MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I have already stated four times that we intend to put it down as the First Order of the Day.

THE INSPECTION OF MINES.

MR. BURT (Morpeth): I beg to ask the Home Secretary whether his attention has been called to the refusal of a

colliery manager to allow the Inspectors appointed by the workmen under General Rule 38 of the Mines Regulation Act to examine the place where a fatal accident may have happened; and whether the workmen's Inspectors are not empowered by the Act to examine such places?

MR. MATTHEWS: I have received no official information of such an

instance as the hon. Member refers to. By the 38th rule of the Coal Mines Regulation Act it is provided that an examination by or on behalf of the workmen of every and any part of the mine shall be permitted, and it is compulsory upon the owner to afford every facility for this being done at least once a month. Whether such an examination has, or has not been made, I hope that in the event of anything serious the owner would place no obstacle in the way of such inspection by the workmen.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.

DR. CLARK (Caithness): Mr. Speaker, may I call attention to the second Order of the Day, "Military Lands Consolidation Bill. Adjourned Debate on Motion for committing the Bill to a Select Committee." That was proposed, I believe, after twelve o'clock. Am I to understand that this is an adjourned Debate, it being contentious Business after twelve o'clock ?

*MR. SPEAKER: After the Second Reading of the Bill, the Member in charge stated what further action was proposed to be taken in regard to it. There might not have been any objection, but, he having proposed that the Bill be referred to a Committee, and objection being taken, I at once said that in the circumstances the Bill must stand over, and so it becomes from the necessity of the case an adjourned Debate.

POSTAL TELEGRAPH DEPARTMENT.

DR. CAMERON (Glasgow, College): On the last occasion on which I called attention to a matter connected with the subject, an hon. Member came to me afterwards and asked what interest I had in the telegraph system. I may, therefore, at the outset explain that I individual in the Telephone Company have no earthly interest as a private whatever. My interest in the whole question of telegraphy and telephony arises from the fact that many years ago I was instrumental in getting this House to accept the Resolution which led to the adoption of sixpenny telegrams. The Post Office of this country acquired the telegraph system when the telephone had not been invented. In 1876, when a Committee sat to consider the question of postal telegraphs, the invention had attracted attention, but no mention was made of the telephone as a possible adjunct of the telegraph. In 1878 telephonic communication was being developed, and the system was so far perfected that the Post Office saw it was likely to grow into a serious competitor with the postal telegraphs, and accordingly in a Bill which was introduced in 1878-a Telegraph Bill the Government endeavoured to extend the monopoly of the telegraphs, which they had purchased, to the monopoly of telephonic communication, which they certainly had not purchased. And in the Telegraph Bill of 1878, as it came down from the House of Lords to this House, Clause 3 read as follows:

some

"The term telegraph in addition to the meaning assigned to it by that Act shall include any apparatus for transmitting messages or electricity, magnetism, or agency."

other communications with the aid of any other like

That was evidently intended to confer on the Post Office a monopoly of telephonic communication without

any proposal to compensate the inventor for his invention in this country. That appeared to me and some of my friends a dishonest proposal, and and we opposed the Bill on that ground until the Government consented to drop that clause. The Bill went through with that clause knocked out, but the Post Office saw the danger to their monopoly of the telegraphs which would arise from the development of the telephone, and they set to work and tried to obtain a monopoly in another fashion. Under another clause of the Telegraphs Acts they brought an action, and on the 21st December, 1880, Mr. Justice Stephen delivered judgment in their favour, declaring that the telephone was, for the purposes of the Telegraphs Acts, a telegraph. I do not blame the Post Office for their anxiety to secure a monopoly of telephonic communication. They had expended at this time a sum of £10,000,000 of public money in acquiring the telegraph system, the postal telegraphs were barely paying their working expenses, and it was certain if the competition of the telephone was brought to bear against the telegraph system the result would be a heavy loss to the Post Office. I do not find fault with them, therefore, for endeavouring to extend the monopoly as a protection against that loss. And I say if they had followed up the advantage they had gained in a more business-like manner, they would have been enabled to acquire, on very reasonable terms indeed, all the equitable rights of the inventor of the telephone; they would have been in a position to arrest any attempt to plunder them, as was done in the case of the telegraphs, and in the telephone in this country they would have acquired a most valuable addition to our telegraphic service, which they could have worked in a way such as no private company could have done. The Post Office had the telegraphs in its own hands, it had the highest technical skill in its own department, a monopoly of buildings and offices all over the country, and a network of telephonic communication could have been established with which no private company could ever hope to have competed in point of efficiency and cheapness. And the telephone in that way would have been Dr. Cameron

an admirable feeder of the telegraph service. The Government when they acquired the telegraph service did not, as I think they should have done, afford some equitable compensation to the inventors of the telephone. Instead of doing that, they proposed to attempt to set up some telephonic service for themselves. They did it, however, in a very feeble way, and they defended themselves rather by levying a very heavy tax, a crushing tax, upon such Telephone Companies as were in existence. They levied upon those Companies a tax of some ten per cent. upon their gross earnings. If their intention was to crush out this competition the invention was too valuable to be crushed out, and it improved and extended notwithstanding the heavy taxation. Byand-bye the public conscience began to feel touched. Mr. Fawcett, a gentleman with a very high sense of what was just and who was in intimate touch with public opinion in all matters connected with his Department, saw that the position of the Post Office was untenable, and proposed a new arrangement with the Telephone Companies. In some respects his arrangement did not go far enough; it might with advantage have further reduced the royalties proposed to be levied; but it also went too far, as it placed the trunk lines of the country at the disposal of the Telephone Companies, or promised to give them licences over the trunk lines for communication between the great towns. When the Post Office acquired the telegraphs, an argument put forward in favour of monopoly was perfectly sound. It was that if competing companies were allowed they would tap the large towns which were profitable and leave the smaller and unprofitable towns to the Post Office. The Postmaster General said that in those places where the trunk system has been most largely developed the postal revenue was suffering, and that to such an extent as to make it imperative to consider the question of taking back these trunk lines. By these lines London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Brighton, and other large towns are in communication, and all the large Scotch towns are similarly connected, while it is promised that, at an early date, all the

from the fact that in those districts where dissatisfaction has given rise to competition-as in Manchester-the rent has been reduced to £6 a year, instead of £10 or £12 a year as in other provincial towns. That proves that high charges and unsatisfactory service deter the public from using the telephone. The Manchester Company, which is a new one, put down the double wire system, and within three months of starting had 800 subscribers, the total number of subscribers in London being only five times as many. This incontestably proves that there is something beyond the royalty which is responsible for the strangulation of the telephone business in this country. The policy of the Post Office has utterly failed to bring about competition; it has led to monopoly and high charges; and has kept out improved instruments and an improved system of wires. If we had free competition new companies would come in and spend their capital to greater advantage, and the public would be better served. But between the practical monopoly which the Government has allowed the National Telephone Company to obtain and the inflated capitalisation of the Company, the old system, which was good enough at the commencement of telephonic enterprise in this country, is still considered good enough in London, and practically good enough for all the country except where competition has induced the Company to lower its rates. The result has been to cripple the system. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the other day that the City of Berlin, although it has not one fourth of the population of London, and although it has much greater postal facilities than London-for it has a tube post by which you can every five minutes send a card or a letter to any part of the town--and although Germany is a very much poorer country, vet in spite of these disadvantages Berlin has four times the number of telephone subscribers that London has. SIR J. FERGUSSON: What I said was that the proportion of telephones was four times greater than in London. I mean that while the number of telephone subscribers in London may be one per 1,000, in Berlin it is four per 1,000.

Dr. Cameron

DR. CAMERON However that may be, the telephone subscribers in Berlin number 17,000, and the fact remains that the Government work the telephones. In France the Government recently took over the telephones, and in 18 months from the time of taking over the number of subscribers in Paris was nearly doubled. Between September, 1889, and January, 1892, the number of subscribers had been increased by 3,475, and the annual income had been augmented by £40,000. This shows how powerful is the natural growth of telephonic communication when once restrictions have been removed and an efficient service provided. It has often been said that telephones are the luxury of the rich. They have been the luxury of the rich in this country in consequence of the high charges and the heavy imposts placed upon them by the Post Office. In Switzerland the Government charge 80 francs (64s.) a year as a fundamental tax for 800 messages, and over that number a charge is made of five centimes (d.) A similar tariff has been adopted in Norway and Sweden, and I maintain that when once the service is in the hands of the Post Office, and when there is a call box in every post office, there will be no reason why the telephone should not be as generally used as the telegraph, and it will be most useful to the poorer classes of the community who cannot compress their words to meet the necessities and charges of the telegraph. Of this I am certain—that if the Post Office will give the facilities which they propose to do in connection with the Post Office to Telephone Companies, and if the Telephone Companies, driven by public opinion and the force of competition, double their wires and improve their system, the Post Office will find that in urban districts also the telephone system will rise up as a formidable competitor to the Post Office telegraphs. The Post Office will, sooner or later, in self-protection, have to acquire the telephone system, and every year the sum they will have to pay for it increases. If they had acquired it in 1880 they might have secured it for a few hundred thousands: now the sum has grown to millions. But for the impression which the heavy cost of the