808 REPORT— 1895. 



may he from the switch-room, aie put on an equality as regards annual subscrip- 

 tion, the only difference being in the first payment made, which varies with the 

 length of line required, the object being to reimburse the owners of the exchange 

 system once for all for the additional cost of the extra mileage. In Austria the 

 annual subscription is the same for any distance up to 15 Inlometres (9^^ miles), 

 the difference being paid b)^ the subscriber on joining the exchange. In Luxem- 

 burg the same system prevails, provided a subscriber is located not more than 

 1| kilometres from an existing route. The annual subscription is only 31. 4*., 

 including all charges, and the right to communicate at will over the whole of the 

 Grand Duchy, which measures about 44 x SO miles. Compensation for increased 

 distance is made in the form of a first payment (which may, if desired, be spread 

 over five years) at the rate of 4:1. per kilometre of the" line which intervenes 

 between the free radius which surrounds every switch-room and the subscriber's 

 place. The effect of this tariff has been to cover the Grand Duchy with telephone 

 lines. At the end of 1894 there were 59 switch-rooms (all in communication 

 with each other by trunk lines) and 1,315 exchange hnes. Dorsetshire has exactly 

 the area (998 square miles) of Luxemburg, and practically the same population 

 (211,000), yet it contains only three exchanges— Weymouth, Dorchester, and Poole 

 — and about 70 subscribers. In Luxemburg there is an exchange telephone to every 

 160 inhabitants ; in Dorsetshire one to 2,779. And many counties are worse off 

 than Dorset. Such is the consequence of the different modes of management. 



It cannot be said that such rates as are applied in Luxemburg do not pay. 

 Accounts and balance-sheets have recently been published ■ which prove that even 

 lower charges are made remunerative by local companies and municipalities in 

 Holland, Denmark, and Norway. 



The islands of Jersey and Guernsey are instanced as localities in which tele- 

 phonic communication would be of great value could it be had on the Luxemburg 

 plan. At present they are entirely deprived of its benefits owing to the inadapt- 

 ability of the Britisli system of tariffs to their local requirements — that is, to the 

 needs of a scattered community. Particulars are furnished also of the Drammens 

 Upland Telephone Company, which supplies a large and thinly populated district 

 of Norway with an extensive telephonic exchange system at very low, but still 

 remxmerative, rates. As a contrast to the Channel Islands, the Aland Islands in 

 the Baltic, belonging to the Grand Duchy of Finland, wheie there is an exchange 

 telephone to every thirteen inhabitants, are mentioned. 



The technical features of the Continental systems are, as a rule, best where the 

 tariffs are lowest and the extension of communication greatest. The conditions 

 laid down by the author in his paper on ' The Telephoning of Great Cities,' 

 read at the Cardiff meeting of the Association in 1891, as being necessary to a 

 well-ordered exchange, are fulfilled more nearly in Sweden than elsewhere, 

 especially by the General Telephone Company of Stockholm. Metallic circuits 

 are universal; special attention is given to prompt switching, and Stockholm is 

 divided into eight nearly equal divisions, each containing a switch-room, whereby 

 the prompt and economical addition of new subscribers is rendered easy. The 

 speed attained in switching is tbat stated in the paper to be practicable and proper 

 in a_ good exchange, viz., 10 seconds when two switch-rooms are brought into 

 requisition, and 5 seconds when only one is required to complete a connecfion. The 

 countries of Groups II. and III. are, with some exceptions, technically behind 

 those of Group I. 



' The TeleplwTie Systems of the Continent of Euroix. By A. E. Bennett. London, 

 Longmans, Green & Co. 



