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 CHAPTER IX. THE TELEGRAPH AND THE PRESS. The electric telegraph has achieved this great and paradoxical result, that it has, as it were, assembled all mankind upon one great plane where they can see everything that is done, hear everything that is said, and judge of every policy that is pursued at the very moment when those events take place. . . . It is a phenomenon to which nothing in the history of our planet up to this time presents anything that is equal or similar. — Marquis of Salisbury. O event in our political history, not even the re- mission of the taxes on knowledge, in the opinion of many competent judges has con- tributed so materially to the immense growth of the daily Press of the country as the purchase of the telegraph system by the State. Before this measure received the sanction of Parliament in 1868, the news- papers were at an extreme disadvantage in obtaining news. There was nothing like free trade between repor- ters and editors in sending news over the wires, because the old companies made the collection and dissemination of news a source of income, having their own staff in Parliament, and reporters elsewhere who collected news which the companies sold to provincial subscribers. It was perhaps natural, therefore, that when " liners " and others attempted to compete with the com-ianies by also sending news over the wire, they did not get that assis- tance from the telegraphic authorities which was essential to success — they received what was practically an intima- ' tion that such enterprise could not be allowed to continue unless it were done under the company's auspices. When, however, the Government took over the telegraph system, this state of things was changed for the better. It was decided as a cardinal principle that the Government could not imdertake the collection of news, and that this must be entirely a matter for private enterprise. What ^^