258 Telephone Systems of the Continent of Europe 



Concessionaries must therefore arrange matters, if they would 

 avoid loss, so as not only to make a living out of the business 

 during their term of occupancy, but to get back the whole of the 

 capital invested before the time for relinquishing comes. This is 

 unquestionably a bad system. It simply means that the sub- 

 scribers pay both principal and interest, and that during the con- 

 cluding years of the concession improvements will be tabooed 

 and the service starved. 



On local exchange communication an annual tax of 10 per 

 cent, on the tariff charges is imposed, plus an annual charge of 

 2/. for each public telephone station opened. On trunk commu- 

 nication the tax is 5 per cent, of the gross receipts. These taxes 

 are payable by the concessionary. The Italian Government 

 appears to have taken the British Post Office as its model in this 

 matter, although the Italian tax is not quite so onerous as the 

 British, which is 10 per cent, on the trunk as well as on the local 

 gross receipts. The law further provides that should the Govern- 

 ment itself undertake the construction and working of trunk lines 

 the whole of the receipts will belong to it, giving the companies 

 nothing for the use and operating of the terminal wires. When 

 trunk lines are erected and worked by concessionaries, the 

 receipts less 5 per cent, will belong to them, but they must 

 guarantee the Government the average of the previous three 

 years' receipts for telegrams between the two points connected. 

 Parishes which erect telephone lines to Government telegraph 

 offices at their own expense, with the object of participating in the 

 telegraph service, are exempt from all these payments. 



The maximum tariffs which concessionaries may charge to 

 their subscribers are fixed by the law, but these have proved too 

 high for the pockets of the people, and except in the largest 

 towns Venice, Turin, Genoa, and Milan are not applied. In 

 Rome there is competition between a company and a co-operative 

 society, and the rates are consequently lower than in the towns 

 just mentioned. The legal maximum tariff is as follows : 



For each subscriber's line within a radius of three kilometers of 

 the central station, 8/. per annum if aerial, and i2/. if underground. 

 Excess distance to be charged at the rate of ^s. q\d. and 6s. $d. 

 respectively for each additional 200 meters or fraction thereof. 



