TELEPHONE DEVELOPMENT
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Your issue of June 4th has a very interesting article by Mr. Norman Angell. With regard to telephone development, the history is characteristic of Government action.
Eighty years ago some companies made electric telegraphs. About fifty-eight years ago the Government by Act of Par- liament bought the telegraphs and established a monopoly. Private enterprise then invented the telephone and proceeded to serve the public with this marvellous instrument. The Government took legal action, declaring that the telephone violated their electric monopoly. Finally a compromise was made ; the telephone companies were allowed to continue if they paid a heavy annual tax on each instrument.
The companies then proceeded to develop this great work, so the Government in alarm got Parliamentary sanction to purchase the telephone on terms which made it unprofitable for the companies to lay out capital to extend the business. After some lingering years the Government completed the purchase and took possession. The engineers would like to extend and develop the great work, but the Chancellor of the Exchequer, like all such Chancellors all over the world, collars the cash for his own immediate needs, so development must wait.—I am, Sir, &c.,
7 Victoria Street, Westminster, S.W.1. ARNOLD LUPTON.
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