336 Telephone Systems of the Continent of Europe 



section after section of the multiple switch-board at the central 

 station being altered to meet the new requirements, communica- 

 tion between the two sets being kept up by means of translators, 

 until in 1894 there was not a single wire left in Stockholm. 

 Probably the State had intended to intimidate the company into 

 selling its system, and had there been a nervous man at the helm 

 that result would probably have been brought about ; but Cedergren 

 picked up the proffered gauntlet and set about fighting the State 

 as vigorously as he had done the Bell Company. He did not 

 even reduce his subscription of 5/. 1 1 s. id. to meet the State's 

 4/. 85-. \\d., simply notifying that all subscribers' lines would be 

 changed to metallic circuit without extra charge, and that the 

 subscription would henceforth cover communication with all 

 the company's subscribers within the yo-kilometer radius. The 

 results are curious. The State opposition began to be pushed 

 with energy in 1890, at the end of which year the General Com- 

 pany had 5,186 instruments connected. At the end of 1894, 

 after four years of active rivalry, the General Company had 8,336 

 instruments and the State 2,400 that is to say, a respective in- 

 crease of 3,150 and 2,000 since the end of 1890. Both systems 

 have consequently found a field, just as the starting and rapid 

 increase of the Mutual Telephone Company's exchange in Man- 

 chester took place without arresting the development of the 

 National Telephone Company's system in the same town. The 

 success of the General Company in its opposition is the more 

 surprising since its subscribers are placed at a disadvantage (see 

 Tariffs], as compared with those of the State, both in the use of 

 the trunks and in telephoning telegrams. The result tends to 

 confirm the often-expressed view that Government departments 

 cannot successfully compete with properly directed private enter- 

 prise, a view which has also received practical illustration outside 

 the precincts of Sweden. 



In all the chief provincial towns the State now owns the tele- 

 phone service, either by acquiring it from its original proprietors 

 or in virtue of its own initiative. In some towns, Gothenburg 

 for instance, there is opposition ; but this is growing more and 

 more feeble because the State declines (except in Stockholm) to 

 allow its competitors to use the trunk lines, participate in the 



