Introduction \ 9 



telegraph offices are generally provided (in Germany they usually 

 exist nowhere else), and are found a great convenience. The 

 duty ought to be imposed on the Post Office of finding room for a 

 call-box at all its chief branches, and to recoup itself, not by 

 charging a rent which might prove prohibitive to the company, 

 but by retaining, say, half the receipts. It would then be to the 

 interest of both Post Office and company to develop the traffic. 

 In Italy the Government imposes a tax of 2/. per annum on all 

 public telephone stations, with the result that they are few and far 

 between, several of the largest towns not possessing even one. 



The proposal to allow railways, canals, &c., to be used by the 

 company at a nominal charge is only reasonable. The monopoly 

 given by Parliament to the Post Office in respect to the erection 

 of wires on railways was conferred before the existence of 

 telephony as a practical art was dreamed of, and was never 

 intended to act as a bar to legitimate public requirements. Any 

 powers in connection with railways or canals conferred on the 

 National Company ought to be extended to any other companies, 

 municipalities, or persons who may hereafter become licensees ; 

 and also to those who may require to erect private telephone 

 lines. 



A table is given on pp. 20, 2 1 of the charges made in the various 

 continental countries for the different services rendered. The ex- 

 ceptions and variations are so numerous that it is a little difficult 

 to make comparisons at every point ; but by taking the most 

 commonly used unit charges in each country it is nevertheless 

 possible to compress a mass of information into a small compass. 



One feature in the table will doubtless strike the observer. It 

 is the column headed * Entrance fee,' and it refers to a practice 

 which has enabled wonders to be wrought in the direction of 

 cheap telephony on a modest amount of capital, for practically it 

 works out that the subscriber finds, in the shape of 'entrance fee,' 

 'admission charge,' or 'contribution,' as it is named in various 

 countries, the capital, or the greater part of it, required for the 

 installation of his line, instrument, and share of exchange 

 apparatus. The custom prevails in Austria, France, Monaco, 

 Roumania, and Sweden, on the part of the respective States, and 

 in Denmark (partially), Finland (partially), Norway (partially), and 



c 2 



