of leader-writers. The demand for verbatims, though by no means dead, is nothing like it was, and in the late General Election fewer were done than in previous campaigns. The favourite amount is half a column, and a good deal can be got into a ' Press Association half.' The Association's staff goes to all parts of the country on its special reporting missions, and as some public men frequently choose most out-of-the-way places for their important deliveries, the very limited telegraphic or telephonic facilities available add to the difficulties of the work. In the old days, when everything was done telegraphically, the Post Office used to make special provisions to deal with these offered reports, sending additional telegraphists and installing Wheatstone apparatus temporarily in order to send the matter direct to the newspaper offices in London and the provinces. Good however as the department usually was in this work, the method was not sufficiently speedy, particularly in view of the much earlier publication of morning papers; and though the public wire, as it is termed, is still employed, latterly it has become almost the practice for the reporters to telephone from their shorthand notes to London, sub-editors in sound-proof boxes taking down the report in shorthand either singly or in relays, and then rapidly dictating to typists, who operate on wax stencils for roneoing purposes. The London papers are thus supplied with type-written 'copy'-a much more convenient form than the old Post Office flimsies-while to the provincial Press receiver it is transmitted over the Association's private wire system, to which reference will be made later. The combination of a reporter transmitting and a sub-editor receiving makes, of course, for greater accuracy, and better work generally. Though the telephone authorities do their best, telephone transmission when the lines are bad or when the report is coming from some far-off or inaccessible place, involving a good many wires being linked up, is a most trying matter both to reporter and sub-editor, and the latter has been known to emerge from the box, after straining his hardest to get down what his colleague is dictating, with beads of perspiration standing on his forehead. A case in point was a speech made by the ex-Prime Minister at Lossiemouth, N.B., during the recess, which proved one of the most trying telephone tasks of the kind ever achieved. During the recent General Election campaign the Press Association did specials of over 300 speeches, the great majority being received by telephone, and in this large number only a single error occurred: the omission, through mishearing on a poor line, of the word 'not' from a sentence in which the context did not seem to call for the negative term. The Cabinet Minister thus innocently misreported took the affair in excellent part and was content with the circulation of an explanatory correction.

Besides speeches other matters covered by special reports com

prise the annual or periodical conferences or meetings of the chief political, trade union, religious, and professional organisations, inquests and other official inquiries, serious railway and other disasters, ceremonial visits by the King and Queen and the Prince of Wales, and the hearing of notable civil and criminal cases. The record in recent times for length of report was reached during the hearing of the now famous Robinson v. Midland Bank case by Lord Darling last November, when as much as eight to twelve columns per day was issued, not as specials, but in the Association's law service. The trials of the Frenchman, Vaquier, and Mahon, the Crumbles bungalow murderer, last summer, yielded several columns each day; but, absorbing as they were, they did not equal the Mr. A.' case in public interest.

While, as already shown, the Press Association is availing itself of telephonic transmission, its main method of distribution is still, as at first, telegraphic. But despite the rapid advances in the science of telegraphy, and the introduction by the Post Office of high speed and other apparatus of modern type, the average time of transmission of Press messages did not seem to show a corresponding improvement. With the exception of brief messages, telegrams generally took an hour to reach the papers, and this became a kind of standard with which the Press had to be content. At busy times, however, or under adverse weather conditions affecting the wires, the period of an hour was considerably extended, and owing to these delays much telegraphed matter reached evening as well as morning papers too late for use. Simultaneously, for various reasons, papers had to go earlier to press, and the apparent hopelessness of expecting anything substantially better from the Telegraphs Department, coupled with a heavy increase in the Press rates which came into force at the opening of 1920, led the Press Association in that year to enter upon the most important enterprise in its recent history, namely, the leasing and working of private telegraph wires for the transmission of its news supplies to the country. From the early days of its ownership of the telegraphs the Post Office had declared that Press work was growing more and more unremunerative-an assertion never accepted by the Press-whereas the rates the department charged for private wires were avowedly profitable. The leading provincial newspapers had long rented their own wires from London, but until late years such an arrangement was officially denied to a news agency. Starting in the spring of 1920 with an experimental circuit to South Wales and the west of England-which proved highly satisfactory-the Association has now built up a remarkably successful private wire system consisting of a number of circuits requiring some 3000 miles of wires, over 40 per cent. of the total mileage being underground and the rest overhead.

Radiating from the headquarters of the Association at Byron House, these wires are linked either direct or by means of retransmitting centres at Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, and Glasgow, with practically every evening and morning paper in the British Isles, the terminal points including Plymouth, Swansea, Aberdeen, Cork, and Belfast. The two main north trunk routes— London to Manchester and London to Leeds-are made up of five separate lines, and various connections provide an alternative way in case of breakdowns involving serious line trouble.' Results of races and a few other brief messages are 'keyed' by Morse sounders, but the bulk of the work is done by means of the Creed automatic transmitters, receivers (also called reperforators) and printers. The various news services and reports sent out by the Association are first transformed by 'punchers,' who operate key-board instruments resembling typewriters, into long reels of perforated slip, and the latter is run through the transmitters at a speed of 120 to 130 words a minute, and comes out in the reperforators at the newspaper offices in exactly the same form. The slip is then converted by means of the printers into typescript tape which is 'gummed up' on sheets of paper for sub-editorial treatment before passing on to the linotype operators. In various respects, and notably for its compactness and the large number of offices linked into the aggregate wire mileage, the Press Association's system is unique, although it cannot compare in total wire length with the leased lines of the Associated Press of America, where distances between towns are so much greater than in this country. On occasions a 'rush' message, embodying in brief terms an important piece of news suddenly arising or anxiously awaited, is sent from Byron House to every subscriber within about sixty seconds a wonderful achievement when it is remembered that in a few cases there are two centre retransmissions. The quick receipt in London of important news from, the provinces is another great advantage which the Press Association derives from its own telegraphic system. Only the other day news of a most unusual accident in a provincial town reached Byron House in this way from a neighbouring place, and, being swiftly circulated over all its wires, gave the local paper the first word that a serious occurrence had taken place almost at its office doors.

H. C. ROBBINS.

ELECTION PSYCHOLOGY

A FEW reflections upon election psychology may not be out of place now that the drums of victory are dying away. It is well for victors as well as the defeated to learn their lessons. Personally I am under no delusions that the votes given to me or my party were the normal strength of the Conservative voting power. It is my view that the tidal wave of Conservative triumph was largely caused by the patriotic zeal of those many Liberals in the country who put aside petty party considerations in order to defeat Communism and Socialism. Personally I know men of the old Liberal faith, who worked hard and valiantly for the Liberal cause under Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Asquith, and during a long life of forty or more years of active partisanship have never given a Tory vote, voted for me at this last election. In many cases, to take such a step was a brave action. It endangered old political friendships, and more it created new political enmities. The votes, therefore, given to the Conservative Party were not so much Conservative votes as anti-Socialist, Constitutionalist and National votes. The electorate saw a danger to our nation and our Empire, and they were determined to meet this danger. They saw the engine of state rushing along the track at express speed in face of the red light signal, and they promptly but firmly applied the brakes, bringing the engine to a full stop.

Now this is exactly where further danger lies. An express train does not draw up before the red light to remain standing, as thus it would never reach its destination. If the simile is to be followed to its logical conclusion, the signal-box when the track is safe shows the green light, and the train proceeds with all speed to its destination. That is exactly what we of the Conservative Party must recognise. We have succeeded in bringing the engine of state to a standstill in the face of the Socialistic red light. That does not mean that we can adopt a reactionary and standstill policy. We must have a progressive social policy to prove that we can and will improve the lot of the working people. I agree entirely with the Earl of Birkenhead in his recent speech in which he said that if the Conservative Party is sane, we are in

power for five years, and if we are clever, for ten years. I will go further. If we are very clever, we can kill the Socialist Party as a separate entity for ever. After all, where does the strength of the Socialist Party lie? Surely in the discontent of the people. The Socialist on his democratic orange-box or his respectable platform does not argue about Socialism. He talks vaguely about the profits of industry going to the community instead of to the individual, but he never seriously argues his case. His main theme consists of cheap sneers at the expense of the employing class, mostly of course quite untrue and unfair. His next plea is to send one of his own class to look after working-men interests in Parliament. He then finally proceeds to make a large number of promises to cure all the evils of this wicked world by waving the fairy wand of Socialism. I am often reminded when reading Socialist speeches of the typical conjurer with nothing up his sleeve' whose quickness of the hand deceives

the eye.

Now all this nonsense—and it is nonsense-would receive little support in the country if it were not for the unfortunate situation our country finds itself in. It is because the sower is sowing his seed on fruitful land that the Socialist oratory has been so successful. The Conservative Party has the chance of a lifetime. If during the next five years we have removed the excessive unemployment bugbear, if we have solved the housing and slum. problem, if we have introduced a comprehensive national insurance scheme, things can be very different. The seed of Socialist oratory will fall on very stony ground, and we all know the Biblical fate of that seed.

The task I have outlined is of course severe and difficult, but with a stupendous effort it can be done. After all, the Socialist Party can agree on very few points in our political controversies. There were men in the last Cabinet who were temperamentally Tories, and there were men temperamentally Radicals. Altogether politics is very much a question of temperament. The precise proposals of the Socialist Party have never been discussed on the platform at this or any election in which I have participated. Take nationalisation of industry, for example. What Socialist has ever told us how they are going to do it? True, Mr. J. H. Thomas, in his book When Labour Rules, gives us a few glimpses, but it is all delightfully vague. The vagueness is doubtless deliberate. They know that when they get to grips with realities profound and serious differences would arise. The moderates in the Socialist Party would fully compensate the owners, the extremists would give no compensation, while others adopt a policy of partial confiscation. That is the disadvantage of discussing subjects in the abstract. Without details there is no