Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/597

Rh TELEGRAPHS.] P S T-O F F I C E 575 post-office the exclusive right of public telegraphy. But the committee of the House of Commons to which the Bill was referred made a special report of their opinion &quot; that it is not desirable that the transmission of messages for the public should become a legal monopoly in the post-office.&quot; They also recommended that it should be left to the dis cretion of the postmaster-general, with the consent of the treasury, to make special agreements for the transmission of certain classes of messages at reduced rates ; that security should be taken for ensuring the secrecy of messages, by making its violation punishable as a misdemeanour ; and, finally, that submarine cables acquired by the postmaster- general should at first be leased to companies, although ultimately it might become expedient that the post-office should work them. 1 The Act of 1869 (32 and 33 Viet, c. 73), entitled &quot;An Act to alter andame,nd the Telegraph Act, 1869,&quot; gives to the post-office the exclusive privilege of transmission, withheld in the previous Act, empowers the purchase of telegraphic undertakings other than those included in that Act, and enables certain companies to require the postmaster-general to make such purchase. It also directs the raising by the treasury of a sum of 7,000,000 for the purposes of the Acts. The Act 33 and 34 Viet. c. 88 (1870) extended the post-office tele graphic system to the Channel Islands and to the Isle of Man ; and that of the 34 and 35 Viet. c. 75 (1871) author ized the raising of an additional million. These sums collectively proved to be quite insufficient, and eventually the capital sum so raised exceeded 10,000,000. This large excess led to very blamable irregularities, during two or three years, in the post-office accounts by the temporary application of savings banks balances, and the like, to telegraph expenditure, irregularities which attracted the express censure both of the treasury and of the House of Commons. Probably no more arduous task Avas ever thrown upon a public department than that imposed on the post-office by this transfer of 1868-70. The reforms which it was to bring about were eagerly and impatiently demanded by the public. The utmost ingenuity that some of the old companies could exert, employ, or in directly incite was used at first to prevent or impede the transfer and then to make it as difficult and as costly as possible. 2 This great operation had to be effected without for one hour interrupting the public service. Thereupon the department had immediately to reduce and to simplify the charges of transmission throughout the kingdom. It had to extend the hours of business at all the offices. It had to extend the wires from railway stations lying outside of town populations to post-offices in the centre of those populations and throughout their suburbs. It had also to extend the wires from towns into rural districts thereto fore wholly devoid of telegraphic communication. It had to effect a complete severance of commercial and domestic telegraphy from that of mere railway traffic ; and in order to this severance it had to provide the railways with some 6000 miles of wires in substitution of those of which theretofore they had been joint users. It had, further, to provide at low charges, by all sorts of agencies, an effective &quot; free trade &quot; (so to speak) in the collection of news for the newspaper press, of which collection hitherto the old telegraph companies had possessed a virtual mono poly. It had to facilitate the transmission of money 1 Report of Commons Committee on Electric Telegraph Bill (Session Papers of 1868, No. 435). 2 Two instances out of more than twenty may suffice. The North- Eastern Railway Company claimed in compensation for its telegraphic department 540,292, besides a very large sum for interest; it was awarded, in all, 168,696. The metropolitan railway companies claimed, in all, 433,000, and were awarded 51,907 (Twenty -fifth Report of Postmaster-General, 1879, p. 21). orders by telegram. 3 Finally, it had to amalgamate into one staff bodies of men who had formerly worked as rivals, upon opposite plans and with different instruments, and to combine the amalgamated telegraph staff with that of the postal service. When under examination by the Commons committee of 1868 Mr Scudamore had very modestly disclaimed 4 the honour of originating anything with respect to the proposed transfer. Every part of the scheme had, he said, been borrowed from somebody else, and tried suc cessfully elsewhere : the amalgamation of the telegraphic and postal administration in Victoria, New South Wales, Belgium, Switzerland, and to a certain extent in France ; the institution of places of deposit for messages, in addi tion to the offices of transmission, in Belgium, as well as the gratuitous grant of postal facilities for telegraphic messages ; telegraphic stamps in Belgium and France ; a telegraphic money-order office in Switzerland and Prussia. But it is quite certain that Mr Scudamore, had he been put under examination at a later date, could have pointed to no precedent for labours like those imposed upon him and his able assistants by the Telegraph Acts of 1868-69. So zealously was the work of improvement pursued that within little more than six years of the transfer (viz., in 1876) the aggregate extent of road wires in the United Kingdom was already 63,000 miles, that of railway wires 45,000, in all 108,000 miles. The number of instruments in the telegraphic offices was 12,000. At that date the superintending and managing staffs of the post-office com prised 590 persons, the staff of the old companies with the relatively insignificant traffic of 1867 less than 6,000,000 messages as compared with 20,000,000 having been 534 persons. 5 For supervision exclusively the number of officers was 88 against 86, and the relative cost 16,900 to the post-office as against 15,000 to the companies. 6 At this date there were still no less than 1720 miles of the road wires carried over houses and across streets. In 1882 more than 1300 miles of these had been gradually removed and underground wires substituted. The following table (XV.) shows the gross and nett revenue derived by the post-office from the telegraph service since the date of the actual transfer (Jan. and Feb. 1870).&quot; Year ended 31st March. Total Telegraph Receipts (pay ments to Cable Companies and for Porterage deducted). Working Ex penses charged to Telegraph Vote. 8 Nett Revenue (irrespective of interest on Capital Account). 1870 (two months) ... 1871 100,760 697,934 9 62,273 394,477 38,487 303,457 1873 989,921 874,946 114,975 1875 1,137,079 1,077,347 59,732 1877 1,313,107 1,123,790 189,317 1879 1,346,892 1,089,392 257,500 1881 1,610,907 1,242,092 368,815 1882 1,630,443 1,365,633 264,810 1883 1,740,063 1,504,204 235,859 1884 1,760,899 1,709,506 51,393 3 Enumerated (Scudamore, Supplementary Report,p, 142) as amongst the objects aimed at by the post-office in accepting the transfer. 4 Minutes of Evidence taken by Commons Committee on proposed Transfer, &c., passim. 5 Report of the Select Committee on Telegraphs, 1876 (Commons Session Papers, No. 357), p. iii. sq. 6 Lord John Manners to the treasury ; see Papers relating to Post- Office Telegraphs, 1876 (Session Papers, No. 34), p. 2. 7 Thirtieth Report of Postmaster- General, 1884, p. 58. 8 This return is taken from the Reports of the postmaster-general, and is drawn up according to the appropriation account of each financial year. There are certain additional expenses (for buildings, stationery, manufacture of stamps, and rates) on account of the telegraph service which that account does not include. They raise the total cost of the telegraph service for 1881 to 1,308,454, for 1882 to 1,440,728. 9 Mr Scudamore s original estimate of yearly revenue was put at 608,000 (Supplementary Report to Postmaster-General, 1868, p. 147).