In 1896, the main routes from London having become crowded, especially by the telephone trunk lines, the principle of underground lines between the most important centres was sanctioned by the department. London and Birmingham were first connected, and the line was ultimately extended through Stafford to Warrington, where it joined existing underground wires between Manchester, Liverpool, and Chester. By 1905, underground wires were laid as far north as Glasgow through Carlisle, to be extended later to Edinburgh. At Manchester a junction was effected with a line passing through Bradford to Leeds. During the same year underground lines were completed from London to Chatham and from London westward toward Bristol, with the intention of extending it into Cornwall in order to secure communication with the Atlantic and Mediterranean cables.[814]
In 1875, England joined the other important European powers in a telegraphic agreement which went into effect in January of the following year. By this agreement each of the contracting parties agreed to devote special wires to international service, government telegrams to have precedence in transmission and to be forwarded in code if desired. Private telegrams could also be sent in code between those countries which allowed them, and the signatory powers agreed to pass them in transit, but each country reserved to itself the privilege of stopping any private telegram. For the purpose of making charges, any country might be divided into not more than two zones, and each of the signatory powers owed to the others an account of charges collected.[815] So far as foreign telegrams were concerned, the use of manufactured expressions in place of real words gave rise to considerable trouble in view of the fact that such combinations were difficult to transmit. In 1879, the languages which might be used for code words were reduced by common consent to English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and Latin. At the same time the use of proper names as code words was prohibited. This did not remove the evil, as the roots of words in one language with terminations in another were used. An official vocabulary was compiled by the International Telegraph Bureau, to become obligatory in 1898, but its publication in 1894 aroused considerable opposition, as many of the words were dangerously alike, and in 1896 the decision of the Paris Conference of 1890, by which the official vocabulary was to become compulsory for European telegrams in 1898, was rescinded. It was also decided that an enlarged vocabulary should be published by the International Bureau, but, owing to the action of the English delegates, the official vocabulary was not made compulsory at the meeting of the International Telegraph Conference in 1903, although artificial words were allowed if pronounceable in accordance with the usages of any one of the eight languages from which the ordinary code words might be selected. It was also decided to admit letter cipher at the rate of five letters to a word, and several countries agreed to lower their charges for the transmission of extra-European telegrams, the English delegates contending that the rates for such telegrams should be made the same as the rates for European telegrams.[816] In 1878, negotiations with the German and Netherland Telegraph Administrations resulted in a charge of 4d. a word being fixed as the rate between the United Kingdom and Germany and 3d. a word between the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.
In 1885, the following reductions in rates were announced:—
To Russia from 9d. to 6½d. a word.
Spain 6d. 4½d.
Italy 5d. 4½d.
India 4s. 7d. 4s.
to be followed six years later by still greater reductions:—
To Austria from 4½d. to 3d. a word.
Hungary 4½d. 3d.
Italy 4½d. 3d.
Russia 6½d. 5½d.
Portugal 5½d. 4½d.
Sweden 5d. 4d.
Spain 4½d. 4d.
Canary Isles 1s. 7½d. 10d.
the minimum charge for a telegram being 10d. in all cases. The transmission of foreign money orders by telegraph was inaugurated in 1898 by the opening of an exchange with Germany and its extension shortly afterward to the other important European countries.[817]
In 1892, an attempt was made, curiously suggestive of Marconi's discovery, to transmit telegraph messages without a direct wire. The experiment was conducted between the island of Flat Holm in the Bristol Channel and the mainland, a distance of three miles. A wire was erected on the mainland parallel with one on the island, and, by means of strong vibratory currents sent through the former, signals were transmitted and messages exchanged. Three years later and before the practical value of the Flat Holm experiment had been substantiated, Mr. Marconi arrived in England to submit his plans to the Post Office. A private wire from Poldhu to Falmouth was provided for him on the usual rental terms, and it was announced that the Post Office would act as his agent for collecting messages to be transmitted by wireless telegraphy when he had proved the feasibility of his project. At the international congress on wireless telegraphy held in Berlin in 1903 it was recommended that shore stations equipped with wireless apparatus should be bound to exchange messages with ships at sea without regard to the system of wireless telegraphy employed by the latter, that the rate of charge for the shore station should be subject to the approval of the state where it was situated, the rate of the ship to the approval of the state whose flag it carried, and that the working of wireless stations should be regulated so as to interfere with other stations as little as possible. In order to enable the Government to carry out the decision of the congress and to place wireless telegraphy under its control for strategic purposes, an act was passed in 1904 making it illegal to instal or work wireless telegraphic apparatus in the United Kingdom or on board a British ship in territorial waters without the licence of the Postmaster-General. The act was to be operative for two years only, but before its expiration, was extended until the 31st of December, 1909, before which it might again be renewed. Arrangements were also made for the collection and delivery of the telegrams of the Marconi Company by the post offices throughout the country. The company charges its usual rate, 6d.. a word, and the Post Office in addition charges the ordinary inland rate.[818] The international agreement providing for compulsory communication between shore stations and ships was signed in 1906 in spite of the protests of the Marconi Company, Sir Edward Sassoon, and others, who contended that the agreement was unfair to the company and a mistake on the part of the Kingdom, "which was thus giving up advantages obtained by the possession of the best system of wireless telegraphy in the world." The majority of the countries represented were also in favour of compulsory communication between ship and ship, but this was successfully negatived by Great Britain and Japan. In 1908, Mr. Buxton was able to announce in the House that the relations between the Post Office and the Marconi Company "are now of the most friendly kind," and that they have accepted and adopted the principle of intercommunication. In the preceding year two experimental stations were started by the Government which will enable the department to extend its operations quite independently of the companies.[819]
From a financial point of view, government ownership and control of the telegraphs in the United Kingdom has not been a success. In addition, the Telegraph Department, for some time previous to 1874, had been drawing upon the balance in the possession of the Post Office, a balance which was required to be invested for other purposes and whose expenditure for the use of the telegraphs had not been authorized by Parliament. Mr. Goldsmid, in introducing a motion for the appointment of a committee of enquiry, alluded to this error on the part of the department, to the excessive price paid for the telegraphs, and complained that the telegraph system was not being operated on a paying basis. His motion was withdrawn, but an agreement was reached with the department by the appointment of a committee, with Mr. Playfair as chairman, "to inquire into the organization and financial system of the Telegraph Department of the Post Office." The committee in their report commented unfavourably upon the unnecessarily large force, the cumbrous organization, and the far from economical management of some of the divisions of the department, advised that an attempt be made to remedy these faults, and that press messages be charged a minimum rate of 1s. each, and not at the rate of 1s. for each seventy-five or one hundred words obtained by adding together separate messages requiring separate transmission. This suggestion with reference to press messages was adopted, promises were made at the same time to diminish the force, and a scheme was submitted for the reorganization of the department.[820]