Very recently the British Government has taken measures to protect its telegraphs and its long distance telephone service from competition from wireless telegraphy. It has refused an application for a license made by a company that proposed to establish a wireless telegraphy service between certain English cities. The refusal was made “on the ground that the installations are designed for the purpose of establishing exchanges which would be in contravention of the Postmaster General’s ordinary telegraphic monopoly.” In order to protect its property in the submarine cables to France, Belgium, Holland and Germany, the Government has inserted in the “model wireless telegraphy license” a prohibition of the sending or receiving of international telegrams, “either directly or by means of any intermediate station or stations, whether on shore or on a ship at sea.” In short, the commercial use of wireless telegraphy apparatus the Government has limited to communication with vessels.

In one respect the nationalization of the telegraphs has fulfilled the promises made by the advocates of nationalization. It has increased enormously the use of the telegraphs. But when the eminent economist, Mr. W. S. Jevons, came to consider what the popularization of the telegraphs had cost the taxpayers, he could not refrain from adding that a large part of the increased use made of the telegraphs was of such a nature that the State could have no motive for encouraging it. “Men have been known to telegraph for a pocket handkerchief,” was his closing comment. Mr. Jevons had been an ardent advocate of nationalization. Had he lived to witness the corruption of politics produced by the public ownership of the telegraphs, his disillusionment would have been even more complete.

From whatever viewpoint one examines the outcome of the nationalization of the telegraphs, one finds invariably that experience proves the unsoundness of the doctrine that the extension of the functions of the State to the inclusion of the conduct of business ventures will purify politics and make the citizen take a more intelligent as well as a more active part in public affairs. Class bribery has been the outcome, wherever the State as the owner of the telegraphs has come in conflict with the pocket-book interest of the citizen. One reason has been that the citizen has not learned to act on the principle of subordinating his personal interest to the interest of the community as a whole. Another reason has been that the community as a whole has not learned to take the pains to ascertain its interests, and to protect them against the illegitimate demands made by classes or sections of the community. There is no body of intelligent and disinterested public opinion to which can appeal for support the Member of Parliament who is pressed to violate the public interest, but wishes to resist the pressure. The policy of State intervention and State ownership does not create automatically that eternal vigilance which is the price not only of liberty but also of good government. One may go further, and say that the verdict of British experience is that it is more difficult to safeguard and promote the public interest under the policy of State intervention than under the policy of laissez-faire. Under the degree of political intelligence and public and private virtue that have existed in Great Britain since 1868, no public service company could have violated the permanent interests of the people in the way in which the National Government and the Municipalities have violated them since they have become the respective owners of the telegraphs and the municipal public service industries. No public service company could have blocked the progress of a rival in the way in which the Government has blocked the progress of the telephone. No combination of capital could have exercised such control over Parliament and Government as the Association of Municipal Corporations has exercised. Finally, no combination of capital could have violated the public interest in such manner as the civil service unions have done.

INDEX

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