Postmaster-General's Statement.

Part of Supply. — [16TH Allotted Day.] – in the House of Commons at on 17 July 1919.

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Photo of Mr Albert Illingworth Mr Albert Illingworth , Heywood and Radcliffe

I am now referring only to the telephone. The increased cost of working is not confined to this country, but it also affects the service in America. The present rates in New York are a little above the London rates for small users, but for large users they are considerably higher. In London for £6 10s. a subscriber gets 360 calls per annum, as against the charge for a similar number in New York of £8 6s. 8d. I am taking the normal exchange. For 800 calls the charge is practically the same in London and New York, but when we come to the larger number of calls, for 3,000 calls in London the charge is £17 10s. against £26 5s. in New York. The cost of the telephone service in the States has increased very considerably, though perhaps not quite so much as in this country. The cost of their material has gone up about 100 per cent. and wages about 70 per cent. I think the members of this Committee will see that I have shown the reason why the telephones have been run at a loss in this country is the direct result of the War in. increasing the cost which has not been transferred to the public, as has been done in practically every other business or public utility undertaking. This increase in cost is not peculiar to the telephone but extends over all industries up and down the country in varying degrees according to the cost of labour used, the cost of raw materials, and so on. That is all I have to say about the financial position of the telephones.

I now come to the general position of the telephone service, which has been very much criticised lately by people who, I am sure, are not fully conversant with all the facts and difficulties with which we have to deal. One of the many difficulties we have had to contend with during the War has been the question of staff. When a great demand for munitions was made a good many of the telephone staff, who were very efficient and highly-trained girls, went to other positions in various offices and places where the work was easier, and where they considered they were performing more patriotic work than when being employed answering telephone calls all day. A great number left on account of this, and the result naturally has been that a very large percentage of inexperienced staff wore left to man the exchanges.

In 1915, less than 4 per cent. of the people employed in the exchanges in London had under six months' experience or service in the telephones. Now this amounts on the average to fully 25 per cent., and in some of the exchanges it is at an even higher figure than that. Before the War, when we had a large number of very experienced girls of many years' service, we were able to put them on to the busiest parts of the board and if there was one very inexperienced girl she could be put next to a very experienced one who would be able to help her out of her difficulties. Now the instruments have to be manned by those who have not so much experience, and the inevitable result is that there have been many more mistakes and a great slowing down of the service. Many of these girls, in order to maintain the service at all, are being put on the boards after six or seven weeks' experience in the schools. Not only that but before the War the Government telephone services did not make many calls on the Post Office. We only had then some 107 people who were lent to the various Government offices. At the beginning of the War there was an enormous expansion of the various Ministries—the fighting ones, of course—and over and above that there was a fair number of new Ministries started, such as the Ministry of Munitions, the Air Board, the Food Control, and so on, which caused a very great demand on the trained staff. In 1918, at the time of the Armistice, over 800 were supplied to the various Government Departments, and now the number is still over 700. I keep hoping it will decrease, but it does not decrease with anything like the speed I should like to see. The position, however, has got better, and the supply of recruits is improving, and not so many are leaving, and consequently, slowly but gradually, things are improving, and I hope it will go on at a quicker rate as the year goes by and we shall get more efficiency.

The average number of daily calls about the time of the Armistice in London was somewhere between 900,000 and 1,000,000 per day, and this has increased now to over 1,250,000 per day. That means we have got a much heavier load to handle by a less experienced staff, and this is one of the principal reasons which accounts for the deterioration of the service since the time of the Armistice. Recruiting is not assisted by the Press and public ridiculing and abusing the telephone operators, charging the girls with yawning and talking together, and reading novels instead of attending to their duties. I wish some hon. Members not conversant with the inside of these exchanges would come and see them. Some hon. Members have done so, and they have been astounded at the activity shown. The girls have no time while they are on duty for reading novels, or sewing, or knitting, or conversing, or anything else. They are continually on the go. I hope as things improve the strain will be less on the girls, but how soon I do not know. On the other hand, the language used by some of the subscribers over the telephone to the girls is such as to make them reply. I should like hon. Members to know that there is a human being at each end of the telephone. They have their irritation, and their troubles and annoyances, just the same as the impatient creature who is trying to call out a number. The best assistance really that can be given—and it is not a big thing to ask—is more patience and forbearance under difficult circumstances, and to try and make the work of the telephone operator more congenial, and if they do that, I am sure they will get a better supply of people, and the subscribers will be more content as well as the operators. It is very easy for an inexperienced operator to make a mistake. Some may have as many as 10,000 numbers to deal with on the board. In order to be accessible, 100 numbers must not occupy more than 8½ inches by 1⅞ inches, and when operators are in a hurry—I know they should not do it—it is very easy for them to connect the subscriber up to a wrong number. All construction work has been suspended for five years, and switchboard positions have been all taken up, all spare wires and cables have been exhausted, and that has made it impossible for us to put on new subscribers who are very anxious to be joined up. I have referred to a few of the principal outstanding difficulties.

I now propose to put before the Committee the remedies which we are going to apply. The recruiting question I have already dealt with. There is a great shortage of underground cables, and this year I propose to spend £250,000 in laying extra cables. But this will not, by itself, relieve the whole of the congestion. It may relieve it to a certain extent in some exchanges, but it will not really be of much relief until new buildings are ready, or the present ones extended—both buildings and switchboards. The latter take one year to make. The first new exchange, which will be in operation towards the end of the year, will be called the Clerkenwell Exchange. It will relieve Avenue and London Wall, two of the busiest exchanges in London. Immediately it is ready it will be able to take 1,700 new subscribers, and I hope that before long the number will be increased to 7,000. The Avenue switchboard is also being extended, and before very long the boards at Victoria, Hop, and Park will be extended. In order to improve the trunk service the shorter trunk circuits are being moved out of the present building, which is very much congested, into another building where there will be more room. I should add that a new exchange will be built on the site of the Inns of Court Hotel. We have not begun pulling down that building yet, but the work will be in hand before long. There will also be two new exchanges at Bishopsgate and Tower, and three more in the West End to relieve Holborn, Victoria, and Mayfair. In outer London seven new exchanges will be built and five others will be considerably extended.

In the provinces about £250,000 are being spent in laying underground cables in over twenty towns—Perth, Dunferm-line, Saltburn, Lincoln, Grimsby, Dews-bury, Ashton-under-Lyne, Eccles, Accring-ton, Stroud, Newcastle (Staffordshire), Malvern, Cardiff, Porth, Tonypandy, Mansfield, Nottingham, Chesterfield, Market Harborough, Sheffield, Shrewsbury, Norwich, Aldershot—and some smaller places. A new exchange has just been completed at Huddersfield, and is working very satisfactorily. A new switchboard is being provided for the Central Exchange, Liverpool, and exten- sions at the Bank Exchange, Liverpool, and at Derby and Leeds. Orders will be placed almost immediately for five new exchanges (switchboards and apparatus) at Carlisle, West Bromwich, Milnsbridge, Northampton, Guildford, and there will be extensions of existing exchanges (switchboards and apparatus) at Lincoln, Cambridge, Birmingham North, and Hove.

The building programme for the provinces this year includes eight new exchanges — Grantham, Henley-on-Thames, Stratford-on-Avon, Lancaster, Southport, Northampton, Preston, Whitley Bay (Northumberland), and extensions to seven existing exchanges, namely, at Dublin, Swansea, Burnley, Dundee, Canterbury, Fleetwood, and Wigan. A principal item in our work will be the provision of underground now trunk lines from London to Manchester, passing Northampton, Leicester, Loughborough, and Derby. From Derby a line will run to Nottingham, and there will be a new cable from Derby to Sheffield and Leeds. This will be a big undertaking, and will not be finished for about eighteen months. Contracts have been placed for certain underground cables between Liverpool and Manchester, Liverpool and Chester, Leeds and Wakefield, Manchester and Bolton, Manchester and Rochdale, Glasgow and Motherwell, and London and Stanmore (to connect with other routes—Luton, Watford, St. Albans, etc.). Eight underground telephone lines will be begun during the year—London to Bristol, London to Southampton, Loughborough to Nottingham, Derby to Nottingham, Hull to Grimsby, Leeds to Harrogate, Leeds to York, and Paisley to Greenock, In addition, 140 overhead circuits will be provided. Contracts have been placed for new duct lines to be subsequently cabled—Glasgow to Coatbridge, Coatbridge to Airdrie, Motherwell to Hamilton, Motherwell to Wishaw, Glasgow to Dumbarton, Ormskirk to Preston, Rawtenstall to Bacup, Slough to Windsor, and Sevenoaks to Tunbridge Wells. The total cost of these will amount to some £3,000,000. About £1,000,000 will be spent this year, and, in addition, about £2,000,000 on exchange and local work. I should very much like to have been able to say that there are larger sums than these to be spent during the year, but, unfortunately, there will be a good deal of delay and difficulty in getting material and engineers. Many of these men are still in the Army—between 3,000 and 4,000 of them—and I can assure the Committee we are anxious to get them released as soon as possible. Government priority has been abolished except in the most important cases, and official calls have now been placed on a par with public calls. During the War trunk lines have been taken over by the fighting Services. Those trunk lines were really absolutely necessary for them to conduct their business, and they numbered in all 342. The number now held by them is 112. This will improve naturally the trunk service to a certain extent.