The Estimate for the Department of Posts and Telegraphs should be a revenue-producing Estimate. This should not be a spending Department. I am glad that, as the result of the reorganisation initiated some years ago, we got that position in 1956-57, and it has been accelerated in 1957-58. I should like the Minister to make clear in his reply how much of the reorganisation has been concluded. Is it clear that the entire Post Office reorganisation will be completed during the current financial year, when the small areas to which the Minister referred are tidied up and the other five districts are tackled?
We all know there is still considerable improvement possible in the service. One of the factors which will ease the possibility of that improvement is the fact that in recent years more has been done to county roads. That has made communication better in more remote areas.
In relation to the telegraph service, the Minister indicated the possibility of considering whether motor-cycle delivery from a larger office would not be better than the existing method of delivery of telegrams on a casual fee basis. We saw in the newspapers some time ago a little disturbance in reference to the use by a postman of an automatic method of conveying himself. Regardless of that individual case, has the Department considered whether reorganisation might not effect economies, if it were accompanied by larger delivery areas with automatic conveyance by autocycle or scooter? I agree it would not be a feasible proposition until the county roads had opened up the hitherto more inaccessible areas. There has been considerable improvement in county roads in many counties during the past ten years, particularly during the past five years, and it might be possible to effect a more efficient service in that way.
It is impossible to assess the exact effect in future of the revenue-producing capacity of this Department without knowing the effect of the recent increase in Civil Service pay on this Vote. The Minister touched on that point. I appreciate that he has not had the time to consider it completely, but surely he could give us a global figure of the amount involved, so that we could set that off in our mind's eye against the sum of £350,000 by which he estimates Post Office revenue will be increased in 1958-59. We will have an opportunity next week for a more full discussion on the results of the 1957 Budget; it seems perfectly clear that one of the results has been possibly the elimination of the increased contribution made by this Department, to put it no higher than that.
I am a very innocent man and I do not know what the phrase "packet service" means. The nearest I can get to it is that the boats going across the Channel used to be called the British and Irish steampacket service. Would the Minister oblige by giving some indication of what is involved under sub-heads E(3) and E(4) particularly the latter, where the increase is £950?
Included in this Estimate is an increased sum of £30,000 for the conveyance of mails by air. I should like to know whether that is more than compensated for by increased revenue for the carriage of mails by air, or whether it has been a switch of carriage from sea or rail to air. The natural result of the expansion of air services would be that we would have to pay more for their carriage in that way. I should like to know how the traffic is to be divided in the coming year—whether it is a question of switching traffic or whether it is new traffic, or increased air traffic which will be offset by increased revenue.
Sub-head I (1) in the engineering establishment shows a fairly substantial rise. I am talking of the Estimate as printed, before any question of recent adjustments comes into account. I should like to know whether that is the effect of increased personnel or increased cost of existing personnel. Allowances come in here. I am not clear whether that means subsistence allowances or some other type of allowance referable to a man's domestic status. I take it also that engineering establishment's charges are entirely separate from the ordinary engineering charges in respect of work arising under the Telephone Capital Acts. I assume that work arising under those Acts is charged to the capital account as well and that engineering services are not charged to the current account, while the work itself is charged to the capital account. It is a point on which a little lucidity might assist.
There is a pretty substantial increase also to the civil aviation and meteorological services, particularly in sub-head O (2). As I understand the position, the Department of Posts and Telegraphs have to provide services under that sub-head for other Departments. Is that increase, therefore, offset in another way by increased appropriations-in-aid coming from somewhere else? If it is, we can deal with the matter on the Vote for another Department. If it is not so offset, I should like to know the cause of the increase. I have a sort of recollection that there was an arbitration under the Civil Service arbitration code in relation to some of the officers and perhaps that accounts for the difference.
The acting-Minister and almost all his predecessors, and, I have no doubt, all Ministers for Finance from time to time, have been upset by the continued loss on telegraph services. The telegraph services were in the unhappy situation that, the more telegrams you got, the higher your losses. In most services, if you are able to increase your traffic, you will be able to decrease your loss. Unfortunately, in relation to our telegraph services, the reverse has been the case. The Minister for Posts and Telegraphs in the last Government, Mr. Keyes, commenced a fairly thorough reorganisation of our telegraph services. The fact that the loss has been reduced to the sum the Minister mentioned to-day is due in no small degree to the course adopted by him and the plans initiated by him at that time.
In relation to overseas cablegrams, apart from the general ordinary delivery rate there are separate and cheaper rates for night letter telegrams and week-end letter telegrams. Some sort of similar arrangement could be made available here. We could have some sort of arrangement by which it would be possible, after one had missed the post to any distant part of the country in the evening, to send a telegram which would be picked up at the post office delivering mail to the address concerned and that such telegrams would be delivered not as a telegram but as an ordinary letter. It would cover, in such a service, the case to which reference was made— congratulatory telegrams or perhaps telegrams of sympathy which are not urgent to the extent of delivery within a matter of an hour or two. The more the telephone service is expanded, the less will be the need for telegraph services, but there will always be some need for them and they will have to be put on some basis, while providing the service that is indispensable, to ensure that the loss to the Exchequer is not more than we can afford.
I have always been interested in the question of philatelic sales. If the Minister looks up the records of his Department, he will find that I was examining the possibilities of that matter with the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs just before Mr. Keyes and I left office. I want to give this warning to the acting-Minister. I have great respect and admiration for the tradition of the Department of Posts and Telegraphs in regard to the manner in which they approach problems in their ordinary field but, on the question of philatelic sales, they have a complete and absolute blind spot. They seem to be obsessed with the idea, and I hope the Minister will not allow himself to be obsessed with the idea, that the prestige of this country would be injuriously affected by our expanding our possibilities for philatelic sales. I disagree now in that regard just as I disagreed with it in minutes which the Minister will find in the records of his Department.
Many countries get a very substantial revenue from philatelic sales and, in so doing, they do not in any way injure or adversely affect their prestige. Certainly, they do not affect it in any way that would harm us here. If, in 1927 or some other year, somebody made a ruling that we could not risk injury to our prestige by expanding philatelic sales, that is no reason why we should ignore a possible opening for further revenue in 1958. The main thing philatelists want to know when any new issue is printed is the amount that will be printed of that issue. They want the assurance that, if the issue is withdrawn on a particular day, the rest of the blocks that remain will not still be kept and further stamps dribbled out as other people apply later on. If they are dribbled out at a later date, after the issue has gone out of general use, the Department make something small out of it, but it is a case of being penny wise and pound foolish.
It is impossible to build up any philatelic value for stamps, unless, from their very first day of issue, philatelists know the number of stamps that will be printed and know for certain that, after the issue is withdrawn from circulation, it will not again be available, so that, from the withdrawal period onwards, a scarcity value will commence. If they are not assured in advance that there will be that scarcity value after the issue has terminated, they will not bother to buy the stamps during their period of issue. If they receive that assurance, I have no doubt that the immediate revenue the Minister receives from dribbling out stamps after they have gone out of general use would not be lost as the stamps would then be bought before the issue had terminated. I would particularly ask the Minister to endeavour to provide a new approach to the whole system of philatelic sales and encourage methods by which we, like other countries, can achieve something substantial from them.
I do not know whether the Department or the Minister himself have ever examined the figures available for what other countries make out of such sales. I know one very small country that makes a very substantial sum every year out of sales in that regard. Surely, if they can do it, we should not spurn or despise that method of raising revenue.
Might I say a word on the subject of telephones? I understand and appreciate, of course, that by reason of the extension of the telephone network it is inevitable that sub-head M in the Book of Estimates will rise year by year. The inevitable result of increased capital expenditure from year to year is an increase in the amount of the annuity necessary to repay that capital. There are some anomalies in relation to the telephone service which I would like to have explained to me. Why, for example, is it dearer to telephone at the same hour of the day from Dublin to London than it is from London to Dublin? Why is it dearer to telephone from Dublin to Paris than from Paris to Dublin at the same hour of the day, allowing, of course, for exchange conversion? It seems to me that it is peculiar our system of charges should be based on some methods other than those of the place with which we are in contact. There used to be very much greater delay in telephoning from here to the Continent than there was from the Continent to here, but I must say I am very glad to be able to state that seems to have been cleared up, and one is almost able to get a no-delay service nowadays which is entirely satisfactory.
The cross-Channel and continental telephone service here is, I think, based entirely on a two-tariff period charge, the dearer charge running from 8 o'clock in the morning to 6 o'clock in the afternoon, and the cheaper tariff operating from 6 o'clock in the evening to 8 o'clock the next morning. I presume that in relation to cross-Channel and continental trunks there is a round-the-clock service by the operators in the exchanges of Dublin. If I am right in that and it would not mean additional staff, would it be possible to arrange a system by which there would be a three-tariff period charge? During the peak hours charges would be higher, with secondary charges slightly lower during not quite so peak hours and the third a much cheaper charge, during the time staffs have to man the exchanges but in fact would be doing nothing. I am talking at the moment purely of places like Dublin and, perhaps, Cork. Something like that might assist to expand revenue because that cheaper type of telephone call would be more likely to be a domestic one than a business one which would have to be made during the peak hours. It would also have the effect of easing peak delays even more, and might at the same time assist to expand revenue.
In relation to the installation of telephones, I do not think there is enough frankness by the Department. If a telephone cannot be installed for a period of three to six months, because the engineering unit has left an area in the country, it seems to me that what is done at the present time is a delaying process. It would be far better to say frankly that the squad has left the area and will not be back there until next July, or whatever the date is. Everybody would then know the exact position. Equally, it would be better if reasons were frankly given, such as the lack of underground cable or the lack of accommodation on a switchboard, and if some approximate date were given for the time when the service could be made available.
I know it is traditional on the part of civil servants not to give any more information than they can possibly avoid giving, in case they might get into trouble at a later stage. I can understand that but, in relation to a business such as this which has so much to do with the outside public, I would urge very strongly that a date should be named and there should be the frankest expression of view as to why there had to be delay, and when that delay could be obviated.
I am not clear, arising out of a question I put to the Minister here, what exactly is meant by his statement that there would be a hold up in the provision of a semi-automatic exchange. I appreciate he was grossly misquoted at that time but I should like a little more information than was available in the Minister's speech. How is the sum of £1.5 million on telephone capital account to be spent this year? Is it to be spent on the provision of new trunk circuits between one place and another in the country, or on the provision of new exchanges and new equipment? Is the Minister able to tell us what proportions and what type of equipment are to be acquired?
I cannot understand, maybe because I am very dense, why when you have two automatic exchanges reasonably near each other, like the one in Naas and the one in Maynooth, you cannot simply connect those two automatic exchanges. Why is it necessary for a subscriber on the Naas exchange, as I am, to ring my operator in Naas who then rings Dublin and the Dublin operator in turn rings Maynooth? When two exchange areas are ten or 12 miles apart something should be done to obviate that and connect up the two automatic exchanges in the same way as it is possible to telephone from Naas to Kildare, which is very roughly the same distance. I do not know how long the Minister wants to conclude. Would 40 minutes be enough?
