CHAPTER V

NONE OF MR. SCUDAMORE'S FINANCIAL FORECASTS WERE REALIZED 77

The completion of the telegraph system costs $8,500,000; Mr. Scudamore's successive estimates had been respectively $1,000,000 and $1,500,000. Mr. Scudamore's brilliant forecast of the increase of traffic under public ownership. Mr. Scudamore's appalling blunder in predicting that the State telegraphs would be self-supporting. Operating expenses on the average exceed 92.5% of the gross earnings, in contrast to Mr. Scudamore's estimate of 51% to 56%. The annual telegraph deficits aggregate 26.5% of the capital invested in the plant. The financial failure of the State telegraphs is not due to the large price paid to the telegraph companies and railway companies. The disillusionment of an eminent advocate of nationalization, Mr. W. Stanley Jevons.