Mr. Wray said he did not know 2 single instance of reversion to the flat_rote. In New York City and in Boston there were local areas in which the subscriber paid a flat rate for service on a restricted area to a relatively small number of subscribers In his neighbourhood. To. Subscribers else where he must pay 5, 10 or 20 cents per call. That was tine, he thought, in New York City, Boston and Philadelphia, but not in Chicago which had a measured rate all through. In the local areas he Feferred to there was an Inter-zon> or inter-borough toll within certain Major Brown pointed out that' in London over 90 per cent. of the call required junction. If all the subscribers were on one exchange the expense of inter-connection cables would be avoided. The num-Ber of exchanges mullipiled the expenditure. He added that when the Brilish Post OMice took over, a number of subscribers were permitted to retain the flat rate but In 1921 the British Post Oflce was tired of this arrangement, since when the flat rate system had been abandoned and the pure message rate system adopted, Which was rather different from the diluted "system recommended here. There were no Included calls.
Major Brown further stated the layerage calling rate, not in London nly but a figure taken from records of all exchanges in Britain with over 900 subscribers, was 7% per day. He was referring to thousands of exchanges. After the message rate Was introduced, the calling rate fell to something just over five calls per Jday. There was a drop of over 25 per cent, In Tokyo on the introduc ion of the message rate the calls fell Jover 80 per cent. and obviously the Jmore calls per day made by the subscriber the greater the possibility of saving. They had anticipated for Shanghai a reduction greater than the fall in England, but not so much as In Tokyo. England was on the flat rate system from 1879 unlit its final abandonment In 1921, but only privi Teged people with old-standing contracts were permitted from the time the Post OMe took over until 1921 The average charge for a busines telephone in Great Britain on the fla rate system would be about £10 per Jannum. Under the Post Office, the rate for a business line in Liverpov was about 123, per months, with no calls allowed, and the charge for calls 1d. per call.' He had made compari: sons with Birmingham, Glasgow, Man-Jehester, ete, In the report after consideration of Shanghai conditions anc deciding that they were fairly comparable in relation to the amount o! expenditure on plant, ele. The cos! of cally in the United Kingdom at 1¢ Jeach was about double the proposed ost in Shanghai at 3 cents each.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.