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11 May 1922]

Mr. W. R. CODLING, C.V.O., C.B.E.

Chairman.

498. Who decides the price?—I should say, off-hand, it is decided between the Stationery Office and the Post Office, on cost of production.*

499. Is the cost of production of that individual copy of the Telephone Directory covered by the price you get for it, or how much is covered by the price you get for it?-I am afraid I could not say that off-hand.

500. Will you let us know that next time? Yes.†

501. Do you consider that the commission for which the contract was received justifies them getting as much advertising as possible into the Telephone Directory?—Yes; their own receipts depend upon the amount of advertising they get. The more advertising they get, the bigger their receipts.

502. It may be that they consider that a certain sum is sufficient to get a revenue from that particular thing, and not wish to extend it. There may be a point where it is not economical to develop beyond a given point?—I do not think that point has been reached yet.

503. Is the advertising revenue on the increase or the decrease?-On the in

crease.

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504. Who decides the rate be charged for the advertising space?-I think that is left to the advertising contractor, except that in connection with certain provincial directories he has got a fixed minimum.

505. Then this contract not only applies to the London Telephone Directory, but to other directories?-Provincial directories as well.

506. Do you also print all those?—Yes. 507. Up to now the questions I have been asking you relate to the London Telephone Directory?—Yes.

Mr. Howard Gritten.

508. Are we to understand that the advertising contract mentioned by you only deals with the London Directory, or do you deal with the provincial directories as well, or are those provincial directories left to other contractors?— The advertising contract for the Telephone Directory is one contract covering London and the provinces.

Chairman.

509. How many Telephone Directories do you print?-Between 40 and 50. 510. Is this profit that you are showing on the Telephone Directory, made on all * See Q. 907. + See Q. 904. 36453

[Continued.

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11 May 1922]

Chairman.

Mr. W. R. CODLING, C.V.O., C.B.E.

522. Do you distribute these Telephone Directories, or do the Post Office distribute them?-The Post Office distributes the provincial directories, I believe. I distribute the London Telephone Directories in bulk, to a certain extent.

523. To different Post Offices?-To different distributing centres.

524. Who brings them round to the offices or private houses?-I believe the Post Office see to that. I do not know what their machinery for doing it is.

525. But you do not distribute it to the individual subscriber?-No.

Mr. Howard Gritten.] Will you be able, at a subsequent meeting of this Committee, to supply us with that information about these 50 areas? seems to me rather pertinent to the matter we are discussing.

Chairman.

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526. I have a feeling that the printers over the country, in regard to many of the things that are printed by the Stationery Office, resent this printing: not so much on the ground of the profit it might bring them, but of the work for printers in their areas, the labour to be employed in those different areas in England, which would be useful and profitable to the State; and it is necessary for us to know, if we are going to deal with this, what the cost is and what the revenue or loss is in the different areas? The provincial Telephone Directories have never been printed locally.

527. But there is no reason they should not be? When McCorquodale held the contract, they also printed the provincial Telephone Directories.

528. I can tell you frankly that I feel, and I believe I have a large number of this Committee with me, that no work of the Stationery Office should be done unless a tender is made by printers, particularly local printers, for local work, before the Stationery Office proceeds to print anything. It is with that idea in mind that we are asking these various questions with regard to Government printing the idea whether we are not injuring the printing trade of the country by maintaining this office; and we are trying to get to the truth f the matter as to whether it is really economical for the State to print or for the private printer to print.

[Continued

Mr. Howard Gritten.

529. That relates, of course, to the purport of the question I put with regard to these local areas. Surely in one item alone there might be a saving, and that would be in distribution. The cost of distributing from a London centre is inevitably greater. Take the cost of carriage alone?—Yes. Of course, local printing would obviate the cost of carriage, but it is a question whether, even so, local printing would be cheaper. Chairman.

530. Is it not a fact that you have put out jobs for tender in the form of contracts for three, five or seven years, for sums exceeding £2,000 or £3,000, and found that in the majority of cases the outside printer's tender was much cheaper than the Stationery Office tender, and that you have given the jobs out to private tender because they were cheaper? I mean, not telephone directories, but general printing for not Government Departments? I do know that I quite follow. Do you mean that the work hitherto done in the Government Printing Works has been given to a private printer because he was cheaper?

531. No. You have put out tenders for printing, and you have found that the outside printer could do the work cheaper than you could do it, and you have given it to him?-Certainly, in a case like that I should do so.

532. That being so, why should not all printing which you do be put out to tender, in order to satisfy yourself that you are cheaper? That is why we feel that all Government printing should be put out to tender. If you do that and find you have a complaint from printers because you do not give them the work, that is another matter; but the complaint, as I hear it, is not so much that you put out jobs for tender and do not place the order afterwards, as that you do not give them an opportunity of tendering at all, but proceed to print without knowing what the cost of the outside printer is. Is that right?—I can arrive fairly closely at what the cost of the outside printer would be, by assessing on similar work done by outside printers.

533. You cannot do that on a falling market. You cannot know that Waterlow's to-morrow might have 14 machines idle and a great many men idle, and might be quite willing to take on and do a job for six months in order to keep

11 May 1922]

Mr. W. R. CODLING, C.V.O., C.b.e.

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those men employed, and those machines going. Because there is deterioration of machinery as well; wear and tear does not do so much damage machines idle?-But surely that keeping sideration would govern the work which is being taken by those firms at the present time, and in that way I can assess the work that I am doing in terms of cost of other work which is being done for me by other printers at the present time.

establishments

534. If the printing have no objection to tendering for Government work, have you any objection to giving them the opportunity?— None at all.

535. Then, that being so, why not give them all jobs to tender for, and at all times be able to say to this Committee: "Here is the estimate for this particular job, and this is how I was able to do it cheaper "? It seems to me that it would be a great benefit to you to be able to demonstrate at 'any time that your Government Printing Works is more economical from the State's point of view than it would be to put the work outside? I have tried to explain this. do not think you can assess whether the Government is justified in doing some of its own printing by whether individual jobs can, or cannot, be done cheaper, either by the Government or by private printers. The only test is by the balance sheets and trading accounts over a fair period of time. Every firm takes jobs on which they apparently lose at times, because they are fill-up jobs.

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536. There are some people who would say that all your jobs are fill-up jobs, and that you do not make any profit on any of them?-The only fair basis of judging the question is by the annual balance sheets and trading accounts. You cannot hope to make a profit on a printing business in the first year of starting. If over a fair period of time, giving a proper period for the establishment of the business, it is found that the works cannot pay for themselves, they should be shut up; and I should be the first one to advocate that they should be, if they cannot be made to pay when the system had been given a fair trial.

Mr. Howard Gritten.

537. You are talking now of the Government Works being made to pay? -Yes.

[Continued.

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538. But even so, the Chairman's ques tion would arise: whether in comparison the State might save money by putting its work out to private contractors. can quite understand your point that in process of time, when you have the gear running, you might be running more cheaply; but even so, the point of comparison will subsequently arise.

Chairman.

539. If the cost of finding that out was practically nothing, why should we not know where we are?-I take it the Committee's suggestion is that for every job that is done in the printing works other firms should be invited to tender, whether they will get that work or not.

540. I think I made my question perfectly clear. If the printing establishments in this country have no objection to tendering to the Government for any job which you have in the Stationery Office, have you any objection to putting everything out for tender, and if so, what is the objection ?—No, I have no objection.

541. You remember you said just now that outside printers objected to giving estimates, and then not getting the orders, and that is one of the reasons you do not give them the opportunity of tendering?—I take it that outside printers object to estimating with the knowledge that no one will get the order.

542. Except the Stationery Office?Exactly.

543. Presuming that in general big printers who could do the jobs state they would be delighted to tender against the Government at any time for any job. you would not have any objection to giving out tenders all the time, and to bring those tenders before the Committee, and to show how and why you could do the printing cheaper? It would go against us as a Government Printing Office being successful at all; because the master printers, under those circumstances, have only to arrange among themselves for a certain time to prevent any work going into the Government Printing Works.

544. So long as it is cheaper, what difference does it make?--It makes this difference. If you starve the Government Printing Works so that they are only running to a quarter of their capacity, obviously it would mean heavy loss on the work that is given to them.

a very

11 May 1922]

Mr. W. R. CODLING, C.V.O., C.B.E.

Colonel Archer-Shee.

545. You mean-and I think we have had it in evidence in the past-that the object of the Stationery Office in starting a Government Printing Works was in order to check prices and prevent a ring, and to keep down the price of printing for Government work?—Yes.

546. And if you do not get any work in your printing works you cannot keep any check, because your cost for small be so much jobs, and on, SO would greater? That is so.

547. You want to keep your own works full? You must keep the works fairly full.

548. Of course, all the Foreign Office printing could not go outside; you would have to print that secretly, would you not? Take, for instance, the posters during the coal strike. You had to keep those secret?-Those posters were printed under contract prices, even though they were done at the Government works.

549. But there is a certain amount of work which would keep your Printing Works going that you could not put out to tender, owing to the secrecy involved? -There is not enough work of that nature to keep Harrow going.

Chairman.

550. To satisfy the Government Printing Office, it has to do the work as cheaply as an outside printer. I feel that if you put all the work out for tender you would have ample work. I do not believe that the big printing establishments in this country would quote you so low that you could not equal their prices; because you have every advantage over them; you have to pay for wages, and you have to pay for paper, and you have to pay for ink. Those are the chief things. The only thing they could say would be that they were not making a profit. Well, you do not make a profit either, therefore you would be at no disadvantage? -The Government Works ultimately will have to make a profit to justify themselves.

551. But they can only make a profit if you do not charge up to them what would be charged up to any printing establishment, as I put to you before?No, I do not agree with that. That is all charged up in the accounts.

552. We have not yet seen your estimate for any job, showing where all those items are in.-I showed you one the other day.

[Continued

Mr. Howard Gritten.

553. With regard to that point, have you noticed a question on the Order Paper to-day, asked by Mr. Esmond Harmsworth, to this effect: "To ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether, in view of the report of the Geddes Committee that printing and similar enterprises by Government Departments cannot be as economical as if undertaken by public tender, he will take steps to review the arrangements for carrying on the Government Printing Works, with a view to bringing this Government trading department to an end as speedily as possible"? Has your attention been called to that at all?-Yes.

Chairman.

554. What is the answer to that?-I could not say off-hand.

Mr. Howard Gritten.

555. Your answer to that is that your attention has been called to that question ?—Yes.

556. Were you consulted as to the answer that should be given ?—Yes.

557. In your opinion is the statement that is made in the question correct, that "printing and similar enterprises by Government Departments cannot be as economical as if undertaken by public tender?"-No, I do not agree with that; and I think the inference drawn by the hon. Member there from the Geddes Report is not quite a right one.

Colonel Archer-Shee.

558. I asked a supplemental question on that, as to whether the Departmental Committee had yet sat to inquire into the cost of the Government Printing Works generally. Last year I was informed by Commander Hilton Young, or Mr. Stanley Baldwin (I forget which) that a Departmental Committee was going to inquire into the cost, as I understood, after one year's working. Has any Departmental Committee yet been set up? Not so far as I know.

Mr. Howard Gritten.] Before we end these proceedings, might I ask you, Mr. Chairman, or if it is not within your knowledge, the Clerk of our Committee, whether the reports of our proceedings, which we all get, are distributed to every Member of the House?

Clerk to the Committee.] No, they are

not.

11 May 1922]

Mr. W. B. CODLING, C.V.O., C.B.E.

Mr. Howard Gritten.] I take it, then, that it is only ourselves who get the reports of these proceedings?

Clerk to the Committee.] And the witnesses.

Mr. Howard Gritten.] It seems to me that, in view of certain discussions that we had last year as to the utility and practical effect of these meetings of the Committee, it would be advisable to have the reports of our proceedings sent to every Member. That point, I think, has been raised elsewhere, as to what practical good we do. If the reports of our proceedings were distributed to every Member, a great many of whom would be very interested in them, it would contribute to the advantage of the meetings of this Committee.

Chairman.] The cost would be very small, because they have already set them up in type, and it is only a question of running off a further number of proofs, and sending them out to Members.

Mr. Howard Gritten.] Would you put that to the Committee?

Chairman.] Do you move that?

Mr. Howard Gritten.] I will move that the Report of the proceedings of this Committee be distributed to Member.

every

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Moved by Mr. Howard Gritten, seconded by Colonel Archer-Shee:

66 'That the suggestion be conveyed to Mr. Speaker that the Reports of the proceedings of this Committee be distributed to every Member of the House." (Agreed.)

Chairman.] I heartily approve of the resolution which has been put, because, as this Committee is a Speaker's Committee dealing with the Debates in the House of Commons, I think the reports of any discussions which it has with regard to Debates and Publications of the House should be sent to each Member of the House, so that they may be familiar with the cost of printing the discussions in the House itself, and the general cost of Government printing.

[Continued

Witness.] There are two points I would like to bring up if you will permit me. One is this. I have been asked by the Ministry of Labour if I will let them see the substance of the Report which I gave you on the letter which Dr. Macnamara addressed to this Committee.

Chairman.

559. It was a previous Committee of this House that dealt with that matter. I see no reason why you should not give your evidence to the Ministry of Labour that you gave to us.-Thank you. The other point is in regard to the question of the temporary and permanent staff in the Stationery Office. I would like the Committee, if they will, to hear the evidence of the Civil Service Commission on this point; because it is a matter that affects not only the Stationery Office, but every Department of the Service, and I think the evidence of the Civil Service Commission would probably be useful to the Committee. I am afraid in speaking on the general question, I made some statements which were not exactly correct. I gave them for what they were worth, to the best of my knowledge and belief at the time.

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