the collection and delivery of the telegrams of the Marconi Company by the post offices throughout the country. The company charges its usual rate, 6_d._. 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] [818] _Rep. P. G._, 1893, pp. 19-22; 1903, pp. 15-18; 1905, pp. 16-18; 4 Edw. VII, c. 24; 6 Edw. VII, c. 13. [819] _Parl. Deb._, 4th ser., clxxix, coll. 841-858; cxcii, col. 1116, London _Times_, 1906, Nov. 5, p. 5; 1907, July 1, p. 14. 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 His motion was withdrawn, but an agreement was reached with the department by the appointment of a committee, with Mr.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 1_s._ each, and not at the rate of 1_s._ 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