The political deadlock between Austria and Hungary shuts out any immediate hope of a happier life for the telephone in those countries; but in Russia there has recently been a change in policy that may open up a new era.

Permits are now being offered to one private company in each city, in return for three per cent of the revenue.

By this step Russia has unexpectedly swept to the front and is now, to telephone men, the freest country in Europe.
In tiny Switzerland there has been government ownership from the first, but with less detriment to the business than elsewhere.

Here the officials have actually jilted the telegraph for the telephone.

They have seen the value of the talking wire to hold their valley villages together; and so have cries-crossed the Alps with a cheap and somewhat flimsy system of telephony that carries sixty million conversations a year.