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alance-sheet without a considerable addition to the newspaper
tariff.
It has been quite recently stated that the Post CMEce
Department is disposed to adopt the suggestion of a sixpenny
rate for short messages. On the whole it might be desirable
to try the experiment, for the purpose of convincing the
public, OIICO for all, that high profits do not always attend
low prices. Nothing but a complete breakdown will make
people discriminate between the financial conditions of lettercarrying
ILII~
those of tc1t~gr:~plly. Yet it ought to be pretty
obviouv that :L considerttllu part of the cost of a telcgram mill
be ncarly tho same whcther the message be long or short.
The clerk’s time in receiving the mensage, the service instructions
sent by wire, the cost of stationery, the porter’s time in
delivering the message, and some other items, mill be much
the same in any case. If, then, tho public pay only sixpence
instead of one shilling for each ordinary message, it is exceedingly
unlikely that, tho difference mill be saved in the diminished
cost of transmitting twenty-five per cent. less words.
In tho letter branch of the Post Office t.he econonlical conditione
of tho work are entirely different. A large part of the
expenses of the dcpartmmt remains nearly unchanged while
the tr&o increases, and ouly a small part is actually proportional
to the number of letters carried. Thus a reduction of
charges in the Pout Office often leads to such an increase of
t,raffic that the net revenue, even at the lessened rate, is ultiruatcly
increased. But this happy result can only be achieved
in the absence of any serious increase of working expenses.
Nom, in the telegraph brnl~ch a powth of tra5cJ AS we have
seen, and as experience proves, leads to a great increase of
working expenses, and it fol1oK.s almost inevitably that any
reduction of the minimum charge for a message will cause a
further deficit in the telegraph accounts.
The financial failure of the Telegraph Department must be
deeply regretted, because it puts an almost insuperable obstacle
in the way of any further extension of gorernment industry
in the present generation. The proposal that the Government
should purchase the whole railways of t,he kingdom was,