twenty hours would be required. So again; the
course of communication between Fort Augustus
and London would be shortened by a period
of from two days to two days and a half.

The foregoing illustrations (which might be
varied and multiplied indefinitely), will serve to
show how constantly, if the scheme proposed
were in operation, the public would be enabled,
by a combination of postal and telegraphic facilities,
to obtain a most important acceleration of
their correspondence, at a cheap rate. The
occasions would be numberless in which, though
they might not be willing to undertake the
labour or expense of going or sending to a
telegraphic office, or to incur the cost of
transmission at the existing rates—and perhaps,
the cost of delivery beyond the limits of
the terminal office—they would be very willing
to expend a shilling, if, by so doing, and by
depositing a message in a pillar-box within an
easy distance, they could ensure the delivery
of the message free of further charge, within
from three to five hours after the date of
despatch.

To those, however, who desire, not merely a
partial use of telegraphic facilities for the
purpose of a partial acceleration of their
correspondence, but the enjoyment of the fullest
facilities which the telegraph can afford, the
system would unquestionably afford advantages
much greater than any in the power of telegraph
companies to give. Without great outlay, the
existing companies could not bring the
telegraphic offices, as a rule, closer to the population
than they are at present; nor, without great
outlay, could they extend the hours during which
the majority of those offices are open for business.
The Post-office has already the means of
bringing the telegraphic offices closer to the
population and of extending their hours of business.

We are a prudent people, and we like full
value for our money. There is little doubt that
first among the circumstances which have
retarded the growth of telegraphic correspondence
in the United Kingdom, is the fact that the
charges for the transmission of messages are,
and have been for some time, higher with us
than on the Continent. France, Prussia,
Belgium, Switzerland, has each a tariff, the
two former less, the two latter very much
less, than ours. The following Table will illustrate
this part of the subject:

Of course this scheme, beneficial as we
believe it to be, has not been received with
universal satisfaction. So the establishment of
railways and the introduction of the cheap postage
were both derided by The Quarterly Review
and other authorities. The objections raised
against the proposed plan are of various kinds,
and come from various quarters. One of the chief
of them, is, that the adoption of the proposed
scheme would place too much power in the
hands of the Government, which, on emergency
—as, for instance, at a general election—might
be tempted to use the information they could
obtain through it, to the detriment of their
political adversaries. The answer to this is,
plainly, that public opinion would declare itself
so strongly, both in the press and in parliament,
against any such conduct, if it ever
occurred, as effectually to prevent its recurrence.
This point is touched upon by Mr.
John Lewis Ricardo, M.P., then both a member
of the legislature and the chairman of the
largest telegraph company in the kingdom, in
a pamphlet published in 1861. The following
quotation will show that he had no apprehension:

To secure the honour and reputation of the
British Government as a guarantee for the privacy of
communications, necessarily more confidential than
those conveyed under sealed envelope through the
post; to establish a conviction that the public are
dependent, not upon the discretion of individuals,
but upon the faith of a ministry responsible at any
moment to a vigilant parliament, that there shall be
no undue preference or precedence given even to the
highest financial or most powerful influence in the
land; in fine to substitute the safeguard of statesmen
chosen by the nation for their talent and integrity,
for that of men of business, however high
their character, elected by a body of shareholders,
simply to pay them the highest amount of interest
obtainable from the tolls levied upon the public; to
retain the telegraphic despatches of the various
departments charged with the maintenance of the
honour, and interests, and tranquillity of the country
inviolate and inviolable, instead of being passed
through the hands of a joint-stock company, are
advantages which no man can deny, and which
parliament and the people will not fail to appreciate.

Of course, it has been said that the scheme is
an interference with private enterprise. The
reply is, that the Edinburgh Chamber of
Commerce in 1865 appointed a Committee to enquire
into the subject, and that the report of that
committee—adopted at a meeting held under
the presidency of Mr. McLaren, M.P.—strongly