Men point to the loss to the Post Office in working the telegraphs. “Is this not a proof of the inefficiency of the permanent official?” But certain things should be remembered before making such accusations. What are the chief causes of the loss? Parliament insisted upon sixpenny telegrams, and they are certainly not remunerative; no private company would touch them at that price, except perhaps to certain towns and districts where the business would pay its way. The Post Office telegraphs everywhere at that price. Parliament also insisted upon cheap Press telegrams, which are a loss to the Post Office, though a great gain to the public. And as a contributory cause to the loss must be mentioned the telephone itself, which has to a certain extent destroyed the most remunerative portion of telegraph work, the transmission of short messages. Nearly every village has its telegraph. Numbers of offices are kept open all night. The railway companies have an immense free service over the whole Post Office system. But the man whose telephone service has for the moment gone wrong forgets all this, and in his indignation he attacks the whole system. The United States is practically the only country of any importance in which the telephone system is not owned and worked by the State. The General Manager of the Post Office Telephone Service, who paid an official visit to the United States in 1910, in answer to an inquiry as to whether the service in New York is as good as it is usually represented to be, stated frankly that “the service given in New York City, where the telephone problems are similar to those that confront us in London, is unquestionably superior to ours. But,” he added, “I believe that we are rapidly catching up, and I feel sure that at no distant date it will be commonly acknowledged that the service in London is equivalent to that of New York.” As regards the trunk lines and long-distance business in the United States, there are often complaints of high charges and other inconveniences, but the telephone service is developed there much more extensively than in Great Britain. The Americans suffer more than we do from cyclones and storms and interruptions to their telephone system. Everything is on a magnificent scale, even the weather. My readers may remember the story of the Scot who was explaining to an American what severe winters they experienced in his native country. “Why, it is nothing at all to the cold we have in the States,” said the American. “I recollect one winter when a sheep jumping from a hillock to a field; became suddenly frozen on the way, and stuck in the air like a mass of ice.” “But,” said the solemn Scot, whose first consideration is always love of the naked fact, “the law of gravity would not allow that.” “I know that,” was the ready answer, “but the law of gravity was frozen too.” No wonder, with such possibilities, the American long-distance telephone service occasionally breaks down.