The fact that the House of Commons after 1880-81 took the reins out of the hands of the successive Governments of the day, in no way diminished Mr. Scudamore's responsibility for the appalling errors into which he fell when he forecast the financial outcome of the nationalization of the telegraphs. Mr. Leeman, of the Parliamentary Select Committee of 1868, expressly asked Mr. Scudamore: "You do not think there is any fear of the cost being increased by the salaries being much increased under the management of the Post Office?" Mr. Scudamore without hesitation replied in the negative, though he had just stated that in the Post Office and in all Government departments the pay of the lower grades of employees was somewhat higher than it was in commercial and industrial life.[67] Moreover, Mr. Scudamore, as one of the two chief executive officers of the Post Office, must have been aware that the Government was neither perfectly free to promote men according to their merit, and irrespective of length of service, nor free to discharge men who were comparatively inefficient and lax in the discharge of their duties. He must have known that those disabilities made it impossible for the Post Office to work as cheaply as private enterprise worked. As for the House of Commons forcing on the Government the 12 cent rate for messages of 12 words, that action was due largely to the expectations raised by Mr. Scudamore himself in 1868 and 1869, that the nationalization of the telegraphs would soon give the public a twelve cent rate. * * * * * [Sidenote: _Mr. W. S. Jevons' Disillusionment_] Mr. W. Stanley Jevons, the eminent statistician and economist, who, in 1866 to 1869, had warmly supported the proposal to nationalize the telegraphs, in 1875 pointed out that while the postal telegraph traffic had increased 81 per cent. in the period 1870 to 1874, the operating expenses had increased 110 per cent. He said: "The case is all the more hopeless, since the introduction of the wonderful invention of duplex telegraphy has doubled at a stroke, and with very little cost, the carrying power of many of the wires."[68] In 1870 each wire afforded one channel for communication; in 1895 it afforded two channels under the Duplex system, four channels under the Quadruplex system, and six channels under the Multiplex system. In 1870 the maximum speed per minute was 60 to 80 words. In 1895 the fixed standard of speed for certain circuits was 400 words, while a speed of 600 words was possible of attainment. The "repeaters" used for strengthening the current on long circuits also were greatly improved after 1870.[69] FOOTNOTES: [48] _Report by Mr. Scudamore on the Reorganization of the Telegraph System of the United Kingdom_, January, 1871. Number of telegraph offices before and after the transfer of the telegraphs to the State: