[FLEMING] POST OFFICE REFORMS IN THE VICTORIAN ERA 83 
whose main object is private profit. This great agency of civilization 
has been given to man for nobler purposes. A little reflection will 
show that brought under state control, it is destined to revolutionize 
the world’s correspondence. By carrying the postal telegraph service 
to every Post Office in every British possession around the Globe, our 
people, so widely sundered geographically, will telegraphically and prac- 
tically be drawn into near neighbourhood. 
This marvellous result is rendered certain by two remarkable facts. 
First, the fact that telegraph messages are instantaneously transmitted, 
gives them an immense advantage over the post. Take a single illus- 
tration. If a correspondent in Canada writes to a friend in New Zea- 
land, he could not receive an answer for eight or ten weeks, while with 
the telegraph an answer would be due in a few hours. Secondly, dis- 
tance does not appreciably add to the cost of sending a message by 
telegraph. It has been elsewhere pointed out that there is practically 
no greater outlay incurred in transmitting long distance than short dis- 
tance messages. In the case of postal matter, the expenditure is con- 
stant for every hour, and continuous for every mile; whereas, in tele- 
graphy, there is an entire absence of such expenditure. With a tele- 
graph properly established and equipped, messages may be transmitted 
100 or 1,000 miles at no greater cost than one mile. 
These striking facts give the strongest possible grounds for the 
belief that, with the cable and telegraph service nationalised and ex- 
tended, an extremely low uniform charge,—a parallel to penny post- 
age—by Imperial telegraphy, will be found possible. Would anything 
else tend to develop in so high a degree a common feeling of kin- 
. ship among our people? Statesmen desirous of taking practical steps 
towards consolidating the Empire, will now find the way open for 
their efforts by furthering this the crowning development of the Bri- 
tish Post Office. 
