Evening star., 1899-03-18
Our Cousins Are Having Trouble
Over Their Telephones.
FRANCE and ENGLAND IN MUSCAf
Some Little Known Facts About
Rudyard kipling's Family.
PORTRAITS OF WILLIAM II
Special Correspondence of The Evening Star.

tfduc anu commerce Oh tnlS COuIlTy Was
taken by this government in the house of
commons yesterday. The postmaster gen
eral asked for the issue of f2.OO0,OO0 out
of the consolidated fund for the purpose
of improving telephone communication
throughout the country Local authorities
are also to be empowered to erect and work
telephone exchanges. o..
These measures are intended to prevent
the continuance of the monopoly at present
enjoyed by the National Telephone Com
pany. There can be no doubt that this ac-
ton of the government will be hailed with
joy in all parts of the kingdom. In London
of late the curses heaped upon the devoted
head of the National Telephone Company
have been both loud and deep Ideally con-
sidered, the telephone is an exceedingly use
full instrument, which lends itself equally
20 putting off a dinner and catching thief.
Unfortunately, in telephones, as in human
life, there is a great difference between the
ideal and the actual. Its inventor. we
know, was a harmless and useful citizen,
and no doubt the directors and sharehod-
ers of the National Telephone Company
have as keen a regard for the moral law
as the rest of us; but that does not alter
the fact that the telephone. at present
constituted, is too often what the French
would call an agent provocateur of pro-
family. When you have turned the handle
and shouted Are you there?" for about
the twentieth time and have evoked no re-
ply confused humming as of a hive
of bees about to swarm the temptation to
say things hardly fit for polite society is in
exact ratio to the urgency of your business
Everybody who has ever used telephone
can sympathize with the evaporation, even
if everybody cannot condone the language
in which 1t is expressed.
A Nuisance in London
And nowhere have 1 ever experienced
such exasperating delays or stoppages as
in T.OD6on In tha
abused, but it is magnificent compared to
what Londoners have to suffer On the
continent generally it is not quite so bad |
and in Sweden, Norway and Germany the |
telephone system is both cheap and efficient |
In London we pay f20 a year for one con-
nection and then are turned over to the |
tender mercies of girl operators who have |
too much of their own business on to at |
tend to the wants of the subscribers. The |
system is bad also, and. being monopoly. |
the company treats complaints in noncha- |
liant manner. The contention OF the Ma |
tional Telephone Company has always been |
that 1t not only has the right of going |
where il likes, but of refraining from going
anywhere If 1t sees its own advantage in |
refraining. And this intention has always |
been acted on, whether the intending sub |
scriber liked it or not The existing serv- |
ice is notoriouSiy Inadequate to the public |
needs, and If proper care be taken to do no |
injustice to the shareholders of the existing |
concern it could have no better supplement-
dry dlu lndn tNdt which Is 1Or the moment |
offered by the state.
Similar Conditions.
The present position of the National Tele-
phone Company is an almost precise paral- |
lei to that of the telegraph companies a
quarter of century ago. and the questions
of rivalry. compensation and purchase are
exactly such as had then to be considered.
In the light of later events 1t seems easy
now to say that any official with half an |
eye ought to have been able to see from the |
first that telegraphy had a great future
before it. Officialism in the great thirties |
and early forties (when Wheatstone and
Cooke first made telegraphy possible for |
popular use and later, when Morse and AL |
fred Vail improved Its methods almost out |
of knowledge) was blind. The telegraphs |
were in the hands OF private companies who
greatly abused their powers because the
scheme, being quite new, had not been |
hedged about by parliament sufficiently for
the protection of the public.
1t was not until 1870, a cost of very
nearly eleven millions sterling that the
state acquired the property of the compet-
ing companies and began to build UP order
out of chaos. Twenty-four years it took
to teach officialism that it was worth the
while of the post office to take the tele-
graph wire under its own control Now
twenty-three years and week or two have
elapsed since Graham Bells telephone
patent was entered and the same thing is
happening with regard to the telephones.
There is no objection to state control If
run well. On the whole, the post Office has
done we'll with the telegraphs. Prices
have been reduced and efficiency generally
is to be found, though sometimes exasper-
ating delays occur and things go wrong
If the state will manage the telephone it will
certainly give better satisfaction than the
private company now operating it does and
the public will be benefited. 1t is not in
the least surprising that the government
has decided that the post Office shall enter
into competition with the National |TeIs-
nhDnh COmnanV The noSitiOn q that
pany is anomalous. 1t was never intended
that it should enjoy a monopoly: yet it
practically enjoys one as the result of hav-
ing bought UP all its rivals. At the same
time it has none of those responsibilities
which usually accompany monopolies. 1t
is not bound to provide a service in every
up a telephone in the house of everybody
who asks for it. The result is that 1t de-
ve!ops the paying centers of population and
leaves the rest of the country lily served.
definitely, and it is for these reasons that
every one halls the present proposals of the
government with delight. 4
Trouble Over Muscat.
Last week the British press was trium-
phantly rejoicing over the brilliancy with
which Lord Curzon had managed the Mus
cat affair and the victory over France. On
Monday of this week the French press had
its turn and came out in large headlines
ABOUT apOiOSy the preclptdle
action of the British viceroy. Now the |
British press is busily engaged in explain
ing that Lord Salisbury has not censured |
Lord Curzon nor has the government made |
any apology. 1t has and it has not. The |
matter Is a curious one. France sought |
for more than she had right to perhaps
under the treaty, and got less, but practi- |
cally what she wanted. Great Britain kept
her from getting more, but allowed her the
coaling station. So both are satisfied. The |
true history of the affair is sufficiently
simple.
The Imaum of Muscat- commonly called
the sultan" rules over prosperous little
community Of some twenty thousand souls,
and his people drive an export trade of a
little over a million sterling per annum,
for their fortunate geographical position
makes them the natural owners of a rather
extensive commerce with the west coast Of
Africa, with Persia, Indian and the Red
sea. The little monarch rules his little
handful of subjects in little Independent
realm at the eastern butt-end of Arabia,
with an outlook on the Indian ocean. In
the year 1852 Great Britain and France en-
tered into an arrangement to respect the
independence of the Imaum: Later on. Eng
land established a coaling station on the
coast of Muscat by an arrangement which
f..-~ hAI