The development of technology for speedy long-distance communication dates back to antiquity, and reached its pre-electronic peak in the telegraph before Samuel Morse’s telegraph. Before wires crossed the world, Napoleonic France could send a message from Paris to Lille, a distance of some 250 kilometers, in ten minutes.
The “Great Sedition Trial” uncovered shocking connections at the time with the German reich that we were fighting, and challenged the idea that the nation was of a single mind during the war. It also challenged exactly how far the national commitment to freedom of speech and opinion reached, especially in extraordinary times.