The subscribers to the companies’ press bureau service also were allowed to send messages at one-half the rate charged to the general public; and in case the same newspaper message was sent to several newspapers in the same town, the charge for each address after the first one was 25 per cent. of the sum charged the first addressee. By coöperation, therefore, the newspapers in the larger towns were able to obtain considerable reductions from the initial charge, which, as already stated, was 50 per cent. of the tariff charged the general public.[99] Apparently, however, little use was made of these privileges. In 1868, for instance, the subscriptions to the press bureau aggregated $150,000, whereas the sums paid for messages to individual newspapers aggregated only $10,000.[100]
The Newspapers’ Grievance
The newspaper proprietors admitted that the charges for the press bureau service were entirely reasonable; but they desired to organize their own press bureaux on the ground that they were the better judges of what news the public wanted. Since the telegraph companies would not give up their press bureau, the newspaper proprietors joined in the agitation for the nationalization of the telegraphs.[101]
As soon as the Government began to negotiate with the telegraph companies for the purchase of their plants, the newspaper proprietors organized a committee to protect their interests and to represent them before the Select Committee to which had been referred the Electric Telegraphs Bill of 1868. That Bill had said that the tariff was to be uniform, irrespective of distance, and was not to exceed 24 cents for 20 words, address not to be counted. It had said nothing on the subject of the tariff to be charged to the newspaper press.
On May 15, 1868, Mr. Scudamore had written the Committee of the newspaper proprietors: “As a matter of course the Post Office would not undertake to collect news any more than it would undertake to write letters for the public, but the news being collected, it could, and I submit, ought, to transmit it at rates at least as low as those now charged, and which though they are unquestionably low, are still believed to yield the companies a considerable profit…. It seems to me, indeed, that the transmission of news to the press throughout the United Kingdom should be regarded as a matter of national importance and that the charge of such transmission should include no greater margin of profit than would suffice to make the service fairly self-supporting.”[102]
Thereupon the newspaper proprietors demanded: “That the maximum rate for the transmission of telegraphic messages [for newspapers] should not exceed that which is now paid by each individual proprietor [as a subscriber to the companies’ press bureau], which is, for transmission, exclusive of the cost of collection, 4 cents per 100 words.”[103] This demand assumed that the companies’ charge of 8 cents per 100 words was remunerative; that it was made up of two separable parts: a charge for transmission, and a charge for collecting and editing; and that the charge ascribed to transmission still would remain remunerative even after the charge ascribed to collecting and editing had been withdrawn. Upon none of these several points were the officers of the telegraph companies asked to testify, the statements of the newspaper proprietors being allowed to stand unsupported.
Mr. Scudamore yields to the newspapers
In order to insure the payment of an average sum of 4 cents or 5 cents per 100 words, the newspaper proprietors proposed that messages be transmitted for the newspapers “at rates not exceeding 24 cents for every 100 words transmitted at night, and at rates not exceeding 24 cents for every 75 words transmitted by day, to a single address, with an additional charge of 4 cents for every 100 words, or for every 75 words, as the case may be, of the same telegram so transmitted to every additional address.” By way of compromise, Mr. Scudamore proposed a charge of 24 cents for 75 words or 100 words for each separate town to which each message might be sent, and the limitation of the 4 cent copy rate to copies delivered by hand in the same town. Mr. Scudamore, however, withdrew that proposal, and accepted the proposition of the newspaper proprietors, which became the law. It is needless to add that the opposition of the newspaper press to the Bill of 1868 would have delayed the passage of that Bill even more than any opposition on the part of the telegraph companies and railway companies could have done. Indeed, it is probable, that the newspaper press could have defeated the Bill.
In 1875 the Treasury appointed a “Committee to investigate the Causes of the Increased Cost of the Telegraphic Service since the Acquisition of the Telegraphs by the State.” That committee consisted of three prominent officers taken from the Post Office Department and other departments of State. Upon the newspaper tariff fixed by the Act of 1868, the Committee reported: “The consequences of such a system must be obvious to every one. Even at ordinary times the wires are always largely occupied with press work, and at extraordinary times they are absolutely flooded with this most unremunerative traffic, which not only fills the wires unduly to the exclusion of better paying matter, but necessitates a much larger staff than would be necessary with a more reasonable system [of charges].[104] After very careful consideration of these points, Mr. Weaver [one of the members of the committee, and the former Secretary of the Electric and International Telegraph Company], has no hesitation in expressing his opinion that the principle of the stipulations of the tariff authorized by the Telegraph Act, 1868, both as regards messages transmitted for the public, and those forwarded for the press, is essentially unsound, and has been the main cause of the large percentage of expenditure as compared with the gross revenue. In order to provide for the prompt and efficient transmission of the vast amount of matter produced by such a system, a considerable extension of plant was necessary, involving a large original cost, besides a regular yearly outlay for maintenance and renewal, and not only so, but a large and constantly increasing staff had to be provided to work lines, which, if taken separately, would not be found to produce anything approaching to the cost entailed for erecting, working, and maintaining them. It will be obvious, therefore, that, unless a retrograde step be taken in order to amend the principles upon which the stipulations of the tariff are made up, it would be unreasonable to expect that the revenue derived for telegraph messages under the present system can ever be made to cover the expenses of working, the interest upon capital, and the ultimate extinction of the debt.”[105]