As regards the other side, it is very difficult to answer. You say the service is bad, others say it is not so bad and I have heard others so ill informed as to say that it is really good after their experiences at Home. We keep up tests every day and the results are that the average time of answering throughout the year is 3.8 sec. New York aims at 4 sec. and London is happy if it gets 5 sec. It seems to us that is very reasonable. We do not want to minimise the fact that the service is not satisfactory at all times: no service in the world is.
The Chairman continued that he thought many people, through using the telephone when in a hurry, magnified delays. The company were only too anxious to listen to advice in so far as it was compatible with present working conditions. They were always getting at the operators. They now had 488, of whom 250 were engaged during the past year. They dismissed 35 and 101 resigned. The idea of bringing out supervisors from Home was new to him, bus it would receive careful attention.
The average of complaints, he said, was one for every 3} months. He admitted that he was as great a sinner as anyone and only complained through 499, but if people would send their complaints in writing they received the attention of the directors.
Mr. Burkill—I always thought 499 took notice of complaints. A weary voice answers you and that seems to be the end of it. It is
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.