§ SIR MARK STEWART (Kirkcudbright)I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether any judicial decision has ever been given that a telephone instrument is equivalent to a telegraph, except as regards the Postmaster General's monopoly of the right of conveying messages by wire?
§ THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. R. W. HANBURY,) PrestonThe decision that a telephone is a telegraph was given by the Exchequer Decree of the High Court of Justice in the case of the Attorney General versus the Edison Telephone Company. This case arose on the right of the Postmaster General to a monopoly to conveyance of messages by wire. The exact words of the judgment, "For all these reasons we hold that the telephone is a telegraph within the meaning of the Acts of 1869 and 1863," are very wide.