Morning journal and courier., 1883-07-25
THE GOVERNMENT TELEGRAPH.

THE GOVERNMENT TELEGRAPH. Q
 The question as to whether tho govern ment shall establish a system of telegraph lines throughout the country is pressing for ward upon public attention. The manifest weakness of the Western Union in the pres ent contest is rapidly producing profound impression upon the people. A gigantic monopoly is always looked upon as sort of public enemy because it means high prices and arbitrary regulations. But the public is fast finding out that monopoly contro olling one of the great interests of the country, vitally important to it's commerce, involves something more than a question of prices. When the monopoly becomes disabled its work stops and business suffers without remedy. Telegraphy is much too important to our commercial interests to be left subject to such vicissitudes as the present strike The people cannot afford to trust any corpora ton with such power that it can stagnate the business of the country whenever it chooses to quarrel with it's employees As the state of siege progresses the evils of such a monop- oly will become more and more apparent and the question of government telegraph will be pretty sure to press itself upon the attention of the next Congress.
 And why should we not have the govern ment telegraph It would not be necessary to condemn and pay for the franchise of the Western Union. The government could es- tablish competing lines of it's own. The competition would be a pretty safe one so far as the government would be concerned. The Western Union pays good dividends on enormously watered capital stock. To ena- ble the company to do this the people are made to pay much more than they ought to for the transmission of their dispatches. The government can duplicate the Western Union system of wires for, probably, third of the present capital of that company. It need charge for messages no more than the actual cost of their transmission. It may charge enough to produce 8 revenue and still fall far below the price of the Western Union. In short, the government telegraph will save the country the dividends. It is a scheme in which the profits are pocketed by the peo pie instead of corporation.
 The common objection to this is that the business would not be as economically done by public as by private enterprise. What business is more economically managed than the postal service? It can safely chal lenge comparison with the Western Union. and the employees of the postal service are not underpaid. Nobody has been known to strike from it. The situations always full and plenty of applicants waiting.
 In England the government telegraph has long been an established fact, and has been a financial success. For the same distance on which the Western Union in this country charges twenty-five cents for ten words, there the government asks shilling for twenty words. The British telegraph system is, if we mistake not, part of the postal ser vice. The reasons why the government should run the telegraph are substantially the same as those why it should carry the mails. The two enterprises are very closely allied. There can be no sound reason for public control of the slower means of communica- ton that does not apply equally we'll to the more rapid means of communication.