Lord Londonderry, the Postmaster-General, received a deputation from the London
County Council on Friday week, and made a long and powerful defence of the agreement between the Post Office and the National Telephone Corn. pany. He began by arguing that free competition with the Company on the ordinary commerciallines was an impossibility, as it would result in a "war of rates" and would penalise the tax- payer; and he further contended that such competition was not contemplated either by the Committee of 1898 or the Act of 1899. What they now proposed to establish was "competition tempered by co-operation." As regarded the question of rates, Lord Londonderry declared that they did not differ materially from those which they would have fixed for their own purposes if there had been no agreement at all. It was just as essential that the service should be self-supporting, and even remunerative, as it was that it should be efficient, and it was always easier to reduce the charges for a public service than to raise them. He deprecated analogies drawn from certain other cities, because the area and population of London were enormously larger and the organisation and _up-keep more costly, but contended that, when due allowances had been made, the new 217 rate for unlimited user could not be described as extortionate Finally, he emphasised the fact that the scheme was, from the financial point of view, experimental, and that the rates were open to revision in 1905, admitting at the same time, in reply to Mr. Beim, that the agreement which ex- tended the Company's license till 1911 had already been signed by himself and would not come before Parliament at all. We have done our best to give full expression to Lord. Londonderry's apology for the Post Office scheme, but we must not give the impression that we agree with him. His speech leaves us quite unconverted.
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