HC Deb 21 May 1912 vol 38 cc1891-3W
Mr. FIELD

asked the Postmaster-General whether he will submit to Parliament for consideration and ratification any change of method and the scale of rates which will be proposed respecting the telephone service?

Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL

As I have frequently stated, if the revised telephone rates to be fixed after the settlement of the purchase price of the National Telephone Company's system are not generally acceptable, they will be submitted to the consideration of a Select Committee of this House or some other representative body.

Mr. FIELD

asked the Postmaster-General whether he will consider the advisability of extending many rural telephonic facilities to small towns and principal villages so that rural post offices should be connected with the telephonic system and should be a public telephone call office, the local postmaster being authorised to send telegrams by telephone, leaving the present telegraphic centres to deliver telegrams?

Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL

A large number of call offices have been opened at village post offices in recent years, and I hope to be able to open many more. Where there is a call office at a post office at which the establishment of a telegraph office is not justified, callers can as a rule dictate telegrams to a telegraph office on payment of the telephone fees in addition to the telegraph charges.

Captain GILMOUR

asked the Postmaster-General, if, in the revision of telephone rates which he has promised, he contemplates adhering to the rates charged by the National Telephone Company, Limited, as set forth in the Fourth Schedule of the Agreement, dated 2nd February, 1905, between the Postmaster-General and the National Telephone Company, which were approved by Parliament, and are generally acceptable to users and profitable to the company, viz., an unlimited or flat rate service as the principal one, with supplementary services to meet all needs?

Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL

The Schedule in question did not prescribe any actual rates, but only limits within which rates of different kinds were to be fixed, if offered by the National Telephone Company. The company ceased on the 1st January, 1907, to offer to new subscribers outside London any unlimited service or flat rate except for lines to private residences. The various rates offered recently by the company are still in force for the exchanges transferred to the Post Office, and it is those rates, as well as existing Post Office rates, which I have undertaken to revise as soon as practicable, after the determination of the amount of the purchase money to be paid to the company.

Sir CLEMENT HILL

asked the Postmaster-General whether, in view of the fact that the Atcham Union, Shrewsbury, had made an agreement with the National Telephone Company, prior to the transfer of the company to the Government, under which the poor rate assessment was to be revised annually so as to be in accordance with the constantly increasing value of the company's under- taking, the Government will reconsider their decision not to increase their contribution in lieu of rates when the value of the telephone system increases?

Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL

I regret that I am unable to make an exception in the case of the Atcham Union to the general principle that the assessments fixed before the transfer of the company's undertaking shall neither be increased nor decreased.