Excerpt from Public Ownership and the Telephone in Great Britain: Restriction of the Industry by the State and the Municipalities Four factors have Shaped the telephone policy of Great Britain. They have been: the desire of the State to protect the national telegraphs from competition from the telephone; the Duke of Marlborough's letters to The Times, alleging that it was possible to supply telephone service to Metropolitan London on the basis of $50 a year for unlimited user; the desire of the Municipalities to regulate the charges of the National Telephone Com pany, a licensee of the Postmaster General; and the political ambition Of Mr. R. W. Hanbury, who, as Pi nancial Secretary to the Treasury, in the period from 189 5 to 1900 represented in the House of Commons, the Postmaster General, the Duke of Norfolk. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.