24 Telephone Systems of the Continent of Europe 



rates. In trunk switching it is necessary, in order to obtain 

 maximum speed, that a branch from each subscriber's wire shall 

 be present on the trunk switch -board, so that the trunk operator 

 may be able to put a trunk in connection with a subscriber's line 

 directly, without the intervention of another person. To give 

 effect to this plan after the acquisition of the trunks by the Post 

 Office, it will be necessary to extend all the subscribers' wires 

 from the telephone exchanges to the local post offices. In 

 Manchester, as in Liverpool, the two institutions are some quarter 

 of a mile apart, while in each town there are some 2,500 sub- 

 scribers, any one of which may be asked for at any moment over 

 a trunk line. It will be requisite, therefore, if the present speed 

 of trunk switching is to be maintained, to construct 2,500 wires, 

 each a quarter of a mile long, in Manchester and the same number 

 in Liverpool, or a total length of 1,250 miles of new wires for 

 those two towns alone. In towns worked on the metallic circuit 

 system the mileage required would be doubled. But it is under- 

 stood that it is not proposed to adopt this plan ; consequently 

 the switching speed, together with the earning power of the trunks, 

 must be inevitably reduced. 



It is generally believed in telephonic circles that, Parliament 

 consenting, the Post Office will acquire the entire business of the 

 National Telephone Company at December 31, 1897, the next 

 break in the licence. It behoves the public, and, above all, the 

 commercial community, to watch that the transfer is only allowed 

 to take place under conditions which will assure a good service 

 and an uninterrupted development at reasonable rates, to be set 

 forth and fixed beforehand. It is useless to attempt to disguise 

 the fact that the Post Office has always opposed low rates, no 

 matter to what applied. The twopenny post, the penny post, 

 the newspaper post, the parcel post, post-cards, reply post-cards, 

 sixpenny telegrams ; in short, every improvement without excep- 

 tion had to pass the gauntlet of official obstruction before it could 

 attain the stage of useful existence. It may safely be predicted, 

 therefore, that the Post Office will seek, whenever the acquisition 

 of the whole telephonic business of the country comes up for 

 settlement, to induce Parliament to sanction rates far in excess of 

 those current on the Continent. That should in no wise be per- 



