The Postmaster-General, in moving the vote for the Post Office
in the House on Thursday, May 4th, took credit to himself for proposing to reduce the postal rates which he increased last year, to the grave injury of the public. These high rates would, he said, yield a " surplus " of £9,300,000 for the current year • and therefore might be cut down. He announced that the expenditure of the Post Office, apart from Ireland, would be less by £10,650,000 than it was last year, and that the numbers of the staff had been reduced by 6,000. Had these economies been effected a year ago, we presume that we need not have had the twopenny letter and the three-halfpenny card. Mr. Kellaway said that he anticipated an increase of 10 per cent. in the number of letters carried and of 20 per cent. in postcards and printed papers at the lower rates. He was restoring Sunday collections but not Sunday deliveries, which would have cost £400,000 a year. He would reduce telephone rentals by 30s. a year and the local message fee from lid. to lid. Owing to the high tariff, the net increase last year in the number of telephone subscribers was only 11,500, or barely 1 per cent.—a fact that illustrates the unprogressive character of a State monopoly.
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