The company complained as to the attitude of the British Government in retarding instead of encouraging the enterprise. When the subject was brought up in the House of Commons on June 8, 1903, Mr. Chamberlain, the then Postmaster-General, explained that he had no desire to hamper a new invention, but the Post-Office did not intend to throw away its right to the monopoly in public communication as it had done in the early days of the telephone.
He had not been dealing with Mr. Marconi, but with the company owning Marconi’s invention. The company asked for a permanent exclusive right to use wireless telegraphy in Great Britain.
This was refused, on the ground that it was not business. When the company was prepared to talk business, he was prepared to deal with it. When the company asked for a private wire to Poldhu he (Mr. Chamberlain) had granted the request immediately.
At the time President Roosevelt sent his wireless message to King Edward, and the latter replied by cable, the Post-Office had arranged to convey the message from the nearest office to Poldhu at any hour, although there was no difference whatever in telegraphing from London to Poldhu.
The company next asked the Post-Office to act as its agent in collecting messages in Great Britain for transatlantic marconigraphing, but he had submitted certain conditions with the view of preventing interference with the admiralty and for strategic reasons, adding that when the conditions were accepted and the company satisfied the Post-Office experts of its ability to send messages across the Atlantic, the Post-Office would appoint the company as its agent, as it already had done in the case of the cable companies.
That letter had been sent to the company on March 31, but no reply had been received.
Mr. Chamberlain contended that the Post-Office was in no way to be blamed for the delay, but it refused to take the public money for messages until the company was willing to allow the Post-Office experts to go to Poldhu and satisfy themselves that the wireless system is workable. All this shows the company was not at that time in a position to transact public business, otherwise the Post-Office experts would have had access to its station at Poldhu. The subsequent failure showed the contention of the Post-Office was correct.
In the early part of 1903 a transatlantic communication was established for a short time and then collapsed; the system not having been fully perfected, the company should hesitate to again make the attempt until its plans are fully matured. As to the future of the system there is not the shadow of a doubt of its ultimate success. Meanwhile the Marconi Company has arranged with the British Government Telegraph System and also with the leading Telegraph companies in the United States and Canada to interchange traffic. Now nearly all passenger steamers crossing the Atlantic are equipped with the Marconi apparatus and are in a position while at sea to send and receive messages to and from all parts of the world, and the company are doing a profitable business even now with its limited area of operations; what must it be when they shall have established communication over every sea and continent in the world. This will be accomplished in no very long lapse of time. The medium of communication provided by nature is ready and waiting like a willing steed to be harnessed for the uses of man.
The man singled out by providence to perform this superhuman task is Signor Guiglielmo Marconi.