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''1. That, in the opinion of this Conference, the present
telephone service of the London area, as supplied by the
National Telephone Company, is both inefficient and
inadequate; that the charges, as compared to those made
by the same Company in the provinces, are much too high,
and that disadvantages to London are largely due to the
abandonment by the Post Office of that principle of competition
which was expressly adopted prior to 1892 for the
protection of telephone users.
"2. That this Conference views with alarm the action
of the Post Office in using, for the benefit of the National
Telephone Company, its special powers as to the breaking
up of streets, as instanced in the recent case of the Commissioners
of Sewers and the Post Office ; and urges the
Select Committee on Telephones, which is now sitting at
the House of Commons, to preserve intact that control
over the streets which has hitherto been vested in the
municipal authorities.
"3. That, in the opinion of this Conference, the
telephone service is of such general public importance, and
calculated to become of such general benefit, that it ought
no longer to remain exclusively in the hands of a trading
corporation, but be worked by the Government as a part
of the postal service of the country.
''4. That, in the event of the Post Office not undertaking
a telepone service, it is desirable that the local and
central authorities of the London telephone district should
at once combine to secure au efficient and cheap municipal
telephone service.
"5. That the Chairman of the Highways Committee of
the London County Council be requested to place the
views of the Conference, as indicated in the foregoing
resolutions, before the Select Committee of the House of
Commons."
Resolutions were also passed at the same Conference with
reference to generating stations for the supply of electricity in
bulk and electric lighting
LAND VALUES.
A circular-letter was received from the Vestry of Battersea
asking the Board to appoint delegates to attend a Conference
to consider the question of the taxation of land values. The
Board appointed Mr. E. Tiplady, and at the meeting of the