Facsimile PDF - Online Library of Liberty

302 METHODS OF SOCr-4L REFORLK
Bmnch was under-estimated, year after yenr, to the extent of
one half, it would require o grant deal to convince me that the
department is even paying its expenses, not to speak of contingent
charges in the way of pensions, the railway claims,
extraordinary damage from snowstorms, and the ultimate
redemption of capital. Mr. Scudamore formerly thonght it,
dosirable and probabIe, that the telegraph revenue would
repay tho capital cost in a term of ycars (Report, p. 148). My
own imprcwion is that, if we could have a real commercial
audit o f tho accounts of the dcprtrnmt, tllc present loss would
bc fnu~ltl to 1~ mnrc nc~arly I d f n million than ,a quarter of R
millioll annually, inclu~litlg tho interest on capital.
Somo pc~~plc., I fccl snrc, will urgc the Govornmcnt to reduco
the tariff yet, furthcr. ‘I Not pay at a shilling ? ” they
will my ; ‘‘ then charge sixpcncc, and there mill soon Le traffic
enough to pny.” I quite ngrce that,, at half tho present charge,
wo should havc n vast increase of messages ; and I think it
likely that thc dcpnt-tulcnt wc)uld have to provide for fifty
d nil lions of messages a year instead of twenty millions. But if
we could at all judge of tho futuro progress of the working
expenses by thrir past, progress, the financial result of a sispcnny
rnto mould be to givo us n deficiency of a million and a
quarter, instead of n quarter of n million. In all probability
tho deficiency mould be not less than a million pounds
annually.
According to the cxperience of the Electric and Internat,ionnl
Company, inclced, a double busiuess (increased by
105 per cent.) mas transacted, wit,h an addition to the working
expenses of only 38 per cent., and Mr. Scudamore assumed
that the same would be the case in the Government service.
(‘ As R matter of coarse,J’ he said (Q. 1888), (‘ the a.verage cost
of n xncssnge decreases mit,h the increasing number.” This,
unfortunntely, has not proved truc with Government officials,
for an increase of traffic of 81 per cent., between 1871 and
1871, involved an ndvance in the current working expenses,
apart from the expenditure of cnpitnl, of 110 per cent. Under
such circumstances, the department might, as reasonably expect
fo retrieve t,heir position by lomcring t,he charges, as a trades-