§ 5.32 p.m.
§ LORD MANCROFT rose to ask His Majesty's Government when it will be possible to cheapen and accelerate the air mail service between the United Kingdom and Malaya. The noble Lord said: My Lords, the reason for this question can be put very briefly, and it arises out of the debate upon Malaya which was held in your Lordships' House last Wednesday. One of the best reports of that debate was in the Manchester Guardian, and to send a copy of the Manchester Guardian to Malaya by air mail, in order that the report may not be out of date, costs 5s. Even The Times which, with some enterprise, prints a thin India paper edition costs 3s., while it costs no less than 15s. to send by air mail a copy of the Weekly Edition of the Lords Hansard. At a time when it is essential that the exchange of news and views between England and Malaya should be fostered and increased, those prices seem to me outrageous.
§ The unfortunate result of this position is that in practice up-to-date English newspapers are available only to official circles in Malaya; and the same, of course, applies to Malayan papers coming back home. It means that those who are not millionaires have to fall back on the sea mail; and that is slow and erratic enough, in all conscience. The air mail, of course, is not all that fast. The average time taken by the aircraft to fly from here to Malaya is about four days. The fast Constellations take two days, and the slower flying-boats five days. But the average time taken by the air mail is something like eight days, and on many occasions it has taken up to twelve days. When air mail takes as long as twelve days, one may as well resort to sea mail once again. I realise, of course, that there are difficulties, and that few things are affected more by post-war conditions than 502 communications. I know also that there are many countries involved in the negotiations—in particular, Australia, which takes a lot of the mail in her aircraft. I would, however, like the noble Earl who is to reply to let us know what, if any, are the prospects of second-class air mail being reintroduced for Malaya.
§ The reason I feel justified in putting forward this claim is that I think Malaya ought to have, and deserves, special attention just now. It is most important at this moment to have a ready and quick exchange of views. We have also to consider the interests of a large number of young Service men who are serving abroad, a long way from home, for the first time. Nothing is more satisfactory for the upkeep of morale than a quick and cheap air mail service, and particularly of newspapers. Letters, newspapers, and especially local newspapers, are among the first things which are demanded by the soldier abroad on active service. It is peculiarly gratifying, it seems, to a soldier when he is lonely and 8,000 miles from home, to read that some old and dear friend has been arrested for being drunk and disorderly in his own High Street. Moreover, the planters, who are serving against the bandits in the same front line as the soldiers, are being charged for their mail almost double the rate which the Service men pay. I am not, of course, suggesting that the Service rates should be raised. I am suggesting, however, that 1s. per ½ oz. for an air mail letter to Malaya is too high.
§ I appreciate that there are difficulties. I do not blame the Government in any particular way for this. I am afraid I cannot put forward any constructive suggestion as other noble Lords have done in other matters this evening, but at least I hope that the noble Earl will not tell us that, since both the aircraft and the postal services are nationalised, we ought to consider ourselves very lucky that the charges are not a great deal higher. I would like the noble Earl to say what he thinks about the prospect of the service for both newspapers and letters being cheapened and accelerated in the near future.
§ 5.34 p.m.
THE EARL OF AIRLIEMy Lords, should like to stress the point the noble Lord has made, especially in regard to the mails for the troops. I know there are very strong complaints, not only from one 503 branch of the Service, or from any particular regiment, but from a great many of them, that letters are taking an extremely long time to arrive. As has been said already, this is a very important factor. Many of the troops serving out there now are, as we know, young boys, and it is essential that when they are serving in that sort of country they should have regular mails.
It will probably be said that there are difficulties. Of course there are difficulties, but difficulties are made to be overcome. If we go back even as far as the 1914–18 war, and certainly the 1939–45 war, the mails were dealt with expeditiously, and there were few places in the front line where one did not receive letters fairly quickly. I do not expect any excuses to be put forward, because I do not think they can be reasonable. There is here a case which should be dealt with at once, and I very much hope that the noble Earl who is to reply, even if he cannot deal with it to-night, will make quite certain before he retires to his comfortable bed—I presume it is a tolerably comfortable bed—that something will be done for the troops who are out there.
LORD HAWKEMy Lords, I should like to support my noble friend in this matter, but I do not think his complaint should be confined to the services to Malaya. It is a question of the air services from this country all over the world. It is too expensive to send what one might call second-class mail, in the shape of newspapers, by air. If the noble Earl looks up the cost of subscribing to the air mail copy of The Times in, say, Buenos Aires or Rio de Janeiro, I think he will realise that it is practically prohibitive. Even agencies of His Majesty's Government are not able to obtain, or are not allowed, that service, yet it is this wide dissemination of British papers like The Times throughout the world which can do so much to spread our influence and culture.
§ 5.38 p.m.
§ THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR COLONIAL AFFAIRS (THE EARL OF LISTOWEL)My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord opposite for raising this question, because we attach just as much importance as he does to the need for rapid and easy dissemination of political news among the different parts of the 504 Commonwealth. I also agree with the noble Earl, Lord Airlie, that we need a frequent and rapid air mail service to Malaya in order to keep up the morale of our serving men out there. The possibility of introducing reduced air postage rates for second-class mail to Malaya, and to other Commonwealth destinations in the Eastern Hemisphere, is being considered and examined by the Postmaster-General in consultation with the other authorities concerned, the Ministry of Civil Aviation and British Overseas Airways Corporation. I think I may say that everyone shares the desire of the noble Lord opposite for a lower rate for printed matter—daily newspapers, Hansard, and so on—and we do accept in principle the need for this cheaper service.
It is not at present possible to reduce the air postage rate to Malaya for first-class mails, but in consultation with the Governments of the Federation of Malaya and Singapore this possibility is being examined in order that we may be able to assimilate the inward rates from Malaya to the outward rates from the United Kingdom. As the noble Lord is aware, there is at present a discrepancy between these two rates. The mails are carried on direct air service to Singapore, which is scheduled to take three days. There have, unfortunately, been occasional delays to the aircraft en route but, apart from the elimination of such accidental delays—which of course we shall make every endeavour to achieve—there is little scope for acceleration.
VISCOUNT ELIBANKWill the noble Earl say what he means exactly by "assimilation of inward rates and outward rates"? Before he does so, I should like to say how glad I am to hear that the Government have taken this matter in hand. I cannot agree with the figures that the noble Earl has given with regard to the air mail to Singapore. I am concerned in a great many dispatches of air mail to Singapore, and I find that the actual time taken is between five and seven days—that is, an average of six days—as compared with the three days mentioned by the noble Earl. That is very inconvenient, but, apart from that, I have compared the time with the time taken by air mail to Southern Rhodesia. I admit that Southern Rhodesia (I am speaking of Salisbury) is a thousand miles closer than Singapore to this country; but 505 our air mail to Southern Rhodesia takes between three and five days, which is an average of four days, as compared with the average of six days to Singapore; that is to say, it takes two days longer to do the thousand miles. That is not right, and I think that if the noble Earl, in looking into this question, would compare Singapore's position with that in other parts of the Commonwealth he will find that Singapore is extremely badly served.
I also want to support what the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft and other noble Lords have said with regard to the expense. One understands that the first-class air mail would cost 1s. per ½-oz. But there is a good deal of other mail, what one might call second-class mail, that has to be dispatched to that part of the world, which cannot wait four or five, or even six, weeks before reaching its destination. I support my noble friend's plea that something should be done in that direction. I would also ask for the same thing to be done for Southern Rhodesia. The second-class mail to these places should be made cheaper.
§ LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYEArising out of the noble Earl's reply—which I am afraid does not get us very much further—I wonder whether the Minister appreciates that Malaya is not like other overseas theatres at the present time, but that it is virtually a theatre of war for many of the inhabitants in that area. Could he not consider a reduced air mail rate for first-class or second-class mail (the class, of course, is represented by the time taken) for Service personnel and others engaged in keeping law and order out there, in the same manner as during war time?
Secondly, could the noble Earl clarify the phrase, rather heavily-worded, which he employed in the last part of his answer. He said: "It is not at present possible to reduce the air postage rate to Malaya for first-class mails, but in consultation with the Governments of the Federation of Malaya and Singapore this possibility is being examined in order that we may be able to assimilate the inward rates from Malaya to the outward rates from the United Kingdom." But it is the outward rates from the United Kingdom to which we are objecting; we are saying that they are much too heavy. All 506 the noble Earl is saying is that he is going to see whether he can get a rate which is a heavier burden still reduced to the same level as the rate about which we are complaining. I must say that that does not get us very much further.
§ THE EARL OF LISTOWELIf I may speak again by leave of the House, I should like to deal with the point made by the noble Viscount. Lord Elibank, and taken up by the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye. I must apologise if there was anything abstruse in my use of the word "assimilate"—which I agree is subject on different occasions to different interpretations. What I meant in my reply was that the air mail irate from the United Kingdom to Malaya is slightly cheaper than the air mail rate from Malaya to the United Kingdom. A letter costs a 1s. from the United Kingdom to Malay and a postcard costs 6d., whereas from Malaya a letter costs 1s. 2d. and a postcard 7d. I hope I have been able to make clear what I intended concerning the difference between the two rates for air mails. I am sorry that it is not possible at the moment to go further than this undertaking to try to bring the rates together; but this, I think, is a step in the direction which the noble Lord opposite and other noble Lords wish to take—namely, to reduce air mail postage rates. I can assure all noble Lords that it is the desire of the Postmaster-General to have the lowest possible rates, in the interests of the public, and that noble Lords suggestions will be passed on to him and, I can guarantee, given the most serious and sympathetic consideration.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYI should like to thank the noble Earl for what he has said. I do not expect him to give another reply, but I urge him very earnestly to bring to the notice of his right honourable: friend the points which have been made here this afternoon, and to lower the cost of correspondence from home. Letters from home to the troops are a matter of the very first importance, and the figures which the noble Earl has given for their postage are very high. One shilling is a large amount for the average working-class family to spend on postage on a letter — and the more letters they write the better for everyone concerned. I should have thought that 507 the troops in Malaya were so limited in number that the expense to the Post Office of a concession of this kind would not be enormous. The noble Earl has said several times that it could not be done, but he has never said why; and some of us would like to know. I suspected the reason to be that the Post Office do not like to make variations in their rates, but apparently it is not that. I thought perhaps it would make the loss on civil aviation even greater than it is at present! In any case, this is a very urgent matter, and in spite of the negative answer which the noble Earl has been obliged to give, I hope that further consideration will be given to this matter.
| TOTAL ACREAGE PLANTED BY THE FORESTRY COMMISSION, 1947–1948 | |||||
| Species | England | Scotland | Wales | Total | |
| acres | acres | acres | acres | ||
| Conifers | |||||
| Scots Pine | … | 2,340 | 3,555 | 430 | 6,325 |
| Corsican Pine | … | 737 | 118 | 19 | 874 |
| European Larch | … | 58 | 330 | 47 | 435 |
| Japanese Larch | … | 416 | 704 | 963 | 2,083 |
| Douglas Fir | … | 302 | 237 | 55 | 594 |
| Norway Spruce | … | 1,456 | 2,927 | 1,450 | 5,833 |
| Sitka Spruce | … | 5,807 | 7,979 | 2,864 | 16,650 |
| Pinus Contorta | … | 64 | 125 | 17 | 206 |
| Other | … | 67 | 122 | 150 | 339 |
| Total conifers | … | 11,247 | 16,097 | 5,995 | 33,339 |
| Hardwoods | |||||
| Ash | … | 13 | — | — | 13 |
| Beech | … | 1,682 | 59 | 43 | 1,784 |
| Birch | … | 86 | — | 4 | 90 |
| Oak | … | 1,060 | 21 | — | 1,081 |
| Sweet Chestnut | … | 21 | — | — | 21 |
| Sycamore | … | 1 | 12 | — | 13 |
| Other | … | 36 | 2 | 6 | 44 |
| Total hardwoods | … | 2,899 | 94 | 53 | 3,046 |
| GRAND TOTAL | … | 14,146 | 16,191 | 6,048 | 36,385 |
§ THE EARL OF MANSFIELD asked His Majesty's Government whether they will state the planting costs per acre incurred by the Forestry Commission during the season 1947–1948, excluding cost of ground, and "overheads" other than supervision of actual planting, but itemising the various costs of preparation of ground, draining, fencing, wire-netting (where used), transport, wages and plants.
§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTHI have been asked to reply on behalf of my noble friend Lord Huntingdon. It