"ملف 1/50 الروتين المكتبي" [ظ‎‎٣‎٠] (٢٠٦/٦٠)

1 ' (ii) IMMEDIATE. To be used only in cases of great urgency
when immediate action by a responsible officer is necessary.
(iii) PRIORITY. To be used for any other telegrams which
require urgent treatment. This prefix is sufficient to secure
priority in handling over all other classes of telegrams
except " safety of life " telegrams and categories (i) and (ii)
above.
• (iv) ROUTINE, i .e., ordinary telegrams which are transmitted
in turn with ordinary private telegrams, unless they are
specially marked in the appropriate panel on the draft (see
paragraph 10).
(v) DEFERRED telegrams are those for which a period of up
to 48 hours may be allowed in transmission (including
encyphering and decyphering). See also paragraph 8.
' 3. The main purpose of the division into five categories is to
ensure proper treatment by—
{a) communications, sections and registries;
{b) the British public and the Services telegraph systems; and
(c) authorities to whom telegrams are addressed.
The first three categories are also taken into account by Cable and
Wireless, Limited, and may later be recognised by some foreign
systems.
4. Originators drafting or authorising telegrams should not
ask for any category of priority unless it is essential. In ordinary
circumstances, the great majority of Government telegrams should
be sent in the ROUTINE or DEFERRED categories, which rank
for transmission with private full rate telegrams over the public
telegraph system.
5. In particular, it is imperative that the utmost discretion
should be used before authorising the use of " EMERGENCY."
In the past the precedences " MOST IMMEDIATE" and
" IMMEDIATE " have been very largely abused. It is intended
that the new categories " EMERGENCY " and " IMMEDIATE "
should be regarded as definitely higher than the old, and that they
should be much less freely used.
6. If some degree of precedence is essential, the marking
" PRIORITY " should in the great majority of cases be sufficient.
The tendency of originators of telegrams to over-estimate the
urgency of their messages must be resisted, as must any attempt
to relate urgency to the importance of a subject and the level at
which it is being considered. The abuse of priority markings
defeats its own object by producing congestion and false rush
periods which impose unnecessary pressure at each point on the
line of communication. A factor which originators often overlook
is the time differences between the various parts of the world and
the necessity for taking them into consideration must therefore be
emphasised.