nes
as in the United States. In proportion to her population, Europe has
only one-thirteenth as many.

The United States writes half as many letters as Europe, sends one-third
as many telegrams, and talks twice as much at the telephone. The average
European family sends three telegrams a year, and three letters and one
telephone message a week; while the average American family sends five
telegrams a year, and seven letters and eleven telephone messages a
week. This one na-tion, which owns six per cent of the earth and is five
per cent of the human race, has SEVENTY per cent of the telephones.
And fifty per cent, or one-half, of the telephony of the world, is now
comprised in the Bell System of this country.

There are only six nations in Europe that make a fair showing--the
Germans, British, Swedish, Danes, Norwegians, and Swiss. The others
have less than one telephone per hundred. Little Denmark has more than
Austria. Little Finland has better service than France. The Belgian
telephones have cost the most--two hundred and seventy-three dollars
apiece; and the Finnish telephones the least--eighty-one dollars. But
a telephone in Belgium earns three times as much as one in Norway. In
general, the lesson in Europe is this, that the telephone is what a
nation makes it. Its usefulness depends upon the sense and enterprise
with which it is handled. It may be either an invaluable asset or a
nuisance.

Too much government! That has been the basic reason for failure in most
countries. Before the telephone was invented, the telegraph had been
made a State monopoly; and the tele-phone was regarded as a species of
telegraph. The public officials did not see that a telephone system is a
highly complex and technical problem, much more like a piano factory
or a steel-mill. And so, wherever a group of citizens established a
telephone service, the government officials looked upon it with jealous
eyes, and usually snatched it away. The telephone thus became a part of
the telegraph, which is a part of the post office, which is a part of
the government. It is a fraction of a fraction of a fraction--a mere
twig of bureaucracy. Under such conditions the telephone could not
prosper. The wonder is that it survived.

Handled on the American plan, the telephone abroad may be raised to
American levels. There is no racial reason for failure. The slow service
and the bungling are the natural results of treating the telephone as
though it were