At the meeting of the British Association in the same year, Sir William Thomson gave his experiences at the Philadelphia Exhibition. “In the Canadian Department I heard 'To be or not to be ... there's the rub' through an electric wire: but scorning monosyllables, the electric articulation rose to higher flights, and gave me passages taken at random from the New York newspapers. 'S.S. Cox has arrived' (I failed to make out the S.S. Cox). 'The City of New York,' 'Senator Morton,' 'the Senate has resolved to print a thousand extra copies.' 'The Americans in London have resolved to celebrate the coming 4th of July.' All this my own ears heard spoken to me with unmistakable distinctness by the then circular disc-armature of just such another little electro-magnet as I hold in my hand.”

Mr. William Preece, who was in after years knighted, and who was at the time Divisional Engineer to the General Post Office, exhibited at this same meeting Bell's telephone, which he had brought from the United States, and Graham Bell himself gave further illustrations.

Mr. Preece was at that time watching the progress of the telephone with a keen eye for the interests of the Post Office, but so also were business men who saw a profitable opening for private enterprise. To put the matter briefly, the instrument was at once captured by private speculators and exploited for all it was worth and a good deal more besides. The Telephone Company, Limited, was formed in 1878 to acquire Bell's patent, and in 1879 the Edison Telephone Company of London was formed. By this time it was being generally discussed whether these people were not poaching on the manor of the Postmaster-General. That official asked Parliament to insert a clause in a Telegraph Bill which was under discussion declaring that “the term 'telegraph' included any apparatus for transmitting messages or other communications with the aid of electricity, magnetism, or any like agency.” But Parliament has usually a very tender heart for the private speculator, and refused to agree to this proposal. It is a habit with many ill-informed people to blame the officials of the Post Office for not collaring the telephone from the first, but if there were any blame attached to them it must be shared by Parliament. There was possibly in official circles a little jealousy of this new rival to the telegraph: it must be remembered that State telegraphs were yet in their infancy, and officials were still at work organising the new system all over the country at great expense to the State. We have seen in a previous chapter that just at the time when the mail coach service had been magnificently organised, and vast sums of money had been spent on improving the roads, the steam engine upset all the calculations of the postal officials. Something of the same kind seemed to be likely to happen in the case of the telephone and telegraph. It is easy to be wise after the event, but the telegraph was still a new toy in the hands of the postal officials, and their strongest efforts were being directed to improve this branch of the service.

But if the Post Office was not over enthusiastic in its welcome of the new medium it was at any rate keen in the assertion of its own rights. When the Edison Company announced its intention to start telephone business in London the Postmaster-General at once instituted proceedings against the company for infringement of his monopoly rights under the Telegraph Act of 1869. This was a test action, and Mr. Justice Stephen, who was the judge, decided that the telephone was in the meaning of the Act a telegraph, and that telephone exchange business could not legally be carried out except by the Postmaster-General or with his consent. The decision covered also future inventions in regard to “every organised system of communication by means of wires according to any preconcerted system of signals.” This, it has been said, was the psychological moment when the Government might then and there have taken advantage of its position and have incorporated the telephone with the telegraph system. But Great Britain acts cautiously in these matters, and as I have said she has an intense respect for private enterprise. It is only when competition between rival companies obviously fails to meet the wants of the public that she consents to allow her Government to step in and do the work itself. It was characteristic of our nation that divided counsels should so long have been allowed to continue over the telephone business; it was characteristic of our officials also, that they were not prepared to launch out into any fresh expenditure of public money with the purchase of the telegraphs still weighing heavily on their consciences.

Public opinion would not have allowed the Post Office to act the dog in the manger over the business, even if it desired to do so, and it proceeded to grant licences to the telephone companies to work within certain areas. In 1883 the Post Office did in fact propose to engage in active competition with the companies, but the Treasury opposed the policy on the ground that the State should at most be ready to supplement and not to supersede private enterprise.

The various telephone companies united in 1889 under the name of the National Telephone Company, but their work was carried on under many restrictions. They were not allowed to lay wires underground, and for a long time they were not permitted to establish trunk lines. The Post Office was perhaps still inspired too much with the idea that it was a profit-making institution, and it was making a fight for the telegraph, with which the telephone was now in serious competition. Another opportunity for the Post Office to step in and buy out the companies happened in 1890, but it was not taken. But in 1892 the Post Office compelled the company to sell their trunk lines to the Government, leaving the local exchanges in the hands of the company. So things went on until 1898, when a Select Committee was appointed by Parliament to consider whether the telephone service is calculated to become of such general benefit as to justify its being undertaken by municipal and other local authorities, and if so, under what conditions. The decision of the Committee was that so long as the telephone service was not likely to become of general benefit the present practical monopoly in the hands of a private company should continue. The telephone, we see, was still considered only a luxury for the few, and although certain foreign countries were making great strides in the direction of a general use of the system, Parliament was not yet prepared to sacrifice the private speculator. The committee, however, recommended competition by the Post Office and local authorities, and in pursuance of this policy the Post Office in 1899 decided to establish a telephone system in London in competition with the company.

Thus began the first direct connection of the Post Office with the working of the telephone. But there is always something unsatisfactory and not in accord with the fitness of things when the State enters into competition with any of its members in business undertakings, and this attempt was certainly not advantageous to anybody. In 1901 the Post Office came to an agreement with the company in regard to the London business. The company agreed to free intercommunication between its subscribers and those of the Post Office, and undertook to charge rates identical with those fixed by the Department. The long struggle of the company to obtain permission to lay underground wires was settled by the Post Office agreeing to provide these wires for the company at a rental. Finally the Post Office undertook to buy out the National Telephone Company in the year 1911.

Briefly stated, this is the story of how the Post Office came to possess, as was already the case with the telegraph, the working of the telephone. Even now there are persons who are of opinion that although there should be one single authority to work the telephone, this should not be the Post Office. Let me submit a few considerations why I think the right policy has been adopted. The telephone has undoubtedly become a formidable competitor to the telegraph, and it is desirable, with a view to the economical adjustment of facilities, that both systems should be under one direction. In this case the one service becomes the natural complement to the other, and one or the other can be developed or reduced as circumstances demand. Moreover, there are hundreds of miles of underground pipes all over the country laid at an expense of a million and a half, and a single cable may contain from 100 to 200 wires used indiscriminately for telegraph and telephone services. Many thousands of miles of route are furnished with poles used for both services.

Then there is the familiar illustration of the post office existing in every village and town. What other authority would think of touching the unremunerative parts of the country, or would think it worth while to take up the business which the Post Office now undertakes as a matter of course? If the two services were separated all this plant and accommodation would have to be duplicated (or dropped) for telephones. All the work would have to be controlled by officials just as at present, with this difference, that they would be entirely free from the effects of popular criticism and control. Everybody claims the right to attack a Department of the State, and if their grievances are not attended to, the member of Parliament for their constituency can ask a question in the House of Commons. The Postmaster-General is considered fair game for attack by every telephone subscriber; far less satisfaction would be got out of a dispute with an official not directly responsible to Parliament.

A telephone subscriber, writing from the Junior Constitutional Club in reply to a pressing request for payment of subscription, wrote: “Anyhow, £5 is more easily paid than £8 at the present moment. I don't suppose the P.M.G. is quite so short for a day or two as I am.”

And in a further letter he said: “It would be an act of grace on the part of an exalted and powerful man like the P.M.G. to show clemency under the cruel circumstances and forego his rights.”

There would be no satisfaction in writing such letters from your club to the secretary of a company. To have the opportunity to be saucy to a member of his Majesty's Government is only given to some people when they make use of the Post Office.

Men point to the loss to the Post Office in working the telegraphs. “Is this not a proof of the inefficiency of the permanent official?” But certain things should be remembered before making such accusations. What are the chief causes of the loss? Parliament insisted upon sixpenny telegrams, and they are certainly not remunerative; no private company would touch them at that price, except perhaps to certain towns and districts where the business would pay its way. The Post Office telegraphs everywhere at that price. Parliament also insisted upon cheap Press telegrams, which are a loss to the Post Office, though a great gain to the public. And as a contributory cause to the loss must be mentioned the telephone itself, which has to a certain extent destroyed the most remunerative portion of telegraph work, the transmission of short messages. Nearly every village has its telegraph. Numbers of offices are kept open all night. The railway companies have an immense free service over the whole Post Office system. But the man whose telephone service has for the moment gone wrong forgets all this, and in his indignation he attacks the whole system.

The United States is practically the only country of any importance in which the telephone system is not owned and worked by the State. The General Manager of the Post Office Telephone Service, who paid an official visit to the United States in 1910, in answer to an inquiry as to whether the service in New York is as good as it is usually represented to be, stated frankly that “the service given in New York City, where the telephone problems are similar to those that confront us in London, is unquestionably superior to ours. But,” he added, “I believe that we are rapidly catching up, and I feel sure that at no distant date it will be commonly acknowledged that the service in London is equivalent to that of New York.”

As regards the trunk lines and long-distance business in the United States, there are often complaints of high charges and other inconveniences, but the telephone service is developed there much more extensively than in Great Britain. The Americans suffer more than we do from cyclones and storms and interruptions to their telephone system. Everything is on a magnificent scale, even the weather. My readers may remember the story of the Scot who was explaining to an American what severe winters they experienced in his native country. “Why, it is nothing at all to the cold we have in the States,” said the American. “I recollect one winter when a sheep jumping from a hillock to a field; became suddenly frozen on the way, and stuck in the air like a mass of ice.” “But,” said the solemn Scot, whose first consideration is always love of the naked fact, “the law of gravity would not allow that.” “I know that,” was the ready answer, “but the law of gravity was frozen too.” No wonder, with such possibilities, the American long-distance telephone service occasionally breaks down.

Technical terms are difficult to understand in this country, but America often helps us out of difficulties by her picturesque language. For instance, a “snooper in” is a person who listens to other people's conversations on the telephone. And “the trouble man” is an excellent name for the individual who investigates faults on a wire.

It is the long-distance calls which appeal most strongly to our sense of the marvellous. Owing to our insular position the extension of the range of telephonic speech has always been a difficult engineering problem, as the insertion of a length of submarine or underground cable in a telephone circuit has a “choking” effect, and materially limits the distance over which speech is possible. In order to minimise this difficulty, which affects Great Britain so adversely, a cable treated with loading coils was laid in 1909 between Abbot's Cliff, Dover, and Cape Grisnez on the French coast. It is the resistance capacity and induction of a circuit which decides whether a long-distance conversation will be satisfactory or not, and the insertion of “loading coils” in a cable artificially increases the induction, thus increasing the volume and improving the quality of speech received at the end of a circuit in such a cable.

There are sometimes difficulties in the maintenance of a cable in a busy waterway like the English Channel, as it is no uncommon occurrence for vessels to foul cables with their anchors, and sometimes even in lifting the anchor the cable is heaved to the surface.

Everybody asks the question, “How far can I speak on the telephone?” In this country at least that will ultimately depend on the way the difficulties of the submarine cable are surmounted. You can talk in England to Paris and Brussels and many provincial towns in France and Belgium. The new cable has enabled telephonic communication to be made between Paris and Glasgow: Manchester can speak to Paris, Nottingham to Lyons, and Ipswich to Bordeaux. The engineers of the Post Office talk of the possibility of a conversation between London and Astrachan.

The scene at a large telephone exchange is very curious and striking. The Daily Chronicle some time ago gave a very vivid description of what meets the eye and ear when you enter the room. “A low, confused murmur falls pleasantly on the ear, with a dim suggestiveness of activity in being. It is like the hubbub of a far-off multitude or an echo of Babel heard through the electrophone. It is the negation of noise, and yet it bespeaks energy and meaning. Around the room many girls are seated with their faces to the wall. On their heads a bright metal band is fastened, and against the hair of the brunettes it gleams like a barbaric ornament. With the intuition of womanhood these young ladies must be aware that this implement of their toil becomes them, for they carry it with a certain grace and coquetry. But they have no eyes for the intruder. All the time they are intent on something else, listening constantly to the voices of the unseen. All London is speaking to them—nay, all England. Though the voices are those of strangers, they respond readily and reply promptly to the words they hear. They are the intermediaries of communication, and they bring together millions who are miles apart. Heaven knows how much purposeless chatter they encourage, yet they also make possible the most momentous conversations, fraught with grave consequences to individuals and communities. Yet all the while they are calm and unmoved, speaking in a voice that is ever soft, gentle, and low—'an excellent thing in woman'—and they deftly handle coloured cards and push plugs into thousands of small holes in the framework before them. A few soft-footed superintendents walk up and down the room, but there is no sound to conflict with the murmurous harmony of subdued speech.”

There are as many jokes about the use of strong words on the telephone as there are about golf and bad language. The telephone is always a trial to the impatient person. “Is there a doddering idiot on this telephone?” shouted an irascible old gentleman down the transmitter. “Not at this end,” came the ready reply of the young lady at the exchange.

The ordinary rules which govern the art of conversation in polite circles do not fit in with the telephonic talk. When the conversation is to be abruptly broken off in three minutes it is something like endeavouring to pour out your soul on a sixpenny telegram.