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ON GO YERXMENT CONTROL OF TELEGRAPHS, ETC. a79
tion Office; we axe here presented with a body of ssoretariee
and postmasters alive to every breath of public opinion or
private complaint ; officials laboriously correcting the blunders
and returning the property of careless letter-writers; and
clerks, sorters, and postmen working to their utmost tbt the
public may be served expeditiously. No one ever chargee the
Post Office with lavish expenditure and inefficient performance
of duties.
It seems then that the extremes of efficiency and inetficiency
meet in the public service, and before w0 undertake
any new branch of State industry, it becomes very important
to ascertain whether it is of a kind likely to fall into the
efficient or inefficient class of undertakiugs. Before we give
our adhesion to systems of State telegraphs and State railways
in this kingdom, we should closely inquire whether telegraphe
aud railways have more analogy to the Post Office or to the
dockyards. This argument from analogy is freeIy used by
everyone. It is the argument of the so-called &formers,
mho urgo that if mo treat tho telegraphs and the railwoye 88
Sir Rowland Hill treated the Post Office, reducing fares to a
low and uniform rate, we shall reap the Bame gratifying resulto.
But. t,his will depend upon whether the analogy is correctwhether
the telegraphs and railways resemble the Post Oflice
in thoso conditions which render the latter highly successful
in the hands of Government, and enable a low uniform rate to
be adopted. To this point the following remarks are directed.
It seems to me that State management possesses advantages
under the following conditions :
1. Where numberless wide-spread operations can only be
efficiently connected, united, and co-ordinahd, in a eingle, all
extensive Government system.
2. Where the opemtions posses8 an invariable routine-like
character.
3. Where they are performed under the public eye or for
the service of individuals, who will immeditthly dew and
expose any failure or laxity.
4. Where there ie but little capital expenditure, so thet
each year's revenue and expense account shall represent,