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to all the Vestries and District Boards of the Metropolis,
with an invitation to them to pass similar resolutions
and to act in accordance therewith. The Government
announced their intention to establish a telephone service
in the London area in competition with the
National Telephone Company's system, and introduced
into Parliament the Telegraphs (Telephonic Communication,
&c.) Bill with that object, and to authorise the
larger Local Authorities in the country to establish
telephone systems. The Board being of opinion that it
is necessary for the successful working of the service
that it should be undertaken by the Government for
the whole country presented a memorial to the
First Lord of the Treasury, which, after setting out
the proceedings of the Select Committee and quoting
the above-mentioned resolutions, submitted the following
objections to the proposal, viz.:—
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6.—It appears to your Memorialists that the proposed mode of
dealing with the extra Metropolitan Districts would lead to a most
unsatisfactory state of things. The proposal is to confer powers upon
any of the larger Local Authorities who may apply for a licence to
establish services of their own, with liberty to make arrangements with
outlying Local Authorities for including the same in their own areas.
Your Memorialists submit that even if the Local Authorities generally
were to take the matter in hand there would be at best several disjointed
services, which could not possibly form a good national service,
or be conducted on any reliable system, and that there is no means of
securing that these services shall be undertaken in a manner' that will
confer the greatest amount of public benefit; whereas if one system for
the whole country were planned and carried out methodically and with
a view to the public interest it could be constructed as a connected
whole, in a most economical manner, and would render the maximum
amount of service. Your Memorialists agree with the Select Committee
that a Telephone Service cannot, like a service for the supply of gas,
water, or electric light, be treated as a purely local or isolated industry,
but that it forms part of "a national system the general efficiency of
which largely depends upon its uniformity and the equal facilities
afforded for communication everywhere."
7.—It was stated on behalf of Her Majesty's Government in the