Before the telegraphs had been acquired by the State, the telegraph companies maintained a press bureau which supplied the newspapers with reports of the debates in Parliament, foreign news, general news, a certain amount of London financial and commercial intelligence, and the more important sporting news. While Parliament was in session, the messages in question averaged about 6,000 words a day; during the remainder of the year they averaged about 4,000 words daily. The annual subscription charges for the aforesaid services ranged from $750 to $1,250. Before the Select Committee of 1868, the representatives of the newspapers asserted that those subscription charges yielded the telegraph companies, on an average, 8 cents per 100 words. They further asserted that the telegraph companies ascribed 62.5 per cent. of the cost of the press bureau to the transmission of the news; and 37.5 per cent. to the collecting and editing of the news.[98] But neither the representatives of the press, nor the Select Committee itself, called any representatives of the telegraph companies to testify upon these latter points. 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] [Sidenote: _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.