POST OFFICE CHARGES

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28435, 15 November 1957, Page 12

POST OFFICE CHARGES

Many Protests In Britain

[By DONALD MUDIEI LONDON. Reaction to the increased telephone and postal charges has been swift throughout Britain, and the Post Office is under a barrage of criticism for increasing its prices. Many people, however, have done more than just criticise—they have acted. Already, since the new charges came into operation on October 1. 1 per cent, of all subscribers in Britain have surrendered their telephones rather than bear the heavier burden. And already there are signs of a trend which, if it goes unchecked, could defeat the G.P.O.’s aims and mean higher charges yet. A remarkable amount of ignorance has accompanied the new charges, which were announced in the House of Commons by Mr Ernest Marples in July. According to the Post Office, many big commercial undertakings are paying more on their mail than they should —simply because they have not realised that the printed letter rate has not gone up. It is still 2d. Some firms, therefore, may be budgeting for higher overheads when there is no need to do so. But mistakes aside, reaction has still been serious. That 1 per cent, telephone withdrawals represents 45.000 lost subscribers. The G.P.O. states that it is convinced that the withdrawal trend has now virtually ceased, and is confident that when the next bills go out to subscribers in January there will not be an abnormal number of withdrawals. Off the Lists The G.P.O. has not taken into account the thousands of people who have either removed their names from waiting lists for telephones or who have been deterred from applying by virtue of the extra cost. But. it says, telephones are still being installed at a rate of about 1000 a day, and should continue at that rate for months ahead at least. The new postal rates are complicated. but the main effects are the halfpenny increase on the one-ounce letter and increased scale charges on overseas parcel mail. Telephone charges have been increased and stabilised throughout Britain. The annual rental is now £ 12 per year for all exclusive telephone lines and £lO for all shared or “party’’ lines. | Before the increase the London rental was £10; in four large pro-1 vincial cities it was £9 10s; and in the rest of the country it was £B. In addition the cost of a telephone call for a private subscriber has risen from 2|d to 3d and the old concession of 100 free calls per year has been withdrawn. Announcing the charges, Post-master-General Marples said in the Commons that the Post Office must increase its revenue by £4om a year. Of that amount 11/12ths of it was to go on increased wages under awards made through negotiating machinery. The other l/12th was in sundry charges. There were, he said, only three ways of achieving this additional income—by direct taxation through a Treasury subsidy; by seriously reducing the Posi Office services; or by increasing the postal charges. The Government was not prepared either to give a Treasury subsidy or to reduce the services—which left only the one alternative. He added that everything possible had been done to economise. Indeed, a saving of £3m had been made in one year. The Post Offices’ accounts for 1955-56 showed that the telephone services made a slight surplus. But postal and telegraph services were in the red. The Protests Since that announcement many sections of society have been in protest anticipating a resultant increase in the cost of living. Football pools promoters say that their figures—allowing for early-season apathy—show that the backer is not quite so regular as he was last year. A spokesman of Cope’s Pools, London, described the increased postage now payable by their clients as a big blow which is bound to have an effect. The British Union of Manufacturers is more concerned. Mr T. A. P. Hubbard, an economic expert there, said that the increased postal charges were bound to raise costs to the consumer in the near future. On the Jd increase alone, manufacturers with big mailing lists were largely being hit, some of them badly, he said. In 1955 a Royal Commission recommended that wages throughout the Civil Service should be brought into and kept in line with those in outside industries. Manufacturers agree. They go further, saying that compared with other increases the Post Office is offering good value for money. But only from that point of view. They complain that, apart from

London, daily collections and deliveries are inadequate. Many firms feel that they have reached a stage when that halfpenny increase, multiplied by thousands of ordinary letters a day, cannot be met from their own resources, and must be passed on in higher costs. I Small Exporters Suffer | Small exporters, said Mr HubIbard, are hit even worse. Many of those are small craftsmen who turn out small articles for overseas. In the past they have speeded up their contracts by using overseas parcel mail. The charge for this service has increased by an even greater percentage, with the result that it is no longer an economical proposition. At least one such craftsman, he said, had intimated that he “is packing up.’’ Also among the worst, hit are the mail order firms. Inquiries to three of the leading companies in Britain—two in London and one in Liverpool—produced similar replies. Costs, said one spokesman, must surely go up, for postage was one of the principal overheads. Those costs must in nme part—a part now being decided—rest on the public. However firms like these view the situation, mail order transactions are placed at a disadvantage compared with ordinary trade. Public concerns, such as the Central Electricity Authority, are no-t so badly hit. For a number of years now several electricity boards have been delivering their bills by hand in urban areas. By this means, the Yorkshire Electric! y Board alone saves £lO,OOO a year. Housewives are also up in arms. Mrs B. M. Palmer, Secretary of the British Housewives’ League, says that in these days of automation Post Office charges should have gone down, not up, and she criticises the Post Office for “always being the first to raise its charges.” Her league is preparing a protest on the subject. G.P.O. Estimates The final word comes from (he Post Office. A spokesman said that the increased postage on the ordinary letter meant on average, only a 10s a year increase to the average man. Ninety per cent, of all letter mail was under the oneounce limit, and the average man-in-the-street, the G.P.O. estimated, wrote an average of only two letters per week. He visualised no adverse effect on the Pools. The average man spent 5s 6d per week on pool punting, and was not likely to curtail this simply for an additional halfpenny. The Post Office agreed that from the industrial and commercial point of view the increase was distasteful, and even hard in some cases, but was. the only possible answer until inflation was controlled. “If working people in outside industry are given more money, they can only expect that the Post Office worker must eventually have it too in order to keep abreast,’’ said the spokesman. (Central Press.)