The Proposed Union of the Telegraph and Postal Systems

REVIEW OF MR. GARDINER G. HUBBARD’S LETTER TO THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL ON THE EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN SYSTEMS OF TELEGRAPH. — ERRONEOUS STATEMENTS RELATIVE TO BELGIAN TELEGRAPHS. — BELGIAN TELEGRAMS DELIVERED BY POST. — WANT OF UNIFORMITY IN RATES. — ASSERTION THAT COMMERCIAL MESSAGES ARE TRANSMITTED AT A LOSS. — CORRECTION OF ERRONEOUS STATEMENTS. — TARIFFS NOT INCREASED BY CONSOLIDATION OF THE LINES. — ERRONEOUS ASSERTION THAT A LARGE PROPORTION OF THE OFFICES ARE AT RAILROAD STATIONS. — AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN TELEGRAPH TARIFFS COMPARED. — RULES OF THE EUROPEAN TELEGRAPHS. — RULES OF THE WESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH COMPANY. — MORE ERRONEOUS STATEMENTS. — SINGULAR NOTIONS OF PRACTICAL TELEGRAPHY. — ABSURD THEORIES REGARDING THE WORKING CAPACITY OF TELEGRAPH LINES. — IMPOSSIBILITY OF UTILIZING THE TELEGRAPH LINES BY NIGHT AS WELL AS DAY. — PROPOSED INCORPORATION OF THE UNITED STATES POSTAL TELEGRAPH COMPANY. — MESSAGES DELIVERED WITHIN A MILE OF THE OFFICE FREE. — EUROPEAN CHARGES FOR DELIVERING TELEGRAMS. — Charges for Postage, Foot Messenger, and Estafette. — TELEGRAMS TO BE PLACED IN THE STREET BOXES. — PRIVILEGED PERSONS TO HAVE PRIORITY IN THE USE OF THE WIRES. — PROPOSITION TO OPERATE TELEGRAPHS AT A LOSS, AND MAKE MONEY BY IT. — SPECULATIVE TELEGRAPH SCHEMES. — MORE STARTLING INVENTIONS FOR RAPID TELEGRAPHING. — ERRONEOUS TABLE OF EUROPEAN STATISTICS. — ERRONEOUS TABLE OF EUROPEAN STATISTICS. — EUROPEAN TELEGRAMS COUNTED SEVERAL TIMES. — LABOR THE PRINCIPAL ELEMENT OF EXPENSE IN OPERATING TELEGRAPHS. — PREVAILING ERROR OF ALL THEORIZERS ON THE BUSINESS OF TELEGRAPHING.

We have recently received a pamphlet from Gardiner G. Hubbard, Esq., of Boston, entitled a “Letter to the Postmaster-General on the European and American Systems of Telegraph, with Remedy for the present High Rates,” which we will briefly review.

Mr. Hubbard commences by saying:—

“The reasons that have induced the public to commit to the government the transmission of the mails by rail have induced most civilized nations to intrust it with the duty of transmitting correspondence by telegraph. England and America are the only important exceptions.”

As England and America are the only “civilized nations” where the public have any control of such matters, there need be no further discussion of this proposition.

Alluding to the Belgian telegraph, Mr. Hubbard says:—

“In 1850 the private lines then in operation were purchased by the government, and have since been under its management. The rates were originally one franc and a half for a message of twenty words. At these rates, the telegraph was little used for inland messages, and its development was very slow. In January, 1863, they were reduced to one franc, and December, 1865, to half a franc.”

By referring to the official tables published by the Belgian 57government, on page 94, it will be seen that the average cost per message on the Belgian lines in 1851 and 1852 was over 6 francs; in 1853, 5.10 francs; 1854 and 1855, over 4 francs; in 1856 and 1857, 3.62 and 3.42 francs; from 1858 to 1862, over 2 francs; and even in 1867 they averaged 0.85 francs.

We quote from Mr. Hubbard again:—

By an examination of Table H, page 96, it will be seen that the total receipts of the Belgian telegraphs for 1866 were 962,213 francs; expenditures, 1,217,496 francs; loss, 255,283 francs. Of the receipts only 407,532 francs were for inland messages, of which there were transmitted 692,536, while 553,580 francs were received for 435,469 international and transit messages. As before stated, the expense of service upon transit messages is merely nominal. They simply pass through the kingdom, and require no labor in receiving, transmitting, or delivery. The greater part of the expense, therefore, was incurred upon the inland messages; and, had not the Belgian administration imposed a tax upon neighboring nations of 553,580 francs for messages coming from or going to other countries, there would have been a deficit of 809,964 francs on the year’s business instead of 255,283 francs.

We quote from Mr. Hubbard:—

“A system of railroads is also owned and operated by the government, and the telegraph is connected with both the railroad and the post. A large proportion of the offices are at the railway stations, but every post-office is an office of deposit, from which messages are despatched at once, free of charge, to the nearest telegraph office, when in the same district; otherwise, by the first messenger or by special carrier, on payment of an extra rate for porterage. This union of the telegraph with the post and railroad 58reduces the expenses for operators, clerks, general management, rent and office expenses, and brings the system into close connection with every citizen.

“The rates are prepaid by stamps, and are uniform and low. The rate for all inland messages by telegraph, or by telegraph and post where the place of deposit or delivery is not on the line of the telegraph, is one half-franc [or thirteen and a half cents currency].”

In reply to this flattering picture of the Belgian system of telegraphy we quote the following from a recent English publication:^[15]—

“The government of Belgium not only have a monopoly of the telegraphs and post-office, but also of most of the railways of the country. They work the system as a whole. In the case of ordinary half-franc telegrams, the messages are not uniformly despatched by messenger from the office at which they arrive, but are sent to the residence of the receiver by post!

“The administration of the Belgian telegraph in no respect holds itself responsible for the delivery of a message, unless it is specially insured and additionally paid for. They decline all responsibility on account of delay in the transmission or non-arrival of a half-franc telegram. They will not even inquire into the cause of delay of a half-franc telegram! No matter how long a message has taken in delivery, or whatever may be the errors in it, the government will make no compensation to the sender or receiver, except under very exceptional circumstances. Moreover, the twenty words forwarded for half a franc includes addresses both of sender and receiver, ‘all of which is free in this country.’”

For further particulars relative to the Belgian telegraph service reference is made to pages 5, 7, 8, 13, 16–24.

We quote from Mr. Hubbard:—

“There is no uniformity in the rates. They are often less to a distant station than to an intermediate one on the same line. An 59estimate of the average rates, and of the annual number of messages transmitted has been made by ascertaining the rates to seventy-one stations at different distances from Boston, and arranging them in four different classes.”

Mr. Hubbard groups his American distances into classes of 500, 1,000, 1,500, and 2,000 miles; while his English classes embrace those of 100 and under, 200 and under; over 200, and to Ireland.

The average rates he gives for America for

The English rate for

Mr. Hubbard says:—

“As rates are higher in America, a greater proportion of messages are sent to stations in class A than in England, and a smaller proportion to class D. The average receipt per message, at these rates, is $1.00. The gross receipts of the Western Union Company, for the year ending the 30th of June, 1868, were $6,952,273.^[16] This sum, divided by the average receipts, gives the whole number of messages transmitted, viz. 6,952,000.

“It may be objected that those estimates are incorrect, and therefore the deductions are unreliable. If the Western Union Telegraph Company furnish a statement of messages annually transmitted, the required corrections will be made. If it is not given, it will be because the estimates of the average rates are too low, and the deductions too favorable to that company.”^[17]

As the average of these English rates is a little over 75 cents, 60while the greatest distance for the highest English class is less than for the shortest American class, which he averages at 41 cents, we do not see how he can assert that the American rates are higher than the English!

In answer to the charge of want of uniformity in the tariffs, we would call attention to the fact, that the lines under our control were constructed by a great number of separate organizations, having tariffs upon all bases, which had to be added together at all the termini of two or more lines, so that a message going a few hundred miles would require the payment sometimes of two or three rates. For instance, a few years since there were five telegraph companies owning the lines connecting Portland, Maine, with Cleveland, Ohio, and the tariff between these two places was ascertained by the addition of the local rates from Portland to Boston, Boston to Springfield, Springfield to Albany, Albany to Buffalo, and from Buffalo to Cleveland. The same system prevailed throughout the United States, until after the consolidation of the lines made it possible to transmit messages between places thousands of miles apart without the necessity of booking or rechecking at intermediate points. This result necessitated a remodelling of the tariffs, and the work has been going on uninterruptedly ever since; but when it is considered that a complete revision of the system required a separate tariff-sheet to be made out for over three thousand offices, changing and equalizing the rates to more than three thousand other offices, the immense labor and responsibility incurred in the undertaking may be imagined. It was impossible to effect this revision at once with any number of clerks, and for obvious reasons only a limited number could be employed upon it, as they can only act under the instruction of the executive officers, who are charged with all the other duties of an extensive organization.

Various plans have been suggested for simplifying and equalizing the tariffs, but difficulties of a practical nature present themselves in all of them. The existence of rival lines, built by speculators whose profit is in the construction of them, and which essay to do business at rates less than the cost of the service, necessitates the reduction of our rates along certain routes disproportionately, and prevents the adoption of a general rate strictly 61proportioned to distance. In the course of the coming year, however, it is expected that the work of revising our whole tariff system will be accomplished, to the satisfaction of all.

Mr. Hubbard’s assertion that the lowest rate between any large cities in America is 25 cents is incorrect. The tariff between Washington and Baltimore is 10 cents; between New York and Providence, New Haven, Hartford, &c., 20 cents.

If it is true, as he states, that “at these rates, under the present system, commercial messages are probably transmitted at a loss,” it may be a matter of regret to the stockholders of the telegraph companies, but affords no just ground for governmental interference. Besides, how will his proposed corporation be able to make money by doing the business at a still lower rate?

Mr. Hubbard says:—

“The history of the telegraph will explain the causes of these different rates. Great competition, in 1852, caused a large reduction in the rates. Soon after the validity of Mr. Morse’s patent was confirmed by the courts many of the competing companies were enjoined and compelled to wind up or sell out, and some failed. In the Eastern and Southern States the American Telegraph Company, in which Mr. Morse and his friends were largely interested, bought out most of the old companies, and continued to occupy their territory for many years without serious opposition.

“The various companies in the West, South, and Northwest (forming groups of feeble organization) were gradually merged into one corporation, under the name of the Western Union Telegraph Company. In 1864, the United States Telegraph Company was organized to oppose this monopoly, and entered into a vigorous competition with the Western Union; prices were reduced in consequence, and the business increased with great rapidity. In 1866 the American Telegraph Company, the United States Telegraph Company, and the Western Union were united under the corporate name of the last corporation; the prices were again raised, and this first caused a less ratio of increase, and finally an actual decrease in the telegraphic business of the country.”

62Mr. Hubbard’s pamphlet contains a statement of the rates between New York and Boston in former years which is inaccurate. The following is a correct table of the rates between those cities for the years 1849–52.

The statement that “soon after the validity of the Morse patent was confirmed by the courts in 1852 many of the competing companies were enjoined and compelled to wind up or sell out” is incorrect, as is also the assertion that “the American Telegraph Company bought out most of the old companies, and continued to occupy their territory for many years without serious opposition.”

The validity of the Morse patent was never disputed. In 1849 the Morse patentees commenced suits against the New York and New England [Bain] Telegraph Company, and the New York and Boston [House printing] Telegraph Company, for an infringement of the Morse patent. The case against the company using the Bain patent never came to trial, while the other was decided in favor of the defendant, by Judge Woodbury of the United States Supreme Court, 1850.^[18]

The consolidations between competing lines, in 1852 and 1853, was caused by the inability of the companies under separate organizations to meet their working expenses. They were generally confined, however, to the union of the Morse and Bain lines, and there still remained two competing lines upon all the principal routes. There has never been but a single year, since 1849, when there have not been at least two competing lines between Boston and Washington.

The American Telegraph Company was not organized until 1855, and it was not consolidated with any opposition line until 1860. The next year after the consolidation the Independent 63Company built a competing line between New York and Portland, Maine.

The assertion that “the United States Telegraph Company was organized to oppose this monopoly, and entered into a vigorous competition with the Western Union, and that prices were reduced in consequence,” is also incorrect. The United States Telegraph Company never reduced the rates at any point. On the contrary, it was not until after the United States’ lines were put in operation that the rates were advanced. This was rendered necessary by the great depreciation of our currency, and consequent advance in the cost of labor and materials for working the lines, and was done by agreement of all the companies.

The statement that, after the consolidation of the American, United States, and Western Union Telegraph Companies, in 1866, “the prices were again raised, and this first caused a less ratio of increase, and finally an actual decrease in the telegraphic business of the country,” is without the least foundation in fact. In no instance has the tariff been increased since the consolidation. On the contrary, there has been a steady decrease, the rates to more than one thousand stations having been lowered since the consolidation; and this course is still being pursued as rapidly as a just regard to the rights of the stockholders and the extremely complicated nature of adjustment to be made will allow.

The impression which Mr. Hubbard attempts to give, that the consolidation of the companies forming the Western Union Telegraph Company, included all the lines, and gave this company a monopoly of the business, is also incorrect. The Franklin Company, between Boston and New York, the Insulated Company, between Boston and Washington, the Bankers and Brokers’, between New York and Washington, and others, were then in active operation, and are still.

Mr. Hubbard says:—

“In other countries, the rates are reduced with the growth of business, and are never raised. In this country, they are reduced by competition, followed by consolidation of the competing companies, 64and subsequent increase of rates, without regard to the growth of the business.”

The rates are unquestionably often reduced by competition, sometimes below the cost of doing the business, and this will always be the case as long as men will listen to the plausible schemes of speculative enthusiasts, and invest their money in new lines in the hope of realizing profits which are never earned. The assertion, however, that consolidation is followed by an increase of rates, without regard to the growth of the business, is not warranted by the facts.

We quote from Mr. Hubbard again:—

“The telegraph in this country is very generally connected with the railroad system, and a large proportion of the offices are at railroad stations.^[19] These are seldom in the centre of the towns, and are not resorted to as generally as the post-office. In the large cities, the principal offices are near the business centres, with a number of secondary offices, generally at hotels and railroad stations. The rent of the main offices is very large, and the expenses for operators, clerks, and managers are also necessarily much more than when the telegraph is connected with the post.”

It is true that many telegraph offices are connected with the railroad system in this country, as well as abroad. Indeed, no railroad would be considered complete without such a connection, but it is not true that a large proportion of the offices are at the railroad stations.

We have shown on page 8 that the telegraph system of Europe is not specially connected with the Post-Office Department. In some countries the telegraph, post-office, and railway systems are under one department, but there is no particular connection between them. The post-offices are merely offices of deposit for telegrams, and not for transmission. But supposing they were united, why should the expenses of operators, clerks, and managers 65be necessarily much less than when the telegraph is worked separately? We presume he does not propose to dispense with the operators, and put the telegrams in the mail-bag; or does he propose that when the government gets control of the telegraph that the salaries will be reduced? If this is his idea, we think he is reckoning on a false hope, for if there was an attempt of this nature, the operators would seek some other employment.

Mr. Hubbard says:—

“The lowest American rates are higher than the average foreign rates, and the average rates several times higher than the foreign. These high rates retard the development of the system, which was more rapid in its early growth in this than in any other country. What are the reasons assigned for these high rates? Are they well founded, and if not, how can they be obviated?”

These assertions are entirely erroneous, and the facts quite the reverse. The highest American rates are lower than the highest foreign rates; the average American rates are lower than the average foreign rates; and the lowest American rates are lower than the lowest foreign rates. The lowest rate given in Europe is half a franc, about equal to 14⅘ cents in currency, while our rate between Baltimore and Washington is only 10 cents. In Paris the tariff on city messages is half a franc (14⅘ cents), and in London, for city messages, 6d. sterling, equal to 18 cents in our currency; while the rates for New York, from the Battery to Harlem River, are only 10 cents.

In order that a fair comparison may be made between the American and European systems of telegraphy, so far as the rate of charges is concerned, we present a list of sixty of the principal stations in Europe, and the same number in the United States, with the tariffs and distances in air lines from London and New York respectively, together with the rules and regulations of each system.

The minimum charge is for a message of twenty words, including the address and signature, and half price is charged for each ten or fraction of ten words above twenty.

Words of seven or less syllables count as one word. In words containing more than seven, the overplus counts as one word; each word underlined counts as three words.

Messages containing the same subject-matter addressed to different stations are charged as separate messages.

Secret or cipher messages can be sent by government only.

Replies at full rates can be prepaid; but should the reply contain more than the number of words specified and paid for, the sender of the reply must pay for the excess as a fresh message.

Messages can be repeated by payment of double charge at the time they are sent, the words “Repetition paid” being inserted after receiver’s address, and charged for.

All complaints respecting irregularity in the transmission or delivery of messages must be made by THE SENDER, and in cases of delay or error the complaint must invariably be accompanied by the RECEIVER’S COPY of the message. Complaints from the receivers of messages will not be entertained.

The minimum tariff is for a message of ten words. No charge is made for address, signature, or date. After the first ten words the rate is so much per word, the amount being proportional to the rate for the first ten.

All words are counted as one which are found so written in the dictionaries. No extra charge is made for messages written in cipher, and no restrictions are placed upon their transmission.

Replies can be prepaid if desired, and no charge is made for inserting this information in the sender’s message.

Messages can be repeated by the payment of one half the regular charge in addition, and the company agrees to be responsible for any mistakes which may occur in repeated messages, to the amount of fifty times the sum received for sending the same.

Correctness in the transmission of messages to any point on the lines of this company can be INSURED by contract in writing, stating agreed amount of risk, and payment of premium thereon at the following rates, in addition to the usual charge for repeated messages, viz.: one per cent for any distance not exceeding one thousand miles, and two per cent for any greater distance. No employee of the company is authorized to vary the foregoing.

Mr. Hubbard’s assertion that, “where a message is repeated, the expense is increased about seventy-five per cent, but on well-constructed lines, in ordinary weather, messages between any two stations east of a line from St. Paul to New Orleans require but one repetition,” hardly needs refutation. East of the line named there are more than four thousand telegraph offices, and at least 1,300 separate and distinct circuits. How, then, can separate wires be maintained between every two stations over this vast territory? Even confining the statement to one office at the East,—say Boston, for example,—how is it possible to maintain separate circuits that will enable that office to work direct with each one of four thousand offices? It would be more practicable to travel from every town in the United States to every other town, without change of cars, than it would to establish direct telegraphic connection between each.

The Western Union Telegraph Company maintains independent circuits, and works direct between New York and Philadelphia, Washington, Boston, Buffalo, Montreal, Chicago, Cincinnati, New Orleans, Portland, Plaister Cove, and many other points; but to work with every office in the United States without repetition would require more wires upon each pole than the mythical Briareus had hands.

It seems scarcely worth while to follow Mr. Hubbard in his statements regarding the capital of the Western Union Telegraph Company, and the cost of its lines. We have given a statement on pages 37 to 40 of the organization of this company, the amount of its capital, length of lines, and other matters of interest.

Mr. Hubbard’s statement that the directors of the Western Union Telegraph Company have steadfastly refused to reduce rates until forced by competition, and then consolidated with the competing company, and again raised the rates, is without the slightest foundation in fact. We have previously stated that no increase in the rates has been made since the consolidation with the United States and American companies, but, on the contrary, they 69have been reduced to more than one thousand stations, while the opposition have less than three hundred offices all told.

Mr. Hubbard says:—

“The capacities of the line of telegraph are very great. 2,000 words an hour are easily transmitted by a good operator over a single wire. At this rate there could be sent over fifty-one of the eighty or ninety wires leading from the New York office of the Western Union Telegraph Company 2,448,000 words, or 97,920 messages of twenty-five words each, a day. This amount cannot be obtained. Forty messages an hour are easily transmitted by a good operator over a through line, and this number could be sent every hour by relays of operators. This estimate gives 1,224,000 words, or 48,960 messages. On through and local lines a deduction of one half for twelve hours of the day, during which the local lines are open, must be made,—918,000 words, or 36,720 messages, on through and local lines. The average number actually transmitted on these fifty-one wires is 184,378 words, or 7,375 messages. 733,622 more words, or 29,340 more messages might daily be transmitted over these lines. If the present business could be distributed over all the hours of the day, or if there were sufficient business for all the wires the whole day, the rates could be largely reduced.

“Nearly eighteen hours of each day the wires are idle, yet a considerable portion of the expenses of the line are no greater than they would be if messages were transmitted the whole time. Interest, depreciation, and repairs, office rent, salaries, and general management are the same, whether much or little business is transacted. These items constitute about one third of all the expenses on the Western Union line. The other expenses will not be increased in proportion to the increase of the time.”

In reply to the above, we assert that 2,000 words an hour are not easily transmitted by a good operator over a single wire. There are operators who can send at this rate for a short time, but they are very few in number, and none of them could maintain this rate of speed for any length of time. It must be recollected that a message must be copied with a pen as rapidly as it is sent. Now, we doubt if Mr. Hubbard even can write 2,000 words legibly within an hour, with pen and ink. It is well known that the celebrated horse Dexter has trotted a mile in the unprecedented 70time of 2.17, but would it not be absurd to state, on that account, that every good horse can easily trot twenty-six miles an hour? Why, Dexter himself cannot keep up this rate of speed for even a quarter of an hour. Because a celebrated pedestrian walked a hundred miles in twenty-four hours, would it be just to say that every good walker can easily walk 36,500 miles per annum? A man in California rode three hundred miles in twenty-four hours; would it be honest, therefore, to say that every good horseman can easily ride 9,000 miles a month? The maximum speed of the best operators is 1,500 words per hour, but the average speed of the best is very much below this.

The amount of business done upon a wire in a given time is vastly greater in this country than in any other. In Europe there are 355,218 miles of wire, while in the United States there are less than one third as many, and yet the wires in this country transmit more telegraphic matter per annum than all the lines in Europe. This almost incredible fact is explained by the superior character and ability of our operating staff. In Europe they still use recording instruments, and slowly and laboriously pick out their messages upon strips of paper. Here, on the contrary, every operator—except in the small villages—reads by sound, and does three times as much work upon a wire as the poorly paid and inefficient European operator. Now, this being the case,—and the statistics prove it,—it can hardly be pretended that our company gets much less out of its wires than they can reasonably perform, and yet Mr. Hubbard says we “could easily send on fifty-one wires 97,920 messages per day, while in reality we only send 7,375.” Here is a difference between theory and practice that beats even Dexter’s 2.17 as the rate of speed which every horse in America can average.

Mr. Hubbard says, “If the present business could be distributed over all the hours of the day, or if there were sufficient business for all the wires the whole day, the rates could be largely reduced”; but neither of these propositions can be realized. The telegraph is an errand-boy which every one uses when the exigency 71requires it, and which no one will use unnecessarily, even though it work for nothing. In order to utilize the wires during those portions of the day and night when they are comparatively idle, the Western Union Telegraph Company adopted the following rates for night messages:—

“This company will transmit messages between the principal cities on its lines east of St. Louis and New Orleans, both inclusive, during the night, and deliver the same the succeeding morning, on the following terms: For a message of 20 words or less, the usual tolls on a ten-word message will be charged. For a message of more than 20 words, and not exceeding 60 words, twice the usual tolls on a ten-word message will be charged. For a message of more than 60 words, and not exceeding 120 words, three times the usual tolls on a ten-word message will be charged. For each additional 100 words, or part thereof, in excess of 120 words, the usual tolls on a ten-word message will be charged in addition. Such messages will be known as NIGHT MESSAGES. They will be received for transmission at any time during the day or evening, and will be sent during the succeeding night. No additional charge will be made for cipher messages.”

The very moderate success of our night-message experiment, notwithstanding the large inducements offered, proves that the use of the telegraph is required not merely for communication, but for emergency and despatch. It is also a fact worthy of notice, that very little of this business is done between Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, notwithstanding the low rates, whereby over a hundred words can be transmitted for a dollar. It is done mainly between remote places like Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Memphis, and New Orleans, communication between which by mail requires from two to four days.

In support of this theory we submit a statement of the night-message business between New York City and all points on our lines for the months of March, July, and October. These months represent fairly the varying phases of our business in respect to trade in different sections of the country at different seasons of the year.

The total number of night messages sent and received between 72New York City and all places on our lines for the three months named was 6,273, divided as follows:—

Our night-message experiment has proved that the telegraph will not be used at night, at any tariff, except to a moderate extent and between distant points.

The absurdity of placing the telegraph and postal systems in the same category has been fully shown on pages 43 and 44. Mr. Hubbard appears to have read Mr. Scudamore’s charges against the English system, and applied them literally to the telegraphs of this country. Unfortunately, however, charges which may be true as applied to the companies operating the telegraphs in the United Kingdom have no pertinency when reproduced as the shortcomings of the American system.

Mr. Hubbard says:—

“It is not considered expedient either for the government to purchase the existing lines, or to construct and operate lines. How, then, can the desired results be best attained? The Post-Office Department has no facilities of its own for the transmission of correspondence either by rail or telegraph. It contracts with the railroad companies for carrying the mail, and it is proposed that it shall contract with a telegraph company for transmitting messages.

“A bill was introduced at the last session of Congress, and referred to the committee on Post Roads and Routes, to incorporate the ‘United States Postal Telegraph Company, and to establish a postal system.’

73“The first, second, third, fourth, and fifth sections of the bill incorporate the company, with power to construct lines on all the post roads and routes of the country.

“The sixth section authorizes the Postmaster-General to receive bids from any telegraph company for the transmission by telegraph of messages received and delivered through the post-office, to all cities and villages of 5,000 inhabitants and over, and to towns on the line of the telegraph, where stations may be established by order of the Postmaster-General.

“The seventh section authorizes the Postmaster-General to contract for the transmission by telegraph of messages with the company that will engage to transmit them for the least sum, provided such sum does not exceed twenty-five cents, including five cents postage for each message of twenty words, including date, address, and signature, for each and every 500 miles or fractional part thereof the message may be transmitted, with five cents for each added five words. All messages to be prepaid by stamps, or written on stamped paper.

“Messages to be received at any and all post-offices, street-boxes, or other receptacles for letters, and to be delivered by special carrier without extra expense.

“Messages requiring immediate despatch to have priority of transmission on payment of extra rates.

“The effect of the proposed reduction will be better appreciated by comparing the present and proposed rates.

The rule was established coincident with the introduction of the telegraph in the United States to deliver all messages in the town within a mile of the receiving office free. Special and free delivery should be the rule as far as practicable. And yet it is impossible, without rendering the telegraph of no avail in important emergencies, to establish free delivery everywhere. A message from an Eastern city to a Western village announcing 74peril, disaster, or death is addressed to a person two or three miles from the telegraph station. The charge for transmitting this message is, say, fifty cents. Two modes of delivery are presented,—one to drop it in the post-office, where it may lie until the next day; the other, to hire a conveyance, and send a special messenger with it to the person addressed. The cost of this special service will vary from one dollar to two dollars. Our practice is to deliver by special messenger, and charge therefor the actual cost of the service.

A similar custom prevails in Europe, as will appear from the following extracts from the rules and regulations applicable to stations in the Austro-Germanic Telegraph Union, which comprises Austria, Prussia, Hanover, Holland, Saxony, Wurtemburg, the German Duchies, also France and the whole South of Europe:

The instruction for forwarding despatches beyond Telegraph lines must be inserted in messages immediately after receiver’s address and charged for; messages with no instructions will be sent on from Terminal Telegraph Station by post.

The sender is responsible for an insufficient address, and can only rectify the same by sending and paying for a new despatch.

Messages addressed to “Poste Restante” are subjected to the above charges for postage.

By Express (Foot Messenger) within seven English miles, 2s. 6d.

By Estafette (Mounted Messenger) a charge must be made at the rate of 2s. 6d. per three English miles for countries comprised in the Austro-Germanic Union, but for other towns the charge is 1s. 6d. per English mile. If, however, the distance is unknown, a sufficient deposit must be taken.

All charges to be prepaid by sender.

Mr. Hubbard’s proposition to put telegrams into street-boxes is simply absurd. Telegrams are always of an important nature, and need despatch. Imagine a message announcing sickness, death, or any other circumstance, being dropped in the street box, to be taken out when the carrier happens round! As for post-offices, how many are there in any of the large cities even? Few have more than one, and this is closed when a mail arrives,—a circumstance that seems to have rendered the closed condition the normal one with many post-offices.

To give an idea of the extent of present facilities in the principal cities, the following statement, showing the number of telegraph offices now open, is submitted:—

Mr. Hubbard’s plan of allowing “messages requiring immediate despatch to have priority of transmission on payment of extra rates,” would abolish the rule which has always been observed since the establishment of the telegraph in this country, “first come first served,” and give privileged persons the priority in the use of the wires. What an excellent opportunity this would afford speculative combinations (like that which locked up twenty millions of currency in Wall Street a short time ago) to extend their operations all over the country, by practically controlling the telegraph?

This plan would not answer at all. No system of variation of rate is feasible, consistently with public policy, but that which offers a lower rate for business which will consent to be delayed until another day.

In regard to the establishment of a money-order system by telegraph, 76we would say that we have long done something in the way of transmitting deposits and money orders by telegraph. We have made no effort to bring it prominently before the public, with a view to extending this department of our business, for the reason that as an established system it would be comparatively easy for rogues to abuse it. It is only resorted to in cases of great emergency, where money orders by post cannot be delivered in time to meet the necessities of the case. It is also confined mainly to the transmission of small sums. It involves necessarily the sending of two messages. Large amounts required in commercial transactions are daily transmitted or exchanged in this manner by the regular banking houses in all the principal cities.

Mr. Hubbard proposes, by his new plan, to send telegrams at an average reduction of 53 per cent from the present charges, which we have shown to be 25 per cent less than the European rates. Now, the total receipts of the Western Union Telegraph Company for the year ending June 30, 1867, were $6,568,925, and a reduction of 53 per cent would leave $3,087,405.

Mr. Hubbard acknowledges that neither the government nor any company can transmit messages at the above rates without loss, but claims that “a company with well-constructed lines, built for cash, can transmit messages at these rates, in connection with the post-office, and realize a large profit.” Precisely how this is to be done, or what the lines “built for cash” have got to do about it, does not appear. Mr. Hubbard says in his pamphlet that “the largest part of the lines of the Western Union Company were constructed before the rise in prices, and on a gold basis.” Now, if he means that lines built on a paper basis can be worked cheaper than those constructed on a gold one, we would be glad to hear his reasons for so singular a notion.

We consider it our duty to say a word concerning the swarm of adventurers who are canvassing the country for subscriptions to utterly worthless telegraph stock, and who are besieging the halls of Congress every year for some recognition or advantage which shall enable them the more readily to impose upon the public.

The National Telegraph Company is an example in point. This concern, which claims to have organized two years ago under an act of Congress, and which has filled the country with runners begging for subscriptions to its stock, has never set a pole.

The losses which have occurred in the operation of competing lines are enormous. The country is full of people who have lost money in these schemes, which, after a brief existence, are wound up and their effects disposed of by the sheriff.

The present condition of all the opposition lines is very precarious. The Franklin Company was made by a consolidation of the Insulated Company, having four wires between Boston and Washington, and the old Franklin Company, having two wires between Boston and New York. The capital of the former was $1,250,000, and of the latter $500,000. The new organization has been in operation about two years, during which time its receipts have fallen so far below its expenses that it has contracted a debt of $125,000; and its lines have deteriorated to such an extent that a large sum would have to be expended to put them in proper condition for business. The stock of such companies is valueless as an investment, and, in respect to some of them, it is doubtful if their property could be sold for a sum sufficient to pay their indebtedness.

The Atlantic and Pacific Company has a line from New York to Chicago, via Albany, Buffalo, Cleveland, and Sandusky, averaging about two wires for each line. Its lines are built under a contract to take stock in payment, at the rate of $1,666.66 per mile for a line of two wires.

The operation of these separate and irresponsible lines, during 78the brief period of their existence, retards the progress of legitimate telegraphy, and impairs the general unity of the system. Any legislation of Congress which is made to further such schemes has the direct effect of aiding a class of speculators to fleece a credulous public, by inducing them to invest their money in the construction of lines which never have paid, and never can pay, the expenses of operating them, and which are of no benefit to any persons but those who originate them, and profit by their construction.

We quote from Mr. Hubbard:—

“Instruments have been recently invented, and are in operation, either in England or in this country, by which two great hindrances to the efficiency of the telegraph are remedied. Mr. Stearns, president of the Franklin Telegraph Company, has invented an instrument by which messages are transmitted both ways at the same time, on the same wire, thus doubling its capacity without any increase of expense. Sir Charles Wheatstone, in England, has invented an instrument by which double the number of words can be transmitted and received on the same wire, at an increased expense in the preparation of the message for transmission. Instruments are also in operation in Great Britain, worked by boys, after instruction of one or two days.”

In regard to Mr. Stearns’s apparatus for working both ways over one wire at the same time, we are compelled to say there is nothing new in the idea. Doctor Gintl, of Germany, invented it many years ago, and it was published in an Italian work,^[20] with steel-plate illustration, issued in 1861, translated into English by George B. Prescott, of Albany, and published in the Telegraphic Journal, London, May, 1864. Moses G. Farmer, Esq., of Boston, invented another apparatus for doing the same thing, and worked it between Boston and Portland, in 1849. If there is any practical value in this apparatus it is open—like the Morse Telegraph—to the use of all. Sir Charles Wheatstone’s apparatus, by which double the number of words can be received on the same wire, will probably prove of the same practical value as 79many similar inventions, which in theory can transmit intelligence with the greatest accuracy at the astonishing rate of five or ten thousand words an hour, but in practice have never proved of the slightest value.

It is suggestive, that, of more than a hundred inventions designed to supersede the Morse telegraph, the latter instrument is used to-day on more than 490,000 miles of wire out of the total of 500,000 in operation in all parts of the world. Mr. Hubbard’s assertion, “that instruments are in operation in Great Britain, worked by boys, after instruction of one or two days,” may be true. From all accounts, the use of boys—and charity boys at that—has been the great curse of telegraphy in England, until the saying has become common there, when describing a remarkably poor specimen of chirography, that “it is written as badly as a telegraph despatch.” We hope the day is far distant when our messages shall be transmitted by boys with one or two days’ instruction.

We hardly need say that it is for our interest to adopt every improvement whereby the despatch of business within a given time can be materially increased. It is certainly cheaper for us to provide new instruments, at almost any cost which will ever be charged therefor, than to put up, keep in repair, and operate additional wires to produce the same results.

We reproduce Mr. Hubbard’s statistical table for the purpose of pointing out some very serious errors contained in it.

80These errors, in reducing foreign money into United States gold currency caused the following discrepancies in gross receipts for the year:—

Thus we find that in reproducing from their various currencies the gross telegraphic receipts of six nations into United States gold, Mr. Hubbard makes the amount $1,435,120.14 less than it should be, and in reducing those of three other countries into our coin he makes the amount $93,417.36 more than it should be.

He has also failed to give the receipts of the three great Submarine Telegraph Companies, which transact so important an amount of continental telegraph business.

Mr. Hubbard gives the number of stations in Switzerland at 333, while the best English authority^[22] gives it at 252. He also gives the number of messages transmitted in England, in 1866, as 6,127,000, while Mr. Scudamore, in his reply to the statement of the Electric and International Telegraph Company, published in May, 1868,^[23] points out the fact that only 5,781,189 messages were transmitted throughout Great Britain and Ireland during that year.

It will be observed that Mr. Hubbard has “estimated”—that is, guessed at—the number of and receipts for telegrams in the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Turkey, and Greece. He estimates the average cost per message to be 42 cents; but as we happen to know that the average cost in Denmark was more than twice this amount, we are not willing to accept any of his estimates.

From Mr. Hubbard’s pamphlet:—

An examination of Mr. Hubbard’s statement of the number of messages sent in Europe, in 1866, will reveal the fact that he has included inland, international, and transit messages to make up the grand total. In this way he has counted the same message several times. For instance, messages sent from England to France, or any two contiguous countries, would be counted in each. Messages between France and Germany would be counted in France and Germany as international messages, and in Belgium and perhaps some other country as transit. The same would be the case between all European countries whose territories do not border on each other. A message going from France to Russia, or from England to Turkey, might be counted a dozen times.

In the United States each message is counted but once, although it may traverse thousands of miles in reaching its place of destination.

We have not the statistics to show what proportion the legitimate number of messages sent bears to this fictitious number; but by referring to the Belgian table it will be seen that 692,536 inland and 306,596 international messages were sent in 1866, in a total of 1,128,005. Taking this as a fair average for the whole of Europe, we shall find that only 14,012,795 messages were sent in 1866, at an expense, in United States currency, of $15,286,911.61, or about $1.09 each.

The principal element of expense in our business is the cost of labor.^[24] If we can do our work as cheaply as another party, it is clear that rates can never be reduced below the point at which receipts and expenses are equal. Any material increase of business, no matter what the rates may be, must be attended with increased expense. And when the capacity of the wires provided for a particular 83service is exhausted, a new question is presented by the necessity for providing additional facilities. By the extension of our lines this year west of Chicago, and by the moderate increase in the volume of our business in that section of the country, it will probably become necessary during next year to provide two additional wires between Chicago and the Atlantic coast. The cost of these wires, if erected on poles now standing, will be about $120,000. We shall also be obliged to put up an additional wire between Washington and New Orleans, and between the latter place and Louisville. The cost of maintaining the lines will be somewhat increased by the addition of these wires, and the cost of operating at each end, and looking after them at intermediate points, must also be included. How is the additional capital necessary to provide such increased facilities to be raised? By reducing rates, the result of which is, that, even if gross receipts are not diminished, the expenses are increased? Is it not by gradually increasing lines out of current profits, and as gradually reducing rates after facilities for an enlarged business have been provided?

All theorizers upon the subject of the telegraph fall into the error that the amount of business which may be done at any point (the rates being low enough) is in the ratio of population. An investigation of the subject will show this to be entirely erroneous. Three years ago, when the subject of telegraphic communication between the Eastern and Western continents was discussed by those most intimately connected with the enterprise, no one estimated the number of messages which would pass between the two continents, daily, at a rate of $50 gold for ten words, below 500. But few placed the figures so low. Most of them estimated the number at two or three times this minimum.

In 1863 Mr. Cyrus W. Field made the following remarks before the Chamber of Commerce of New York, in relation to the probable amount of business that would be done between Europe and America when communication by telegraph should be established: “To express my own opinion, from pretty large experience on the 84subject, I do not believe that ten cables would begin to do the work which would, in a short time, be given to it.”

At the banquet given in London, in 1864, to inaugurate the renewed attempt by the Atlantic Telegraph Company to unite Europe and America by means of the Atlantic cable, Mr. Cromwell F. Varley made the following remarks touching the amount of business that would be offered for transmission over the cable: “I feel great confidence that, when once a cable is successfully laid across the Atlantic, the demands upon it will be so great that you will have to lay one or two per annum for the next twenty years, or even more.”

Their disappointment was, therefore, very great when, after the Atlantic Cable was in operation, it was found that the daily average at the $100 tariff was but 29 messages, and at the $50 tariff, which was in operation thirteen months, it was but 64. At the $25 rate the average advanced to 131; and although the rate has been still further reduced to $16.85, the average is but 201. This illustration is sufficient to prove the fallacy of all reasoning concerning telegraph business based merely upon population. We venture the prediction that, at the rate of $5 between Europe and America, the number of messages which would pass per day would never equal the number exchanged daily between New York on one hand, and Philadelphia and Boston on the other. The reason is simply this: The number of messages which will pass within a given time between two points depends, first, upon a reasonable charge for transmission,—a charge conveniently within the means of those having occasion to communicate; and secondly and mainly, upon the number of people at either extreme having intimate business relations with those at the other. The vast commerce of the Old World and the New is not exchanged in detail, but in bulk. A few banking houses on each side make all the exchanges for both continents, and the agricultural products and the manufactures of both are also exchanged in substantially the same manner.

We have shown how fallacious is the claim that the increase of business is dependent upon the tariff, by the statistics of our own and foreign countries, by which it appears that business has sometimes largely increased at an advanced rate. We do not desire 85to be understood, however, as saying that low tariffs, under similar circumstances, will not bring more business than high ones. But we do say that it is susceptible of proof, that the minimum rate is undoubtedly much higher than most of those who theorize upon this subject are willing to believe. Take the case of the Atlantic Cable as an illustration. During the three months at which the tariff was $100, and the daily average of messages 29, the receipts per day were £505. During the thirteen months, at the average of 64 messages daily, the receipts were £579. During the nine months, at the average of 131 messages per day, the receipts were £635. And for the two months since the rates were reduced to $16, the daily average has been 201 messages, and the average receipts £596.

Now it happens, fortunately for the Cable Company, that the present volume of business is considerably less than the capacity of their cables; so that the increase of that business has been attended with but a very slight additional expense, the cost to operate being the same at offices open day and night, whether operators are occupied all or only a part of the time. But suppose, for illustration, that the limit of the capacities of the cables will be reached when the average number of messages per day is 250. To undertake to transmit any number beyond this without further facilities would result in crowding and confusing the business to an extent which would inevitably produce dissatisfaction. On the other hand, to provide an additional cable would cost a sum of money which it might be exceedingly difficult to raise. It seems proper, therefore, that the profits from this business should always be considerably more than enough to yield a proper return for the capital invested, so that greater facilities may be provided out of surplus profits; and, as facilities are increased, rates may be gradually reduced, until, by judiciously pursuing this course, the charges for telegraphing may be materially diminished, without endangering the revenues to which owners of telegraph property are justly entitled.

A single wire between New York and Plaister Cove, Cape Breton, the eastern terminus of the Western Union Telegraph Company’s lines, not only promptly transmits all the telegraphic business that is done between Europe and America, but every message is telegraphed back for comparison with the original, to insure correctness.

PROGRESS OF THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH IN AMERICA AND EUROPE. — THE UNITED STATES. — PROPORTION OF TELEGRAMS TO LETTERS. — EARLY HISTORY OF THE TELEGRAPH IN AMERICA. — EVILS ARISING FROM SEPARATE ORGANIZATIONS. — THE UNIFICATION OF THE TELEGRAPH ACCOMPLISHED. — TELEGRAPH COMPANIES IN THE UNITED STATES. — DOMINION OF CANADA. — AUSTRIA. — TABLE C. — BELGIUM. — TABLE D. — TABLE E. — TABLE F. — TABLE G. — TABLE H. — TABLE I. — BELGIUM. — GREAT BRITAIN. — UNITED STATES. — BAVARIA. — DENMARK. — ENGLAND. — FRANCE. — DECREES REGULATING THE USE OF THE TELEGRAPH IN FRANCE. — PECULIAR CHARACTER OF THE FRENCH TELEGRAPH. — TABLE J. — INCREASE IN TELEGRAMS NOT DUE TO LOW RATES. — TABLE K. — GREECE. — PRUSSIA. — TABLE L. — RUSSIA. — SWITZERLAND. — NO ANALOGY BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND SWITZERLAND. — TABLE M. — SPAIN. — ROYAL DECREE RELATING TO TELEGRAPHS IN SPAIN. — TURKEY.

The United States not only has the distinguished honor of being the birthplace of the inventor of the universally-used electric telegraph, but of having constructed the first line of practical telegraph, and of being the foremost nation in the world, at the present time, in the number of her telegraph stations, extent of her lines and wires, cheapness of her rates, and amount of business done.

The United States contains 4,126 telegraph offices; 62,782 miles of line; 125,564 miles of wire; and transmits annually 12,904,777 telegrams.

She has nearly as many telegraph stations as, and sends a greater number of telegrams annually than, all Continental Europe, and contains as many miles of line as Belgium, Bavaria, France, Great Britain and Ireland, Italy, Russia, Switzerland, and Spain combined.

The proportion of telegrams to letters in the United States is difficult of determination, from the fact that our Post-Office Department furnishes no statistics of the number of letters sent through the mails, and has no means of ascertaining the number approximately, except by the number of stamps sold annually. This mode of estimation is very defective, because the stamps sold may not have been used, or if used, may have covered the postage on books, parcels, and other matter. The Postmaster-General states, in his report 88for 1867, that there were 283,762,300 three-cent stamps sold during the preceding year. Supposing each of these stamps to represent a letter, we have the following comparative result of the number of telegrams to letters in the various countries where the telegraph is most extensively used:—

During the first few years after the introduction of the electric telegraph its progress was very slow. Capitalists were afraid to invest in an undertaking so novel and precarious, and as a natural consequence there was great difficulty in raising funds for properly building the lines, and they were constructed in a very unreliable manner, breaks and interruptions being rather the normal condition of the wires than the exception.

At a very early period in the history of the electric telegraph in the United States, a misunderstanding occurred between the Morse patentees and a contractor under them, the result of which was that rival lines were constructed throughout the country before the system had been sufficiently developed to be remunerative, even without such competition.

The invention of the letter-printing telegraph by Mr. House, in 1846, and the introduction of the electro-chemical telegraph of Mr. Bain into this country, in 1849, greatly facilitated the construction of competing lines.

The first line operating under the House patent was completed in March, 1849, from Philadelphia to New York City. The Boston and New York Telegraph Company, using the same patent, was completed in the autumn of the same year, and was followed by one from New York to Buffalo, and subsequently to St. Louis and Chicago.

During the year 1849, which was very prolific in the production of competing lines, the Bain patent was introduced upon lines extending between New York and Buffalo, and New York and Washington, 89and, in the succeeding year, upon lines extending between Boston and Montreal, and Boston and Portland.

In 1851 there were seven Bain lines in operation in the United States, having over 2,000 miles of wire; eight House lines, having about 300 miles of wire; and sixty-seven Morse lines, having 20,000 miles of wire. In the autumn of this year, the Morse and Bain lines between New York and Washington were consolidated; and in the succeeding spring the Morse and Bain lines between New York and Boston were united under one company. The union of these lines was followed by that of the New York and Buffalo Morse and Bain lines, and subsequently by those of the House lines between these points.

The consolidation of these lines was a step in the right direction, as it increased the receipts and lessened the expenses of the companies, while it enabled them to do the business better, by possessing greater facilities. Still, the great number of separate organizations remaining throughout the country prevented that unity and despatch in the conduct of the business so essential to its success. Under these circumstances, the public failed to realize the brilliant thought of instant communication between distant points.

A Boston house, doing business with Chicago, was obliged to be content with responses received on the second or third day. On Boston despatches for Chicago four tariffs were charged; and a message had to be copied off and handed over to other companies for transmission at New York, Buffalo, and Detroit, before it reached its destination.

All this process required time, and yet the loss of time was the least of the evils connected with such a state of things. The message, as it left the writer’s hands in Boston, was not unfrequently a very different document when it reached the Western parties, owing to errors caused by its numerous retransmissions, and thus the necessity became urgent to unite these separate companies into one living, vigorous organization, by which not only repetition and error might be avoided, but the messages followed to their destination under a single direction, and undivided responsibility.

It was at this period, when segregated lines were feeling their weakness, and their revenues were unequal to even a current vigorous support, that a few clear-sighted men in the West conceived the project of buying up the groups of feeble organizations, and making them direct leaders between the large Western cities. The stock was comparatively valueless, and easily and cheaply bought. The needs of commercial intercourse were pressing. The project had in it the true elements of success, and it was accomplished.

For seven years thereafter the purchasers went on improving the lines thus acquired, and rendering their connections more certain. During all these years no dividends were paid. Time and money and all the earnings of the line were devoted to that series of combinations which, from a mass of weak and perishing organizations, culminated in the Western Union Telegraph Company.

This combination of lines saved the system from disgrace, and made it available to commerce and to public wants. No increase of rates followed any of these movements; and none would ever have been made, had not war come to change values, and rendered it necessary.

At the East, the American Telegraph Company, organized in 1855, followed a similar course, and ultimately controlled lines extending throughout the Atlantic seaboard and Mississippi Valley. These two companies, working in connection and harmony, covered the entire area of the United States, and performed the business of telegraphing better than it had ever been done before.

In 1863 the United States Telegraph Company was organized, and constructed lines in the territories occupied by both the Western Union and American companies; but in 1865, with 16,000 miles of wire,—all newly built,—worked to their full capacity during the year they were unable to meet their current expenses; but under the most vigorous administration, with its expenses reduced within the closest limits, found that it was conducting its business at an average net loss of nearly $10,000 per month.

91In the spring of 1866 the Western Union, American, and United States Telegraph Companies were consolidated, thus producing a complete unification of the great telegraphic system of the United States, and rendering it the most complete and extensive in the world. This consolidation, however, gave the Western Union Telegraph Company no monopoly of the business. The Morse patent having expired, and no exclusive privileges being granted by either State or national governments, the construction and operation of telegraph lines within the jurisdiction of the United States remained freely open to all.

The following list of some of the more important telegraph companies now doing business in the United States will convey an idea of the importance of this interest: Bankers and Brokers’ Telegraph Company, capital $1,050,000, lines extending from New York to Washington; Pacific and Atlantic Telegraph Company, capital $3,000,000, lines completed from Philadelphia to Pittsburg and Cincinnati, and extending; Franklin Telegraph Company, capital $1,000,000, lines extending from Boston to Washington; International Telegraph Company, capital $300,000, lines completed from Boston to Bangor, Me., and will be extended farther east; Keystone Telegraph Company, lines extending from Philadelphia to Harrisburg and Pittsburg; International Ocean Telegraph Company, lines extending from Lake City to Key West and Havana; Northern Telegraph Company, capital $100,000, lines completed from Boston to Bristol, N. H., and extending; Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Company, capital $5,000,000, lines completed from New York to Chicago and extending; Great Western Telegraph Company, line completed between Chicago and Milwaukee; Northwestern Telegraph Company, capital $1,150,000, lines extending from Milwaukee through Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, and Minnesota; Mississippi Valley Telegraph Company, lines extending between St. Paul, Minn., and St. Louis, and from Dubuque to Chicago; Western Union Telegraph Company, capital $40,347,700, lines extending from the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of the St. Lawrence, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean. There are in addition to this list quite a large number of 92companies, covering more or less territory, which, with all of the above mentioned, are independent organizations, and nearly all of them engaged in competition with each other.

Private enterprise has with us, so far, achieved much greater results than governmental management in Europe. As regards the tariff for messages, they are less than the rates established in Europe. Considerable reductions have been made within the past year, amounting, in some cases, to as much as 50 per cent. The reductions have taken place to the greatest extent in those sections of the country where there are opposition lines, the rates over some of these routes being less than the expense of doing the business, but the reductions are not confined to these sections.

The Western Union Telegraph Company has reduced its rates between upwards of one thousand offices where there is no opposition; and it is now preparing a new tariff of rates, based upon airline distances, between all stations, irrespective of the circuitous routes that the lines take to reach them, which will still farther simplify and cheapen the system.

It is the purpose of this company to do the telegraphing of the United States as well, and at as low rates, as it can be done by any organization which can be formed, and thus maintain its possession of the first and most extensive system of telegraphy in the world.

In the Dominion of Canada as in the United States, the telegraph is free and untrammelled by governmental interference, and, next to the United States, is the best in the world.

The telegraph is under the control and management of the State.

At the end of 1866 the system comprised 851 stations, with an extent of 73,854 geographical miles of wire.

The total number of persons employed by the telegraphic department is 1,884.

Austria transmitted 44,911 messages in 1851, and 381,720 in 1857, being an increase of over 800 per cent without any average reduction in rates. The increase in the number of messages from 1857 to 1866 was less than 700 per cent, notwithstanding the great reduction in the rates from 2.32 to 0.65 florins.

The statistics respecting the working of the telegraph in Belgium are used by Mr. Washburne primarily to prove the superior advantages and excellence of the Belgian telegraphic system and arrangement, but chiefly to show that a cheapened rate has increased 94its use, and that to secure that result in this country the telegraph must be placed under governmental control.

Scarcely any two nations could be named whose conditions are more unlike.

The area of Belgium is about one fourth that of the State of New York, with nearly the same population. Its greatest length is 175 miles, its width 105.

The three chief cities of Belgium are not more than thirty miles apart, while those of secondary rank are equally contiguous. All the railroads in the kingdom belong to the government, and a large proportion of the telegraph offices are at the railway stations, the post-offices being merely offices of deposit, from which messages are despatched free of charge to the nearest telegraph office, if in the same district; otherwise by special messenger, on the payment of an extra fee.

As the government of the United States owns no railroads, they could not use the stations for offices, except by special arrangements, which can as readily be effected by private companies.

The telegrams of Belgium are of three distinct sorts,—internal, international, and transit. The system differs essentially from that of the United States, inasmuch as the principal business of the Belgian telegraph is to transmit messages from one country to another, whilst the principal business of the American telegraph is the conveyance of internal messages. The only international messages transmitted on the lines in the United States are those sent to Europe by the Atlantic cable, to Cuba by the Cuban cable, and to the various stations in the Dominion of Canada.

One of the arguments used in favor of the assumption of telegraphs by government is, that in its hands the telegraph is more largely accessible to the people, and more freely used. The facts are as follows, giving Belgium the benefit of the increase of messages shown by the last reduction of her tariff.

Population, 5,000,000; messages, 692,536. Ratio, one message to each seventh person.

Population, 29,500,000; messages, 5,781,189. Ratio, one message to each fifth person.

Population, 31,148,047; messages, 12,904,770. Ratio, one message to every two and one half persons.

These facts prove a clear advantage in favor of private control.

This country possesses 2,115 miles of lines, and 4,945 miles of wire.

Gross receipts for 1866, 322,886 florins. Expenditures, 258,625 florins.

This country now contains 2,515 miles of wire, and eighty-nine telegraphic stations open to the public. The Morse apparatus is the only one employed. Of these eighty-nine stations, fifty-three belong to the government, twenty-one to private telegraph companies, and fifteen to railroads.

The tariff is fixed at ninety cents for a local telegram of twenty words between any points in the kingdom. In 1867 there were transmitted 308,150 telegrams, of which 174,560 were local and 133,590 foreign. All the stations send written despatches in all languages, even in cipher, the only conditions being legible writing in an alphabet transmissible by the Morse apparatus.

Money orders to the amount of 50 rix-dollars can be paid at all post-offices by means of the telegraph. The sum being deposited at the original office, an official telegram is sent to the place designated, ordering payment.

For this service the sender has only to pay the tariff on the official telegram. Messages can be sent from points where there are no telegraphic stations, by sending them by post or by any other mode of transportation to the nearest telegraph station. These telegrams can be paid by a postage-stamp affixed to a designated part of the form. These forms are the same as the printed envelopes, 99and can be procured at all post and telegraph offices. At the top of these forms is printed an extract from the rules for the transmission of despatches. The stamps are detached from the forms and sent to the Department of Finances at the same time that the other reports are forwarded. It is proposed to extend these privileges to the private and railroad telegraph stations.

From 1863 to 1867 the telegraphic intercourse between the Scandinavian countries has increased each year twenty-five per cent.

England was among the first countries in Europe to adopt the electric telegraph; and, next to the United States, is the foremost nation in the world in the extent of her lines, the number of her offices, the cheapness of her rates, and the number of messages annually transmitted. With a population about three quarters as large as that of France, she possesses nearly twice as many telegraph stations, and annually transmits more than twice as many messages.

There are in operation in Europe fifty-five submarine cables, varying in length from three to 1,500 miles, and containing a total length of over 11,000 miles of insulated wire, nearly all of which were laid and are owned by English capitalists. The success of the Atlantic cables, also laid by English companies, is another illustration of what can be accomplished by private enterprise untrammelled by governmental interference; and affords a striking contrast to the fate of the Red Sea cable laid by the British government, and which has proved one of the greatest failures recorded in the annals of submarine telegraphy. This cable, which was to connect Suez and Kurrachee, 3,500 miles in length, was laid in five sections, but never worked a day through its entire length.

For some unexplained reason the British post-office department has been determined to absorb the telegraph system of the United Kingdom, and through the indefatigable efforts of Mr. Scudamore, one of the secretaries of the department, the British government was finally induced to purchase the property of all the telegraph companies in the kingdom, and thus monopolize the business. The price to be paid for the lines is twenty times the net earnings of the companies for the past year.

100That the English government has made a serious mistake in assuming the control of the telegraph we have no question; but its operation will be better in its hands than it would be in that of our government, for the reason that its employees are not removed with every change of administration, as government officials are in the United States.

The French system of telegraphs comprised, in 1866, 20,628 miles of route, 68,687 miles of wire, and 1,209 stations open to the public. The number of messages amounted to 2,842,554. The gross receipts for the year were 7,707,590, and the expenditures were 8,983,460, showing a loss for the year of 1,275,870.

The receipts are divided as follows:—

101These stations are situated in 89 departments, viz.:—

Nine other departments collect annually between 90,000 down to 50,000 francs, the remaining seventy from 49,000 down to 4,653 francs.

Paris (Départment de la Seine) has forty-six stations within the fortifications. The gross receipts amounted, in 1866, to 2,794,768.40 francs, being more than one third of the total receipts of the whole empire.

The receipts in Paris are divided as follows:—

Six other stations collect from 85,000 to 50,000, six from 50,000 to 20,000; the remainder from 19,000 down to 2,123 francs.

The telegraph system of France constitutes a distinct department of the government service under Viscount A. de Vougy as Director-General. Under him are five general inspectors, forming a kind of council, nine division inspectors, seventy-five inspectors, thirty-eight sub-inspectors, and one electrical engineer. There are altogether 3,708 persons on the staff.

The following is a digest of the decrees issued by the French government regulating the use of the telegraph in the empire.

1st. All persons whose identity is established are allowed to correspond by the government electric telegraph.

2d. Private correspondence is always subordinate to the necessity of government service.

3d. Despatches are to be written in ordinary and intelligible language, dated and signed by the sender, and to be given to the officer of the telegraph station, whose duty it is to copy in full the despatch, with the address of the sender.

4th. The director of a station may, on grounds of public order and morality, refuse to transmit a despatch. In case of dispute, reference is to be made, in Paris, to the minister of the interior; in the provinces to the prefect, sub-prefect, or other constituted authority. On the receipt of a despatch, the director of the station may withhold its delivery for like reasons.

5th. Private correspondence may be suspended at any time by the government. The government will not assume any responsibility for errors in the transmission of despatches.

6th. The director of the station must be satisfied as to the identity of the sender’s signature. If the director refuses the transmission of a message, he must state his reason in writing on the despatch. He must indorse on it “political,” “offensive,” “not consistent with public good,” etc.

7th. No line of electric telegraph can be established or employed for the transmission of correspondence except by the government, or on its authority. Any person transmitting, without authority, signals from one place to another, whether by electric telegraph, or in any other way, is liable to imprisonment from one month to a year, and a fine of 1,000 to 10,000 francs, and the government may order the destruction of the apparatus and telegraph employed.

8th. Any one accidentally interrupting the correspondence of the electric telegraph, or injuring in any way the lines or apparatus, is liable to a fine of from 16 to 3,000 francs.

1039th. Any one wilfully causing an interruption, by injuring the lines or apparatus, is punishable by imprisonment from three months to two years, and a fine of 100 to 1,000 francs. Any one who shall menace an operator during periods of insurrectionary movements is subject to a fine of 1,000 to 5,000 francs.

10th. Written statements by telegraph officers to be received as evidence in all complaints.

11th. Reimbursements of charges on despatches, in consequence of delays or errors in transmission, cannot be made except by the administration. When a despatch is withdrawn by the forwarder before transmission, the expense of delivery only can be refunded.

The charge on despatches sent in the night will be double the usual tariff for the day business (the exact opposite of the American rule).

The telegraph lines in France are nearly all owned and managed by the government. The English Submarine Company, however, is a private enterprise, and works from Paris through Calais to the United Kingdom. There is also another company organized under permission of the imperial government, for the extension of the lines into the French colonies of Africa. This association is called the Mediterranean Electric Telegraph Company, and it has constructed its line from Spezzia, in Sardinia, across Corsica, Sardinia, and the Mediterranean, to Bóne, in Africa.

The telegraph in France is regarded as one of the most important arms of the government, and the wires are known as the fingers of the police. The Emperor would no sooner relinquish their control than he would that of his armies. By imperial decree, every operator is created a spy in the service of the government. The wires from every part of France centre in the imperial chamber, and not a message passes throughout the empire which is not examined by government inspectors.

Of the promptness, regularity, or correctness with which French telegraphs are conducted no proof is given by which superior excellence is established. There is nothing in the whole exhibit, or in the actual working of the French telegraphs, which presents any reason for the assumption that governments manage telegraphs better than the people.

It will be observed, by an examination of the above table, that low tariffs are not the only causes of the enlarged use of the telegraph. The annual percentage of increase in messages, as tariffs were gradually reduced, was vastly less than during those years when the rates remained unchanged. During the year of 1851 only 9,014 telegrams were transmitted through the French empire, the tariff averaging $1.60 per message. Five years later, notwithstanding that the average cost per message had been increased to $1.73, the number of messages had increased to 360,299, and in 1858 to 463,973,—more than fifty times the number sent in 1851, or an increase of more than five thousand per cent in eight years, without any reduction in rates. The increase in the number of messages during the next eight years, from 1858 to 1866, was only six hundred per cent, notwithstanding a reduction in the tariff from 7.60 to 2.79 francs.

This same peculiarity of increase, without regard to the cost, is also observable in all other countries, as will be seen by a perusal of the official tables.

The Kingdom of Greece has twelve telegraph stations. All the messages between the Greek and European lines pass through Turkey, and consequently the rate is very high. It is proposed to establish a direct line between Greece and Southern Italy by continuing the Corfu cable to Pauras or Missolonghi, across the Ionian Islands.

In Prussia the number of messages transmitted in 1866, the last year of which we have data, was 1,964,030, and the gross receipts were 1,275,785 thalers, making the average cost per message seventy cents in our currency. Prussia had in that year a population of 17,740,000, and the area of her territory was somewhat less than the New England States and New York. Distance being regarded, the Prussian rates were at that period double our own.

It will be observed that the number of messages transmitted in 1852 was 48,751, and in 1860, 384,335, being an increase in nine years of nearly 800 per cent, although there was no reduction in the average tariff during this period. From 1860 to 1866 there was an increase of only 500 per cent, notwithstanding a reduction in the rates from 2.06 to 0.656 thalers per message.

Prussia was among the earliest of Continental countries to adopt the electric telegraph, and it is still far in advance of most of its neighbors in the practical development of the enterprise; and yet, with a population more than half as great as the United States, she only transmits one sixth as many messages per annum. Were the system left to private enterprise, as in this country, there can be no doubt that this enlightened and thrifty people would greatly extend the system, and in place of the meagre supply of 538 offices she would have upwards of 2,000, and in place of 1,964,030 messages per annum would transmit seven or eight millions.

European Russia, with a population considerably more than twice as great as the United States, contains but 308 offices, or one to 107230,000 of people; and sends annually but 838,653 messages, or one to each 80,723 of her population.

Any person examining the telegraphic map of Russia will be satisfied that the rose-colored descriptions of government telegraphs as illustrated in Russia are overdrawn. The lines radiating from St. Petersburg, and extending to Warsaw, Moscow, Odessa, Sebastopol, Nichni-Novgorod, to the Persian frontier, and to Kiakhta in Siberia,—all important military points,—and with scarcely any connecting interior lines, suggest anything but a desire to afford ample telegraphic facilities to the people.

The situation of Switzerland, in the centre of Europe, and forming the pathway between nations, places her in a peculiar position with reference to the transmission of messages from one country to another. Just as Belgium is situated in relation to intercourse between France and Germany, so Switzerland is placed in regard to telegraphic communication between France and Italy, and Italy and Germany. Switzerland, from many circumstances, is a country in which telegraphic communication is eminently useful. In the first place it is a mountainous country, over which postal communication is necessarily slow, and conducted at all seasons under disadvantages. Besides all this, Switzerland, at certain seasons of the year, is a country full of travellers and tourists from all parts of the world, who find great advantage and convenience in being able to transmit short messages from one place to another, respecting hotel accommodations, baggage arrangements, lost packages, horses, places in the diligence, and general matters relating to their route, as well as business and social messages to their relatives, friends, and agents at home.

Switzerland is in the same position with Belgium in respect to the means of cheap telegraphic communication. The railways of the country all belong to the state; so that every railway is available, without charge, for the passage of wires along the line, and every railway official may be employed for telegraphic service, at the pleasure of the government, for nothing. It is scarcely necessary to point out how different must be the working 108of such a system from that of the United States, where the railways are in the hands of private companies, and with whom terms have to be made for the right of way.

The analogy between the United States and Switzerland seems in every sense imperfect. The telegraph stations in Switzerland only number 252, or less than the number contained within a radius of fifty miles in and around the city of New York.

The total number of despatches transmitted annually in and through Switzerland only amounted in 1866 to 668,916, whilst of these probably more than half were either transit or international. These transit telegrams, of which there are none in our country, involve a most important difference. Belgium and Switzerland can make up the deficiencies which arise from losses on internal communication by the surplus derived from transit telegrams.

In 1852 the average number of messages per day, for all Switzerland, was less than ten. As the system became extended, and the people were educated to its use, the number of messages increased, until in 1866 they exceeded 2,000 per day, approximating, for the entire country, the number sent and received daily by fifteen female operators in one of the rooms of the Western Union Telegraph Company, in the city of New York. Probably one half of these were transit messages passing through Switzerland from stations in France, Belgium, and Italy, leaving about 1,000 messages per day of inland business, which, divided among 252 offices, would leave an average of a little less than four messages per day for each office! This is not a very magnificent result, and is not over encouraging as a model system, which gives to its twenty-five cantons ten offices, with an average revenue from each; for inland business, of only three francs per day! And this, notwithstanding that the government coaches convey, without any extra charge, messages, from towns unsupplied with offices, to the nearest telegraph station.

It will be observed that the increase in the number of messages transmitted in Switzerland was from 2,876 in 1852 to 668,916 in 1866, or more than 230,000 per cent in fourteen years, although the tariff had only been reduced 33 per cent.

Spain, with a population of over 16,000,000 souls, and possessing the advantages of forming the pathway between France and her African possessions, as well as between Portugal and the rest of Europe, transmits a less number of telegrams per annum than the Dominion of Canada, with her 3,000,000 inhabitants. That this insignificant amount of business for so great a country is owing to government control is evident from the following royal decree, issued in conformity with the request of the Minister of State, who says: “The petitions presented to your Majesty from different towns, companies, and private individuals are so numerous and repeated, praying that the advantages of telegraphic communications should be granted to them, that the minister who now humbly addresses your Majesty has lamented more than once that the care of the government has not extended that satisfaction to legitimate wishes so deserving of attention.”

In conformity with what the Minister of State for Home Affairs has proposed to me, for the concession of telegraph lines and stations.

I have decreed as follows:—

The districts, towns, and public establishments, who wish to form new lines or stations, can solicit them from the government, which will inquire into the influence of the establishment of the said lines or stations upon the state telegraphic system.

The necessary cost of the lines and service must be paid by the petitioners, and they must also give sufficient guaranty for the cost of repairs and service.

The petitioners will be obliged to pay to the state the difference that may result between the annual income and the cost of the service.

If at the expiration of five years the expenses exceed the returns, the line or station will be considered as property of the state. No line or station can be formed without the consent of the ministers in council.

Service in all kinds of stations and lines can only be performed by a staff from the government telegraph corps.

All despatches passing through Spain (including the Balearic Islands) and France (including Corsica) will pay the rate of five francs per message of 20 words, no matter from what telegraph office they proceed or to what station they are addressed. Each ten words or part of ten words, beyond 20, will pay half the amount of a single message.

The cost of a single message transmitted from France to Algeria, or vice versa, passing through the Spanish or submarine lines, as also of the messages between Spain and Algeria, transmitted either by land or French cables, will always be eight francs. The messages received or forwarded to Tunis will pay two francs more.

The messages exceeding 20 words will pay an extra charge, in accordance with the rule already established.

No despatch whatever will be delivered out of the radius of the locality wherein the station addressed to is situated, through any other means than by post.

111Telegrams addressed to localities where there is no station will be delivered by the last telegraphic office to the post, which will undertake to convey them to their destination as certified parcels.

When one despatch is addressed to several persons in the same locality, as many telegrams will be charged for as there are individuals to receive it.

The acknowledgment of the receipt of a telegram will be charged for as a new despatch.

Prepayment of despatches can be made, but if no answer is returned, or if it should contain less words than those paid for, no return of any kind will be made. If the answer contains more words than paid for, the station which sends it will charge the difference between the amount paid and the corresponding one to this new despatch.

The claims for delay or irregularity of telegrams will only give occasion for future inquiry into the causes which have produced the irregularity in the service, for the knowledge of the interested party, and to punish the functionary who should prove to be culpable.

Given at Aranjuez, on the 22d May, 1864.

If there is any special benefit accruing to the people of Spain by having the telegraph under government control, we fail to discover it.

Turkey contains twenty-eight telegraph stations, of which twelve are open for night service, nine during the whole of the day, and seven for a part only. Constantinople has two stations open for international correspondence,—one at Stamboul, the other at Pera; the first is principally confined to the transmission of messages for the Ottoman government, and the second for that of ambassadors and private persons. In the case of an interruption of the cable which crosses the Hellespont, the Dardanelles station is removed to Kaled-Bahas, and the despatches are subjected to an additional rate of 90 cents for their conveyance, by boat, from Kaled-Bahas to the Dardanelles. The tariff, upon messages between Paris to any Turkish station, varies from $2.80 to $6.00, according to the distance.

112The construction of lines in Turkey is of the most defective description, and the materials used very inferior. The lines pass over the steepest and most inaccessible hills; and this state of things is made worse by a very inadequate inspection, by men who are both too few in number, wretchedly paid, and generally incompetent. Repairers are compelled to provide and keep a horse out of their pay of 300 piastres ($13.04) per month. The chiefs of stations, and all other employees, are Turks, whose lazy habits and incompetency cannot be wondered at, when the smallness of their pay is considered. Added to these difficulties, the service has to endure very frequent and arbitrary occupation of the wires by the government, interrupting, on many occasions, business of the most pressing nature, for the transmission of some trivial communication, which would lose nothing by a short delay. It may be imagined that as the service is in the hands of government, much depends upon the director-general of the department. Unfortunately, this official is in the unenviable position of holding office on such a poor tenure that it may be said he has a daily apprehension of being turned out, and replaced by one of those numerous intriguers who swarm about the cabinets of the ministers, or work through the more effectual influence of the harem,—the great bane of the country. It has been proposed to the Turkish government to employ a large staff of English inspectors and operators, but the natural jealousy of employing foreigners stands in the way. The Turks insist upon having all messages sent through in Turkish, so that frequently, when retranslated, they bear very slight resemblance to the original.

All the important telegraphic intercourse between Europe and India passes through the Turkish dominions. The effect of the control of the Turkish government over the telegraph is most disastrous, and renders this important connection with India almost worthless.

Repeated efforts have been made by the English telegraph companies, who have so great an interest in the successful operation of these lines, to induce the Turkish government to relinquish its management of them, but thus far without success.

REASONS WHY GOVERNMENT SHOULD NOT ENTER INTO COMPETITION WITH THE PEOPLE IN THE OPERATION OF THE TELEGRAPH. — POLITICAL REASONS WHY GOVERNMENT SHOULD NOT CONTROL THE TELEGRAPH. — THE POST-OFFICE DEPARTMENT NOT COMPETENT TO MANAGE THE TELEGRAPHS. — GOVERNMENT ASSUMES NO RESPONSIBILITY. — THE PROPOSITION TO ERECT COMPETITIVE GOVERNMENTAL TELEGRAPHS UNFOUNDED IN PUBLIC NECESSITY, UNJUST AND DELUSIVE. — THE TELEGRAPH BILL PROPOSED TO BE ENACTED BY CONGRESS WITHOUT NATIONAL EXAMPLE.

The foregoing presentation of facts has shown that there are no sufficient grounds for destroying the value of the investments of the people in existing telegraph companies by governmental competition, the telegraph system of this country being unrivalled in its extent, unequalled in its administration, and unparalleled for the low rates which it has always maintained.

In this country the people have not been accustomed to rely upon the government to provide those things for them which they are able to secure by their own exertions. If this principle is right in regard to one enterprise, it is also in relation to all others; and if infringed upon in the case of the telegraph companies, what pursuit will be safe from governmental interference?

It is undoubtedly true that, were tariffs designed simply to provide a revenue to support the lines, they are capable of reduction, provided present arrangements with railroad companies and others could be maintained, by which the labor of the one is utilized in the service of the other. But for this the country makes no demand. It recognizes the telegraph as a legitimate enterprise for the investment of the capital and labor of its citizens. If false counsels guide its development, public reprobation is ready with its remedy. Its absorption by government would not only be a public calamity, but a breach of the theory and spirit of our institutions, and would soon result in its necessary return to individual control.

One of the most serious objections to the government of the United States assuming the control of the telegraph is the political 114one. In monarchical countries, where the sovereignty is a patrimony of a particular family, and where no change is made except by revolution, everything which tends towards the permanence of the reigning dynasty is looked upon as in the interest of law and order, and for these reasons the absorption of the telegraphs by the government is regarded as a proper and legitimate act, and consistent with the public weal; but in a republic, where the rulers are changed periodically, and where the purity of the elections is of the first importance, the placing of so great a power in the hands of the government would be a public calamity. It might be supposed that rulers could be elected who would not take advantage of the control of the telegraph for selfish purposes, but the temptation to do so would be great, and, even if not yielded to, the suspicions of the people would be constantly aroused, and confidence in its impartial administration would be destroyed. In every election the whole army of postmasters and the machinery of the department is enlisted in the service of the party in power. Shall we give it the telegraph also? What would be the influence on election returns?

The censorship of telegraphic correspondence, always a subject of public disapprobation, is generally exercised by all governments which have its management. In France the control of the telegraph by government is loudly complained of, in consequence of notorious abuses which result from it. Amongst other things, it is well known that the authorities of the Bourse, in Paris, have opportunities of seeing every telegram which reaches or leaves that city on matters relating to the stock exchange operations.

If it should ever appear to be for the public good that this agency, so capable of use as a political power, should pass into the hands of government, it seems proper to await such a demonstration of the self-sustaining capacity of the department under whose control it is proposed to be placed, and such efficiency in that service, as will furnish reasonable assurance of ability for the united control without burden to the state, or lessened convenience to the people. A department which is still confessedly imperfect, which cannot 115even tell the number of letters which it transmits per annum, whose receipts are unequal to the cost of service by over $6,000,000,^[28] which could not secure skilled labor in this new field except by foraging from existing enterprises, and which could not avoid heavy losses at the rates proposed, is not at present a fit recipient of so important a trust.

The Post-Office Department, which already has more duties than it is able to perform, instead of seeking to absorb the telegraphs, had better apply itself to its proper task of developing the correspondence of the country, and endeavor to make itself financially profitable to the nation, instead of a serious burden.

That the post-office undertakes more than it can perform is shown by the delays and irregularities of the service, and the enormous and constantly increasing number of its dead letters, which amounted, in 1867, to over 4,500,000! Were the telegraph companies to deal with the messages committed to them for transmission as the post-office deals with the letters committed to its care, there would be good grounds for governmental interference; but there are very few complaints of non-delivery of telegrams.

It should be borne in mind that electric telegraphy is a science, and its successful operation requires a thorough knowledge of electricity, skill in manipulating the apparatus, and many years of constant training in the practical duties of the business. Many of the employees of this company have been constantly in the service for more than a score of years, and still consider themselves students in this new field of practical science: without wishing to be invidious in our comparisons, we may fairly say that the intelligence and skill which are ample for the duties of filling a bag with letters and despatching them by horse or steam power, would not be competent to the duties of successfully transmitting an important despatch through the invisible agency of the electric current.

Another serious drawback to the value of the telegraph under government management is its failure to make reparation to private individuals for losses caused by the errors or imperfection of its service. In no country where the telegraph exists under government control is there any assumption of accountability for errors or delays in the transmission of messages. In some countries they will not even inquire into the cause of delay or errors, and in others, as in Spain, they will only do so for the purpose of punishing the delinquent employee, but in no case to reimburse the patron of the telegraph for his loss. This failure to assume any responsibility in the matter is of great importance to the public. The amount paid by the Western Union Telegraph Company per annum, on account of these unavoidable errors and delays, is very considerable. The public would be reluctant to leave the correct transmission and delivery of their important messages to the chances of a government system which is notoriously defective, and which would in no case reimburse them for losses occasioned by errors in the transmission of their telegrams, or failure to send them at all. The scheme proposed by Mr. Hubbard, owing to the divided responsibility of the service, would be even worse than the absorption of the lines by the government. Public opinion could not reach the contractor, because he is the servant of the government, and not of the public, and it would fail to influence the Post-Office Department, as it does not itself perform the service, and, because being a department, it is practically irresponsible. How much influence, for example, has public opinion on the collectors of internal revenue or customs, or even the postmasters of this country?

If despatches were left at the post-offices, or dropped in the street boxes, as provided for in Mr. Hubbard’s bill, they would have to take their chances of transmission and delivery, with no recourse, in case of failure, for redress from any source. If a despatch should fail to reach its destination, and complaint was made to the postmaster, he would reply that he was not responsible for its transmission, and would refer the aggrieved person to the telegraph contractor; while the latter would answer that he was a servant of the government, and not responsible to the public for the imperfections of his service. And the result would be, that while the sender of the despatch obtained no redress, he would not have even the satisfaction of knowing which service was at fault, the post-office or the telegraph.

The proposition to erect a competitive governmental telegraph line between Washington and New York, as described in the paper of Mr. Washburne, and the bill designed to authorize it, is a scheme founded upon no public necessity, unjust and delusive.

It is easily demonstrable that the tariff proposed by the bill, if adopted by the government, could only be maintained by large drafts upon the national treasury. It is well known that the active hours of telegraph service are about five, and the ordinary average of transmission not over fifty messages per hour, the general allowance being forty. Thus each of the four wires proposed to be erected under the bill would be capable of earning, at the maximum, five dollars per hour, or a total daily income of one hundred dollars, an amount unequal to the provision of the most ordinary indoor service, to say nothing of the cost of management, repairs of lines, battery power, stationery, and many other necessary expenses. The annual cost to our company of repairs and inspection on this route alone is $20,000.

This company denies the exorbitance of the rates it has adopted, and which it is now actively engaged in modifying so as to secure the fairest correspondence to other branches of labor, and the utmost development of the system. It therefore deprecates as illusory, as well as unjust, the proposal to establish rates lower than those which in Belgium have caused a loss of one third of the tariff on each message sent, and which, under the management of a department now showing an enormous annual deficit, cannot fail to prove perplexing and disastrous. It deprecates also, as utterly illusory, the idea that under such tariffs a product would be realized that would provide for the extension of the government lines to other regions. This delusion, which makes it possible for an intelligent public man to predicate so absurd a result, has for a basis that which is ever used to allure men into schemes of promised wealth. The insane speculation which, thirty years ago, ruined tens of thousands of our people, by counting the leaves of the Morus multicaulis as the products of veritable mulberry-trees, on which delighted caterpillars would feed, and enrich their owners with untold webs 118of native silk, was not more illusory than that which to-day, by showing the possibilities of each hour by day and night, crams the wires with possible messages which will never be sent, and estimates balances which cannot be earned.

This scheme would be unjust to government, by undermining and perilling a business which pays $300,000 per annum to its revenues, besides casting upon a nation, great because of the energy which has characterized its private enterprises, the odium of initiating competition with one of the most useful products of the national brain, before time has been given to complete the design of those who direct it, and to fully illustrate its capacity.

The policy and practice of the Western Union Telegraph Company favor a reduction of the rates on despatches as rapidly as the necessary expenses of the service will admit; and if the government will abolish its tax on the receipts for transmitting telegrams, this company will immediately lower its rates until the reduction upon the gross amount of business done shall be twice as much as the tax remitted.

This would lessen the rates for telegraphing nearly ten per cent, and would be a far better plan for furnishing cheaper telegraphic facilities to the people than the construction and operation of government lines at the expense of the national treasury.

It must be borne in mind that the remunerativeness of telegraph lines depends largely upon the revenues of a few important cities, without which the enterprise would not have an income sufficient to support it. To take away the receipts of New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, with Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and a few others of like importance, would make it impossible for any company to maintain itself, far less to meet the constant demand of an enlarging population and new settlements for the extension of its lines. This is not peculiar to America. In Great Britain, where there are 2,151 stations, seventy-six per cent of the entire receipts are received at 18 stations, fifteen per cent at 81 stations, and only nine per cent at the residue. Even of the seventy-six per cent received at the 18 stations, one half of that whole percentage was received in London, and one quarter from two other cities.

119In France, three departments collect 4,178,332, out of a total of 7,707,590 francs per annum; and of this amount, Paris (Départment de la Seine) collects 2,794,768.40 francs, being more than one third of the total receipts of the whole empire.

The Western Union Telegraph Company’s revenues come to it in a similar manner. From its 3,331 offices it derives its receipts as follows:—

Of these 136 offices, a large proportion of their receipts is derived from twelve chief cities, of which four are on the route proposed by this bill.

Government, by thus operating lines of telegraph over the choicest and most productive route, at rates below the cost of the service, and which could only be maintained by large drafts upon the national treasury, would assume an attitude towards private telegraph enterprises of the most unjust and unexampled hostility.

Such a partial experiment as that proposed by Mr. Washburne, or even by Mr. Hubbard, would destroy the unitary character of the service which the Western Union Telegraph Company has done so much to secure, and would be a most decidedly reactionary measure.

Mr. Hubbard’s bill to incorporate the United States Postal Telegraph Company, and to establish a postal-telegraph system, provides for the establishment of telegraph lines to all cities and villages of five thousand inhabitants and over in the United States. Were this scheme to be adopted, and the government thus enter into a partnership with the new company in the telegraph business, in accordance with the terms of this bill, what is to become of the smaller towns? According to the census of 1860 there are only three hundred and thirteen cities and villages in the United States having the five thousand inhabitants necessary to entitle them to an office under this postal system. Who, then, is to maintain telegraphic facilities at the remaining three thousand eight hundred and thirteen small towns now having offices?

Private companies, if driven out of the field by the establishment of this semi-government competing line, could not do it, and, as this scheme makes no provision for them, they must necessarily be deprived of the facilities they now enjoy. Under this bill Arkansas, 120Florida, and Oregon would not be entitled to an office; Minnesota, Mississippi, and South Carolina to but one; North Carolina, Texas, and Vermont to but two each; Delaware and Tennessee to but three; Connecticut, Georgia, Kentucky, and Michigan to but four; and Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Missouri, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Virginia, and Wisconsin would be entitled to less than ten each, while those provided for the whole United States would be less in number than the branch offices furnished for the convenience of the public by the Western Union Telegraph Company at the hotels, docks, piers, and other places in the large towns alone.^[29]

The proposal presented to Congress is one which the governments of Europe, from which it professes to draw its inspiration, have never entertained. No government there has ever yet attempted to engage in any public work by the destruction of the property of its people, except after just compensation. The recent example of Great Britain in acquiring the British lines of telegraph is eminently illustrative of this national justice. Neither cavilling with the nature or condition of their structure, cheapening the value of their property, nor defaming the officers of any company, the British Parliament doubles the valuation of its owners, and pays a price therefor which satisfies the most exacting. In striking contrast to this is the enterprise proposed to the American Congress by the Washburne bill, which begins by attacking the integrity of the official management of the existing system, depreciating the value of its property, and proposing the competitive use of a grand invention which it refused to purchase, and now proposes, without consideration, to possess. In such a project there is no national example which would give it sanction or respectability, even though, in times of great national peril, and amid the necessities of despotic governments, monarchs have at times seized and made their own the profitable traffic and pursuits of the people.

APPENDIX. — THE TELEGRAPH AND THE GOVERNMENT. [30] — POSTAL TELEGRAPH.—EXTENSION OF THE INTERFERENCE THEORY. [31] — TELEGRAPHING BY GOVERNMENT. [32]

The building of telegraph lines in the United States, from the date of their inauguration down to the present time, has been overdone. There are now too many wires for the business, at the prices that are charged; consequently there are few, if any, lines that pay a fair interest on the cost of their construction. So great is the cost of maintaining and operating lines, too, that it is a question whether sufficient business could be done, as it is conducted at very low rates, to pay expenses. In business hours, for example, there is a great rush of messages,—say from 9 A. M. to 3 P. M.—that is, between commercial centres. After 3 o’clock there is comparatively little business, except what is furnished by the newspapers. Consequently, in the after part of the day, and during the night, many wires and operators are idle. In order to make business for this portion of the twenty-four hours, the telegraph companies adopted a low schedule of rates for night messages, but this has been attended with poor success. The lines are mainly used, it is found, by business men and newspapers. Business messages require immediate delivery, and are not valuable except when transmitted and delivered during business hours. Hence the reduced rates for night messages has not created much new business. Neither would low rates for day messages create new business, unless the despatches could be promptly forwarded and delivered. Low rates for day messages, prompt delivery being insured, would undoubtedly largely increase the business, but this would require more wires and more men. The question then is, would the income at low rates be sufficient to pay for the increased expenditures? Telegraph managers have decided this question in the negative. There is, it must be borne in mind, a limit to the capacity of telegraph wires for conveying news. Herein this system differs from the postal system. There is, practically, no limit to the capacity of the railroad companies for carrying the mails, and, of course, the profits of the postal department are in proportion to the amount of business they transact. These preliminary remarks are made in order that the public may the better understand the proposition which has been made, and is being agitated, looking to the purchase of the telegraph lines by the government, and their operation in connection with the postal system. The pretext is, that the government could afford to reduce the tariff to a low point, say one cent per word for five hundred miles or less, and two cents for over five hundred up to one thousand, &c. This would make the tariff between Cincinnati and New York three cents, whereas it is now ten cents, for private messages. This is the pretext, 124but the real secret of the movement is this. There are two parties who favor the proposition. One of these has been quietly buying up telegraph stock at thirty or forty cents on the dollar. They propose to have Congress pass a law authorizing the President to appoint three commissioners to value the telegraph lines of the United States and providing for their purchase at such valuation. Here is a fine chance for speculation. It would afford an admirable opening for the gentlemen who practise in the lobby. The second party favoring the purchase is composed of members of Congress who are anxious to have the franking privilege extended to the telegraph lines. What a splendid thing it would be if members of Congress could use the telegraph lines free, as they use the mails. But the people would have to pay for the free business on the telegraph lines,—pay dearly, too, as they pay for the uses and abuses of the postal franking privilege. Besides, the government, in connection with the postal system, is mainly conspicuous for its mismanagement. It does not compete successfully with private enterprise, and never can so long as the abominable system of filling and vacating offices is continued. The telegraph business is decidedly complicated. It requires skilful men to operate it. How would it be if telegraph offices were to be filled as post-offices and revenue offices are filled? We need not stop to answer this question. Besides, secrecy is an important feature of the telegraph business. It is not as carefully enforced as it should be; but what a political machine the telegraph would become if partisan politicians should get hold of it! Imagine the telegraph during an exciting presidential campaign, with one party controlling the wires and reading all the private despatches that passed over the lines! There would be no secrecy about it; neither would it be reliable, and in the end it would cost the people more than those using it would save. Not one man in twenty would use the telegraph if rates were even lower than is proposed; and consequently nineteen men would be taxed for the benefit of one. The whole thing would be a tax upon the people, without compensating advantages. If private enterprise, with sharp competition, cannot carry messages between New York and Cincinnati, at ten cents per word, and make money, the government could not do it at three cents, or at any price up to ten. Nothing more certain than that. Besides, the corruption connected with office-holding and office-getting, in this country, is sufficient to cause the people to shudder at the mere proposition to add fifty thousand offices to the already enormous federal patronage. The government is staggering now under the tremendous load of corruption consequent upon the federal patronage and the mode of distributing it, and the people must soon choose between a reform in this or a revolution. Let it be first demonstrated, therefore, that the government can successfully, honestly, and economically manage the business intrusted to it before it undertakes to assume exclusive control of other branches of private enterprise. But, as already stated, the present movement is merely a scheme to saddle upon the government the non-paying telegraph lines of the United States, at three or four times their value. The result would be amazing corruption in the management of the lines, the violation of private confidence for personal or political purposes, and a cost to the people for telegraphing greater than is now borne by those who use the wires.

We beg the advocates of the Postal Telegraph scheme not to stop. The justification of what they propose to do, if in accordance with their theories of government, will cover many other things necessary to be done. After having taken possession of the telegraph lines, and increased the number of officers necessary to insure the harmonious working of their plan, let them turn their attention to the Express business of the country, in which there is room for great reform. This, we are told, is practically a monopoly, by the greed of which the transmission of merchandise and valuables from one part of the country to another is often slow, and always expensive. If it is the province of the government to take charge of the telegraphic correspondence of the people, surely there is no abuse of authority in undertaking to carry, and in making a monopoly of carrying, their express packages; and the reasons which commend this telegraph scheme cover and justify the extension of governmental interference with the small freight that the express lines usually convey. We state these reasons seriatim, just as the advocates of governmental telegraphing rehearse them. They are, first, cheapness; second, certainty; third, celerity; fourth, promotion of intercourse and traffic between different sections of the country; and consequently, fifth, the wider dissemination of intelligence. If these are sufficient,—and no promoter of the telegraph scheme can doubt that they are,—they admit of still wider application. Most of the telegraphic correspondence of the country is of a business character, and so most of the service rendered by the express is of the same sort. The telegraph and the express are the adjuncts of our great commercial transactions by which people are fed, warmed, clothed, and supplied with the implements and raw material of labor. There is, then, no reason why the railroads, which are only larger instruments of the same kind, should be omitted in the list of things that the government may manage and monopolize. It is surely of as much moment that a train-load of flour or butter should be carried with cheapness, certainty, and celerity from Chicago to New York, as that the despatch announcing its shipment or arrival should be sent in the same way; and if we cannot manage the latter to our satisfaction, how shall we expect to manage the former? As it will never do to have a competitor in this carrying trade, the government must also take possession of all the canals. Of course these recommendations will, if adopted, largely increase the salaried officers of the country, and make our political contests tenfold more corrupt, acrimonious, and dangerous than now; but as the Pennsylvania editor said about protection—“If protection is a good thing, we cannot have too much of it!”—so say we of officials, the more the better.

But we see still larger fields that the government may occupy, this interference theory being established as the rule of its relation to the people. As the growing of wheat and the production of meats, to supply 126the prime necessity of our nature for food, are of far more importance than the correspondence which occurs in getting the wheat and beef to the consumer or than the method of their transit; as the people must die if they have nothing to eat; as farming, as now done, is a careless, haphazard business, pursued without the aid of adequate machinery or the proper division of labor; as the cost of farm produce might, by the universal adoption of improved methods, be greatly cheapened, thus promoting the increase of the race, and adding immensely to the general happiness, the government ought, first of all, to take the agriculture of the country into its keeping. Then how easy, if it should be imposed upon by the men who make agricultural implements, to turn manufacturer at some hundred convenient places and make all the tools it might need. Just think of the immense advantage of being able to go to a government warehouse and get a barrel of flour for half what it now costs, or of stepping into government shambles from which, of course, the people will be fed, and getting a rib-roast or tenderloin steak at a figure that would make our city butchers ashamed. Of course, every farmer would be a government officer, sure of his pay, and without the most powerful stimulus to exertion; but if each man who handles a letter or sends or delivers a despatch is to have the livery of public service on his back, why not? Finally, as food is useless unless cooked, we see the necessity—still reasoning on premises which the telegraph men furnish—of having the cooking and management of the kitchens of the country turned over to such officers as the government shall select. For doing this, just as soon as the plan of governmental telegraphing is put into operation, the reasons will be entirely conclusive. What, we ask, can be of more importance than that our food should be of good quality, healthfully prepared, quickly and neatly served, and peacefully eaten. Put the National Telegraph by the side of the National Dinner, and see how it is dwarfed by the comparison. Contrast the annoyance of a telegram overcharged, missent, or delayed, with the unutterable horrors of indigestion. Look at our hotels, restaurants, and private houses, and see how cruelly the people suffer; then think how perfect, how quick, and how cheap the relief that the government might extend. We well know that, had government cooking always been the rule of the nation, the great rebellion would not have occurred. The war was the result of the bad food and worse kitchens of our brethren of the South. It had its origin in hot bread and hog, which ruined the stomachs, perverted the morals, and inflamed the worst passions of the South. As we have already sacrificed half a million of lives, and ten thousand millions of treasure to repair the consequences of government carelessness in suffering national cookshops to remain unestablished, we cannot make too much haste in opening them now.

But we have adduced examples enough to show the absurd conclusions to which the reasoning of these telegraphic schemers logically leads. Our government, good as it is, has objectionable features enough now. The disparities in the condition of the people are due more to the operation of unjust law than to differences in natural gifts; and the great source of mischief is in the usurpation by government of functions it ought never to exercise. We do most assuredly need reform; but we 127shall not find it in enlarging the sphere within which the government may act, nor in curtailing or circumscribing the liberty of the individual. Let us go in the other direction; and instead of making the paternal rule of Continental monarchies the object of imitation, let us extend the application of the American idea. Instead of clothing government with new powers, let us take from what it has. Instead of creating an army of new officers, let us dismiss half we have got. Instead of increasing the patronage of the executive and the causes of political contention, let us give greater simplicity to our system and greater security to the citizen and the state. Instead of training the people more and more to rely upon the government to supply their business, social, and educational wants, let us give greater scope to their individuality, so that they may more and more rely upon themselves. Our government differs from all other governments in the world in nothing so much as in its capacity of letting the people alone in their houses, their business, their religion, and their pleasure. Our people differ from all other peoples in nothing so much as in the fact that, comparatively, they are let alone. All that the country is, it owes to the partial freedom of its citizens to go where they please, do what they please, and think and speak their own thoughts; which freedom, by cultivating strength, self-reliance, enterprise, intelligence, and patriotism, has wrought the work we see before us. This freedom is to be still more extended over ground which inherited abuses now occupy, and the consequences will astonish the world!

No, no! Our government is not a wet-nurse for all the schemes which the ingenuity of men may invent, or which incomplete and half-seen considerations of public convenience may recommend. It is primarily an organization for the protection of person and property, and the punishment of crime. And to keep it within its sphere, and to disassociate it, as far as possible, from the usual business of the citizen, is to insure its life. Leave to the people all that individual or corporate effort may do, and they will do it well. Leave to the government the preservation of order and the punishment of crime, and the governed will have no reason to complain.

We use the telegraph very extensively and pay it a good deal of money; so that there are few whose personal advantage from cheapening its use would be greater than our own; yet we do not regard with favor any of the bills looking to the establishment of a Government Telegraph. Here are some of our reasons:—

I. The prevalent tendency in our day is toward a further restriction rather than an enlargement of the sphere of government. We have (for instance) a good many public markets in this city, which are, for the most part, public nuisances. Had the city left this whole business of purveying free to private enterprise, only overseeing it in the interest of public health, few can doubt that our supply of food would have been better and cheaper than it is. The same is the case with many other attempts 128to serve or save the citizen through the agency of government. Most certainly, we would not limit the sphere of government to the mere prevention of breaking heads and picking pockets; but we should ponder long before enlarging it.

II. A Government Telegraph is usually proposed as an adjunct of the post-office. Our government already claims and enforces a monopoly of the business of carrying letters, charges its own prices, collects some $15,000,000 a year from the people for letter-carrying, and then loses some $6,000,000 a year by the business. We submit that it should show a better balance-sheet on this account before extending its sphere of operations.

III. We never owned any telegraph stock, and expect to own none; we are a daily and heavy customer to telegraphs, and expect to live and die such. We presume that a Government Telegraph would somewhat cheapen the cost of messages; but the money invested in establishing it would never be returned to the treasury. The clamor for a reduction of charges (as now with letters) would steadily overbear any hope of profit. Can it be right, we ask, to tax the whole people for the benefit of that small minority who send messages by telegraph? Would it not be better to start government establishments for potato-growing on a gigantic scale, so as to supply the poor cheaply with wholesome and nourishing food? Where one wants cheap messages, many would be benefited by having a sure and ample supply of cheap potatoes.

IV. Government, in this and other free countries, is and must be largely an affair of party. The government of this country has been, is, and must be, to a great extent, the rule of the dominant party. Would it be well to have the telegraph under the absolute control of either party in an excited Presidential election? Could the outs safely use it? Could the people implicitly trust it? Remember how the mails were rifled under Jackson, with the tacit approval of Postmaster-General Kendall, on the assumption that it was right to take and burn Abolition documents if circulated in Slave States. Consider General Jackson’s and Governor Marcy’s official recommendations that the circulation of such documents be prohibited by law. We should not like to have the telegraph controlled, throughout the ensuing Presidential canvasses, by our political adversaries, nor yet by our political friends.

V. The government is heavily in debt, and its finances are not in good condition; yet it is bored and importuned for subsidies on this side and on that,—all of them on the pretence of public advantage, many of them with just grounds for such assumption. If the Northern and Southern Pacific Railroads could both be built within the next five years, we believe they would add five hundred millions of dollars to our national wealth within the twenty years succeeding. We demur to their present construction by government aid, simply that the state of our finances forbids it. But if our government is able to build telegraphs where they are not wanted, why not railroads where they are the very first necessity of settlement and civilization?

We might go on for an hour longer, but let the above suffice for the present. We think the government should let the telegraph business alone.