Introduction 29- 



British subject in a quest for legitimate information abroad on a 

 question in which he is known to be specially interested. The 

 author shrinks from even verging on the uncomplimentary, so it 

 is necessary to at least imagine a reason. Can it be that, knowing 

 the author's consistent advocacy of low rates, the British Post 

 Office feared that he would learn that in Germany the maximum 

 local rate, even in Berlin with its 25,000 subscribers, is only y/. los. 

 per annum, everything included ; and that a three-minute con- 

 versation can be had between any two points of the Imperial 

 German Post Office territory even when six hundred miles or 

 more apart for one shilling? a facility for which the British 

 Post Office proposes to charge 85-. If this was not the reason, it 

 is of course open to the Post Office to make known its real motive. 



Fortunately, this unpatriotic obstruction did not prevent the 

 author from eventually obtaining all the information he sought, as 

 will appear from a perusal of the German section. 



The book is not entirely devoted to tariffs and regulations. 

 Such matters are indissolubly bound up with technical questions, 

 for cheap rates with bad construction and indifferent service are 

 to be deprecated, and indeed disallowed altogether, for the author 

 holds them to be intolerable, and only less acceptable than the 

 combination of dear rates and a bad service. The service of a 

 telephone exchange should be the first consideration. This 

 opinion has always led the author to advocate the universal use 

 of metallic circuits, without which privacy of conversation and 

 speech undisturbed by strange noises, together with effective long- 

 distance talking, is unattainable. Prompt and correct switching, 

 with no uncertainty between signals intended to have different 

 meanings, are also essential to a good system ; and the operators' 

 voices should never be heard on the wires. The familiar ' Have 

 you finished?' and other intrusive cries with which London 

 operators break in upon one's conversation every few seconds are 

 totally unnecessary in a well-ordered exchange. In large towns 

 the main routes of wires should be laid underground, at least in 

 the central parts. These preliminaries and essentials having been 

 attended to, and the best of material and workmanship em- 

 ployed in carrying them out, attention may be profitably given to 

 the rates. The author's contention has always been, at least for 



