It is curious to observe that the reasons assigned for the advantages to be gained by governmental control are precisely the same which led to the consolidation under one management of the great mass of the American lines, and which has led to the unjust charge of monopoly as the work of unification has progressed. Mr. Scudamore says: “When I began to collect the information on which this report is based, I was not free from doubts as to the propriety of the scheme; but, after patiently collecting and considering all the data which I could obtain, I found myself driven, by the mere force of facts, to the conclusion at which I have arrived. This conclusion, indeed, is almost identical with that to which the directors of the Electric and International Telegraph Company came in the year 1852, and which they thus stated to their stockholders:— “The delays, inaccuracies, and expense of the continental telegraphs are an exemplification of the great advantage to the public of the administration _being under a single management_. _This circumstance alone admits of the establishment of a low and uniform tariff...._ The telegraph has already become a most powerful and useful agent, and has, in a measure, been adopted as a means of communication by persons employed in commercial pursuits, but, owing to the want of proper arrangement and facilities, and the fact of the management of the lines being divided _by several companies_, without unison in action or interest, the public generally have been debarred from benefiting by the immense accommodation and advantages the telegraph is capable of affording.” In presenting the same idea, Mr. Washburne, with a looseness of statement for which we know of no proper justification, remarks as follows:— “There can be no doubt that the superiority of the continental system over every other is due to the fact that the telegraph there is a government institution, while in this country it is left to private enterprise. Individual and associated effort have done much, but, with the confusion of our telegraphic system before us, it would be folly to shut our eyes to the inherent weakness of all joint-stock enterprises. Absence of responsibility, waste of labor, irresolute councils, expensive management, want of effective control over subordinates, are among the evils of such associations, to say nothing of the imperative demands of stockholders that dividends shall be made and that none shall be hazarded. Under government control one governing body would do the work now done by twenty, and the obligation to realize profits would not interfere to prevent the reduction of rates or the proper extension of the system.”