REDUCED CABLE RATES.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1305, 7 December 1911, Page 5

REDUCED CABLE RATES.

87 Telecrapli—Press Association—Oooyriehl London, December 5. In tho House of Commons, Mr. Herbert Samuel, Postmaster-General, announced liiat half tho present rates for uncoded public and press messages to Australia, both being liable to be deferred, were to be charged in future. The concession to iho public would commence on January 1 nextj that to the press immediately.

THE POSITION EXPLAINED. (Rec. December 6, 9.20 p.m.) London, December 6. Mr. Herbert Samuel, Postmaster-Gen-eral, states that the delay in ordinary press messages in plain languago will not exceed nineteen hours to New Zealand. The tariff previously in force was very low, and he could not ask for a further reduction. He regretted that hitherto he was uuablo to arrange for a reduction to India and South Africa, but the Eastern Telegraph Company has consented to carry Australasian cablegrams at the reduced rate in tho event of tho Pacific cable being interrupted. Iho service will be fully operative on the fifteenth, but the Western Union, Anglo-American, and Direct United States Companies will accept press telegrams at the reduccd rate at their own offices today, and ho hoped tho new tariffs would prove serviceable to the sender of Tincoded press and private ordinary messages. ■

Tho Western Union installs for tho use of the public cheap rates just above a quarter of the usual rate, with a minimum of six shillings for twenty words, and tho so-called "night letters" also at one-fifth the present rate, with a minimum of six shillings for thirty words; also week-end letters between Britain, Canada, and the United States. Weekend letters will be accepted on Saturday for delivery on Tuesday, and night letters, on the morning of the second day after acceptance-