Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/252

Rh 240 ENGLAND [TKLEGKAPH^. Foreign and culonial money- orders. Post- office savings bauks. Post- office life insur ance and annui ties Postal telegraph system. The money-order business transacted with the British colonies and with foreign countries is about equal in im portance, but the latter showed a far greater expansion in the years 1870 to 1876. The total number of colonial orders in 1870 was 143,211, transmitting 000,981 ; and in 1876 the number had risen to 145,838, but the amount fell to 572,752. On the other hand, the total number of foreign money orders rose from 47,431, transmitting 172,983, in 1870 to 211,163, transmitting 612,925, in 1876. In the case of both colonial and foreign money orders, the number and amount arriving from abroad are far greater than those sent away. Savings Banks. The post-office, besides issuing and paying money orders, fulfils the duties of a national savings bank, and also of an insurance institution, granting life insurance policies and annuities. The post-office savings banks, established by Act of Parliament- in 1861, held a total amount of 26,996,550, standing in the names of 1,702,374 depositors, at the end of 1876. The proportion of depositors to population at that date was one to 15 in England and Wales, one to 71 in Scotland, and one to 87 in Ireland. In the whole of the United Kingdom it was one to 19. The average daily number of deposits in the year 1876 was 10,347, and the average amount standing to the credit of depositors, 15, 17s. Id. It is a notable fact that, although the majority of depositors undoubtedly belong to the labouring classes, including servants, the transactions of the post-office savings bank are much larger in winter than in summer. The greatest number of deposits in the year 1876 occurred on the 31st January, when it reached 25,063, considerably more than double the average daily number. There were 5448 post-offices open as savings banks at the end of 1876. (See page 256 below.) Life Assurance. While the post-office savings banks proved a great success, ever growing, and evidently much appreciated by the public, the same cannot be said about the life insurance and annuity department. It showed some vitality in the first few years after its establishment, from 1865 to 1872, but after this date both the insurance and annuity contracts greatly declined, In 1872 the number of life policies granted was 757, insuring 55, 982 ; while in 1876 the number had fallen to 270, insuring 22,875. During the same period the number of annuity contracts fell from 1057 in 1872 to 758 in 1876, the total receipts in the latter year, both for immediate and deferred annuities, not amounting to more than 111,775. The almost insignificant amount of the transactions seems to show that this department of the post-office has no vitality, the field being already f nlly occupied by private enterprise. Telegraphs. Subsequent to the establishment of the money order, the savings banks, and the insurance depart ments, a business of immense importance was added to the functions of the post-office in the control and management of all the telegraphs of the kingdom. It wns not without much doubt and misgiving that parliament consented to add to the Government monopoly of conveying letters that of sending messages by electric wires ; but after long dis cussions in 1866 and 1867, the system was approved of by the legislature the year after. An Act, 31 and 32 Met. c. 110, authorizing the purchase of all the telegraphs by the Government, for the purpose of being added to tho machinery of the post-office, was passed in thesession of 1868, receiving the royal assent on the 31st of July, It was followed by another statute, 32 and 33 Viet. c. 73, estab lishing the monopoly. The chief reasons for passing the Act of 1868 were given in the preamble, which declared that &quot; it would be attended with great advantage to the state, as well as to merchants and traders, and to the public generally, if a cheaper, more widely extended, and more expeditious system of telegraphy were established, and to that end [it is recommended that] the postmaster-general be empowered to work telegraphs in connection with the administration of the post-office.&quot; It was stated in parlia ment during the debates on the Act that, under the then existing system of private telegraph companies, severely competing v ith each other for the most remunerative busi ness, there were 700 towns in the kingdom having a surplus service, each being attended to by two, three, or more com panies, with offices close together, in the central parts; while, on the other hand, there existed 486 towns with no telegraphic facilities, except, perhaps, that offered by the nearest railway station. It was this fact which weighed, more than any other, in giving the future control of the telegraphs to the post-office, to be worked as a state monopoly. There were, when the Act of 1868 was passed, 13 Transf telegraph companies in existence within the United King- of. a11 dom, including several which owned submarine cables for ^[J_ a international service. There were, besides, 83 railway com- graph panies possessing electric telegraphs, for the use of the the po: public as well as their own service. Altogether these 83 oflic e - railway companies had constructed for themselves 5157 miles of lines, comprising 16,191 miles of wire, with 1226 stations for public use ; while the 13 telegraph companies possessed 16,879 miles of land lines, made up of 79,646 miles of wire, besides 4688 miles of submarine cable, con taining 8122 miles of wire imbedded, with 2155 stations. Under the Act of Parliament, only 3 telegraph companies, the Electric, the British and Irish Magnetic, and the United Kingdom Telegraphic, had specified sums allowed to them for their property, and with all the rest the purchase money had to be settled by agreement, if requisite through an arbitrator appointed by the Board of Trade. It necessarily took some time to settle these matters, which involved pay ment of over six millions sterling ; but the task was accom plished, on the whole, with remarkable rapidity ; and on the 5th of February 1870, the post-office commenced the working of all the telegraph lines of the United Kingdom. The vast increase of telegraphic communication immedi- Postal ately after the new state organization, and its subsequent tele progress, is shown in the subjoined table, which gives the 8 n T&quot; total number of messages forwarded from the year 1870 ]gyo commencing February 5 to the 31st of March 1877, the 1876-1 last period comprising fifteen months, to bring, as pre viously explained, the postal accounts into uniformity with the general financial accounts of the kingdom : Number of Messages. Year ended England and Wales. Scotland Ireland. 31st December 1870 4,655,627 955,116 533,950 30th December 1871 6.300.867 1,305,596 800,328 28th December 1872 7.664,403 1,677.203 1,118,092 27th December 1873 8.963,818 1,942,610 1,280,731 26th December 1874 10,034.685 2,141,030 1,363,195 25th December 1875 10,775,279 2,272,465 1,434,996 15 months ended 31st ) March 1877 13,485,279 2,905,242 1,861,811 More than one-half of the whole number of messages of postal England and Wales forwarded by post-office telegraphs are telegra metropolitan. The number of London messages was offices&amp;gt; 2,462,039 in 1870, and rose to 4,398,262 in 1872, to 5,577,724 in 1874, and to 8,188,107 in the 15 months ended the 31st March 1877. The number of post-offices open for the transaction of telegraph business in the United Kingdom on the 31st of March 1877 was 3734, in addition to which messages were received at and delivered from 1636 railway stations. The staff exclusively engaged on telegraph duties numbered 11,654, comprising 21 superior officers, G656 clerks, and 4977 messengers.