§ Mr. Bossomasked the Assistant Postmaster-General if he will explain the arrangements made for the settlement of telephone accounts where a party line is used, so that neither party using the line is responsible for the payments of the other subscriber.
§ Mr. GammansAll subscribers on shared lines are given separate accounts for trunk calls. Separate accounts are also given for local calls, where the exchange is a manual exchange. Special apparatus is needed to enable local calls to be registered for each subscriber with a shared line to an automatic exchange. 295W and because of the restriction on our resources it will be some time before all automatic exchanges can be so equipped.
Where this equipment is not available, it is necessary for the two parties to come to terms about the charges for metered local calls, and for one of them to accept responsibility for payment to the Post Office.