Mr. Scudamore reported that the Chambers of Commerce, and the various writers in the periodical and newspaper press who had supported the proposal of State purchase, had concurred in the following general propositions: "that the charges made by the telegraph companies were too high, and tended to check the growth of telegraphic correspondence; that there were frequent delays of messages; that many important districts were unprovided with telegraphic facilities; that in many places the telegraph office was inconveniently remote from the centre of business, and was open for too small a portion of the day; that little or no improvement could be expected so long as the working of the telegraphs was conducted by commercial companies striving chiefly to earn a dividend and engaged in wasteful competition with each other; and, finally, that the growth of telegraphic correspondence had been greatly stimulated in Belgium and Switzerland by the annexation of the telegraphs to the Post Offices of those countries, and the consequent adoption of a low scale of charges; and that in Great Britain like results would follow the adoption of like means, and that from the annexation of the British telegraphs to the British Post Office there would accrue great advantage to the public, and ultimately a large revenue to the State." Subsequently, before the Select Committees of Parliament, Mr. Scudamore maintained that in the hands of the State the telegraphs would pay from the start. Mr. Scudamore continued his report with the statement that he had satisfied himself that in Great Britain the telegraph was not in such general use as upon the Continent; that "the class who used the telegraphs most freely were stock brokers, mining agents, ship brokers, Colonial brokers, racing and betting men, fruit merchants and others engaged in business of a speculative character, or who deal in articles of a perishable nature. Even general merchants used the telegraphs comparatively little, compared with those engaged in the more speculative branches of commerce." He added that from 1862 to 1868 the annual increase in the number of telegraphic messages had ranged pretty evenly from 25 per cent. to 30 per cent., indicating merely a gradual increase in the telegraphic correspondence of those classes who had been the first to use the telegraphs. He said there had been none of those "sudden and prodigious jumps" that had occurred on the Continent after each reduction in the charges for telegraphic messages, or after each extension of the telegraph system to the smaller towns.