang Syne".

That was not the only question raised in the course of the debate.

Mr. Ross

I want to put a specific proposal. Will the Postmaster-General consider discussing this matter with a delegation of Scottish Members of Parliament?

Mr. Thompson

I cannot commit my right hon. Friend beyond the normal usages of the House. If any group of hon. Members would like to meet him, I am sure that he would find time and opportunity to interview them. If the request is put to him in the proper way—it has not been put to him yet—I am quite sure he would do as I have suggested.

I pass on to one or two of the other questions raised in the debate. I was very grateful to the hon. Gentleman the Member for Keighley who mentioned the cable ships. It would be rather strange if the House could go through a full day's debate without paying some recognition to the work that the British cable ships have done and are doing. I suppose that there is no more outstanding example of the progress and imaginative outlook of the British Post Office and the technicians at Dollis Hill and in other parts of the Post Office than is to be found in the work of the cable ships and of the cables for which we are so very largely responsible.

We have the finest cable-laying system in the world. When the Americans wanted to lay a cable across the Pacific, it was to Great Britain that they came to get the ship and the skilled personnel to lay the cable. We laid that cable, and did it highly successfully. A large part of the cable was made in this country. I should like the House to know that the ship that laid the cable earned no fewer than 600,000 dollars in doing the job. So the House has every reason to be proud of it. It was also the British cable ship "Monarch" which laid the Atlantic cable which has brought such revolutionary changes to the telephone conversations that take place now between this country, Canada and the United States. So successful has that cable been in its practical use and in the commercial returns that have flowed from it that the Americans decided they would like to lay another.

Now a cable is to be laid, again using the "Monarch", from America to the Continent, to France and Germany. This will be an American enterprise. It will consist, as does the existing Atlantic cable, of two cables carrying traffic in either direction and using American repeaters. We have a further striking development almost ready for exploitation. We have recently reached an agreement with the Canadians to lay, in the course of a few years, another cable across the Atlantic. This one will be a single two-way cable using a new British plastic cable, developed by Post Office engineers and the cable company with which we work, and British two-way rigid repeaters. The present Atlantic cable, which is a double cable running in each direction, provides 36 conversation channels—on the two cables. Our new cable will provide 60 conversation channels on the one cable, a revolutionary development, and one for which the engineers of the Post Office and the industry have to take very great credit indeed.

Mr. Douglas Glover (Ormskirk)

Did the new cable invention come from Dollis Hill, or was it produced by one of the cable companies?

Mr. Thompson

This is a Dollis Hill development in all its aspects, but we have had the co-operation and help of the industry itself in making the specimens and testing them under the conditions in which they will be used when the cable is laid.

An hon. Gentleman mentioned the cable ship "Alert", our oldest cable ship. It is not yet finished. It has been given a very impressive face-lift. It is still not the most ideal of ships, and at one stage or another we shall have to get rid of it; but it is not a bad thing that we have not got rid of it yet.

The developments to which I have referred show that we have not reached the end of the technical development of cable laying and the demands that may be made on a modern cable-laying ship. Before we replace the "Alert", we have to satisfy ourselves that we have done all these things. A great many other points have been mentioned, many of which I shall not have time to reply to tonight, but in so far as hon. Members may have a personal interest, I will either write to them or they can write to me.

Phonograms and directory inquiries are speeded up, and we believe that the public are being given a better service than before, and we shall continue to ensure that the service is developed to meet the demands made upon it. One thing emerges from all that has been said about the Post Office this evening. Not only is the Post Office a highly geared and efficient commercial undertaking, doing very well the job entrusted to it, but it also has a very large social content in the provision of rural kiosks, the carrying of letters from the south of England to the north of the Shetland Islands, for a standard sum, and sorting out parcels and carrying them great distances, very often at an uneconomic return—and all those things are done by way of service which people have come to expect from us in our Crown offices and sub-offices.

I think that it will be in the terms in which this House would wish the debate to end if I pay my tribute to all who work at every level in the Post Office for the way in which they have discharged their duty and rendered to the public the service for which the people look.

Mr. Glover

I was not quite certain, when listening to the very brilliant speech by the Postmaster-General, about one point concerning depreciation. Do I understand that now the Post Office has got a system of agreeing with the Treasury that depreciation shall be on the replacement value and not on the original cost value? That is a very important departure from the Treasury point of view, and I have no doubt that private industry would be very interested indeed to see the principle established that in future it is accepted by the Treasury that the wise thing is to give allowances for replacement at present cost rather than replacement on the original cost price.

Mr. Thompson

My hon. Friend is roughly right in his assessment of what the change means. He was not here when I was dealing with this point at the beginning of my speech. If he will do me the courtesy of reading my remarks together with the accounts, a copy of which I shall be pleased to send to him, I am quite sure that he will see that we do satisfy the point that he is raising.

7.38 p.m.

Mr. John Baldock (Harborough)

There are one or two points concerning the use of telephones, particularly in rural areas, which I should like to put to the Postmaster-General and ask the House to consider for a few moments. The principal aspect on which I think a great deal of economy can be made with regard to rural telephones is where the lines run along the side of roads and lanes, which, in the aggregate, must be tens of thousands of miles—and trees overhang the wires or get mixed up with them. Anyone trying to use a telephone in those circumstances will probably find that where there is a strong wind or snow or unusual weather conditions his telephone is put out of order.

It requires only a small twig to touch two wires, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman the Member for Keighley (Mr. Hobson) opposite knows, to put a telephone out of action or to make it ring incessantly at night, which may be even more tiresome. The only thing the subscriber can do is to take off the handset to save himself being persistently rung up. A very simple method of avoiding this is to use wires that have an insulated plastic covering, and then it does not matter if the branches touch the wires. The amount of money wasted is quite considerable, quite apart from the irritation to the subscriber. There is also a considerable amount of time wasted by telephone engineers and maintenance men who go out and follow along the wires from the exchange to the subscriber trying to find where this one twig is touching the wire. They proceed to snip the twig off and go back to their depot, having done the job. But, of course, in a year's time a great many more twigs have grown and the same thing happens all over again. The men solemnly snip off another twig.

I should have thought that they should either make a severe pruning of the branch so that it would not grow back over the wire for many years, or, even simpler, that the wire should be covered with plastic material, as I know has been done in other cases. This would save the Post Office a substantial sum of money in rural areas.

Another point which arises is that very often in places far removed from a road poles have to be specially erected to carry one telephone installation. One then finds that another series of poles is erected for the electricity cable. There would appear to be a rather rigid set of rules relating to when electricity cables and telephone wires can be carried on the same pole. No doubt, this is due to the feeling that there might be a danger of the high voltage cables coming in contact with the telephone wires, but I cannot believe that that possibility could not be prevented. Thus a good deal of money could be saved by not having a duplicate series of poles.

I wish to support my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Portsmouth, West (Brigadier Clarke) in his plea for reducing the cost of telegrams when the sender and recipient of a telegram are both subscribers and when, as I think he expressed it, one is only asking the telephone service to send a message. It is not a question of getting people out on bicycles or of providing any other special service of messengers to carry a printed form to the addressee. It is only a question of sending a telephone message. The price of telegrams is already high, and many people are deterred from using the service. If my hon. and gallant Friend's suggestion were adopted, I believe that more people would be encouraged to use the telegraph service.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time and committed to a Committee of the whole House.

Committee upon Monday next.