New-York tribune., 1873-01-18
4 SIZE THING NOT TO DO.

We are willing to admit that this is an age
of progress. Also, we expect to keep up with
it. Nevertheless we counsel little delay in
the matter of an expenditure of some sixty or
seventy million dollars. More especially, per-
haps, because this expenditure is but the first
step in new direction. When we have taken
that step-perhaps we should say plunge-we
shall be fairly launched on the sea of postal
teegraphy. But while yet we are on terra
frma, and our millions arc locked up in the
Treasury vaults, let us consider a few practi
cal points, Some of them are raised in the
admirable presentment of the case OF the PeO-
pie against the Postal Telegraph, made in other
columns by the Hon. David A. Wells. Others
are suggested in the meaty correspondence
between the President of the Western
Union Telegraph Company and the Hon.
Joseph Medill of Chicago. Nobody will
miss others, who reads the transcripts ofidis-
patches which show the incredible meddling
and bother and wanton confusion forced into
the busiest hours of that most delicate
and complicated of organizations, the working
telegraphic system of Continent, by the in
termittent but incontinent desire of some Sec
retary of War or other higher official to send
his compliments to Boston or San Francisco.
For five years The TRIBUNE has steadfastly
and uniformly opposed Postal Telegraphy.
Every year adds to the arguments against it.
The money for this little escapade which is
to make-somehOw or other, we do MT exactly
know how-cheap telegraphing for the million,
will have to come out of the general pocket.
These are not the days when "Uncle Sam is
L. 10 all faT
waste means personal want of the where
withal to pay taxes. Now who is it that uses the
telegraph About thirty second part of the
population. Can the farmers of the whole
country who send scarcely a message apiece
in year, afford to pay taxes to help the few
city people who may possibly be benelitedP
Is this the greatest good for the greatest
number7 Perhaps the whistle may be bought
for less than SG0,000,000; but the British Gov
ernment, tolerably shrewd at bargain, had
to pay more than three times her first estimate.
All argument is wasted upon anybody who
fancies that the United States could manage
telegraphs or anything else more cheaply than
private enterprise. Our Government work is
always inferior and more costly than tlat of
private citizens by from 25 to 50 Der cent.
True, Government could avoid its own duties
and taxes on wire and lumber and manufactur-
ing Operations but that means just so much
lost revenue The little saved at this spile
would be wasted at the larger bung- g-hole. In
Europe government telegraphy figures up
steady loss in expenditures of one-third more
than receipts. There it has been proved con-
clusively that increased business cannot render
low rates self-supporting. This fallacy-that
telegraphing is like letter-carriage, profitable
at low rates if only enough of it could be
done-is no more true than of the business of
the apple-woman who sold her fruit at less
than cost. They know something about these
matters, too. in Europe, where all expenses
are at least IL third less than with US, and one
mile of wire reaches as many people as ten
miles in this country.
Competition is the spur Of private enterprise.
In teiegraphing AZ in all ether business. where