UbKARY OP THE UNIVERSITY of ILUHOIS. .American Telegraph Compared with the British Government Teleg ra ph :=©::©s=©3:®5i learning anb l^abar. LIBRARY University of Illinois. CLASS. BOOK. CQU>a VOLUME. ^IjUdrvy A Accession No. American Telegraph Compared with the British Government Telegraph Ipress of (Seo. i£. /IDarsball & Co. 144=146 /Ifeonroe Street, Chicago 37 Ap ’02 33t c-to L 6 Co The following information is from an interview had with Gol. R. C. Clowry, Vice-President and General Superintendent of the Western Union Tele- graph Company, and Chairman of the Committee on Electricity of the World’s Fair, by a representative of the Chicago Inter Ocean, as published by that paper in its issue of December 2, 1893 : “ Col. Clowry, did you read the telegraphic dis- patches recently published in which Mr. Preece, the Chief Engineer of the British Telegraphs, is quoted as saying that there was only one branch of electrical industry in which the English compared favorably with their American cousins, that being telegraphy, in which they were certainly ahead?” “Yes, I read the article you mention.” “ I suppose you also read the interview with Mr. Preece, published in the New York Sun last August.” “Yes, I read that also.” “What is there to be said in reply to those state- ments of Mr. Preece?” “Well, a good deal can be said in reference to the matter. In the interview with Mr. Preece, as reported in the Sun, he states that the ‘telegraph ‘ facilities in England are greater than they are here, ‘ for we go to every town and every village, irre- ‘ spective of the fact that they pay or do not pay, ‘ while in the States the places that pay appear to me ‘ to be the only ones that receive the attention of the ‘telegraph companies.’ In reply to that statement I quote from the annual report of the British Post- master General, who says : 4 The department has 4 ceased to require the repayment of the capital out- * lay for telegraph extensions made under guarantee, 1 and the guarantee is now required to cover only the 4 expense of working and maintenance. By act of 4 Parliament the rural sanitary authorities are em- 4 powered to undertake guarantees for telegraph 4 offices at places within their districts and to defray 4 the cost out of the rates. As the result of this con- 4 cession there has been a considerable extension of 4 the telegraph system in the rural districts/ It will be seen by this that the telegraph system of Great Britain is not extended to small towns except under a guaranty to cover the working and \maintenance. The statement of the Postmaster General is, there- fore, a direct contradiction of that of Mr. Preece.” 44 Under the Western Union system, the telegraph extends to every railway station, great and small, in the United States, without expense to the public, and we are only too glad to extend our lines to other towns not connected with railroads, where, as in Great Britain, the expense of working and main- tenance is guaranteed. Notwithstanding the state- ment of Mr. Preece that the telegraph in England extends to every town and village, it is a fact that there are telegraph offices established at less than one-third of the post-offices. 44 1 notice, also, that when asked by the Sun re- porter if he considered government telegraphs a success in England, Mr. Preece said, ‘Yes they are 'undoubtedly a success in England.’ On the other hand, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, in laying before the House of Commons last April the annual budget, said in his speech thereupon, ‘ that ‘ the operations of the British government telegraphs ‘for the fiscal year showed a “ bad revenue,” and an ‘ excess of actual working expenses over receipts of ‘ ,£l 1 5>000 ($560,000) to say nothing of the interest on ‘the ,£10,000,000 ($50,000,000) of bonds issued for ‘their acquisition. He also said that since the ‘ purchase of the telegraph lines by the government, ‘the loss on that transaction, including the moderate ‘ interest the lines ought to have paid upon their cost, ‘ had been ,£4,500,000 (about $22,000,000) which result ‘ was founded upon a miscalculation, and, for anything 1 that can be seen to the contrary it is a revenue which ‘ is going from bad to worse and not likely to improve.’ “According to these figures the British government has operated the telegraph system for about twenty- two years at a loss of about $1,000,000 a year. The telegraph is used mostly by bankers, merchants, manufacturers, brokers and speculators, so that, according to the English plan, a large majority of the people who never use the telegraph have to make up the yearly deficit of $1,000,000 in order to afford the parties first named low rates on their messages. But, while for short distances the word rates in England are lower than they are here, still, owing to the different methods in vogue in the two countries for counting the number of words in a message (in Great Britain the words in the address and signature are counted, while we do not count them), the cost to the sender on an average message is about the same. The long distance rates on the continent, and between England and the continent are much higher than those for similar distances in the United States.” “ Regarding the statement in the Sun article that ‘Mr. Preece’s department is the Western Union and ‘American Bell Telephone Companies rolled up into ‘ one, and half a dozen sub-marine cable companies ‘thrown in/ etc., 1 will merely call attention to the fact that the British telegraph system comprises but about 30,000 miles of line, 190,000 miles of wire, and 8.000 offices, extending over an area of about 120,000 square miles ; while the Western Union Telegraph system alone comprises about 190,000 miles of line, 750.000 miles of wire, 8,500 miles of ocean sub- marine cables, and 22,000 offices, extending through- out an area of more than 3,000,000 square miles, being, therefore, about four times as great as the British government telegraph system, and extending over an area twenty-four times as large. The capital account of the cost to the British government of its telegraph system is $50,000,000. If the Western Union Telegraph Company’s capital account was in proportion to its property in the same ratio it would be over $200,000,000.” “ Mr. Preece in his interview says that : ‘In Eng- ‘ land the telegraphs belong to the people ; for every ‘ Englishman has the right to complain of any delay ‘ or anything wrong, not only through the press, but ‘ in the Houses of Parliament, and every complaint of ‘ every kind received from any member of the public ‘ receives as much attention as though it came ‘through the Houses of Parliament.’” “ Now, an examination into the conditions undei^ which the telegraphic business is transacted in the two countries will show that in the United States there is sharp competition, two competing companies having always been in the field — sometimes more; and that our business men fully appreciate the value of competition as an incentive to prompt and effcient service, knowing that if one company does not give , satisfaction they can transfer their patronage to J another. Again, as the telegraph system in America is essentially under the control of the people (being amenable under the law to every inhabitant of the country), should errors or unnecessary delays occur in the transmission of messages the public has redress through the courts, and can, and does recover dam- ages, and it is a crime under the law for employes of % 1 telegraph companies to divulge or make improper use of the contents of messages.” “On the other hand, where the government has a monopoly of the telegraph business, as is the case in England and on the continent, there is no compe-l tition and no redress whatever for delay or error in/ the transmission of messages over and above the refunding of the actual tolls paid upon the message, which may possibly be secured after a correspond- ence more or less prolonged, and the governments, having direct control of the telegraphs, exercise over the contents of all messages transmitted an espion- age which would not be tolerated by the people of the United States. Now, I wish to call attention to the fact that the employes of the competing tele- graph companies of the United States are, in the main, persons who have been in the business all their lives, the tenure of their positions depending upon their efficiency. But, if the telegraph business were controlled by the government, political loyalty to the party in power would be more apt to be regarded as the gauge of qualification than ability to perform the duties of the position.” “Fourteen years ago Mr. Preece first visited this country, and at that time I understood him to say that there was not an operator in Europe who read by sound, although the sound-reading system had been in vogue in this country for upward of thirty years. On his return to England he stated in a paper read before a society of which he was a member that England was twenty years behind the United States in its telegraphic development, and for this he was severely criticised by some of the English papers. About eight years later Mr. Preece again visited this country and stated that they were making con- siderable progress in the direction of introducing the American, or Morse sound-reading system. He again visited the United States this year and informed me that it would be very difficult to dis- tinguish an English from a Western Union tele- graph office, they were so much alike, and that the American, Morse, or sound-reading system was in general use in England. It appears, therefore, that Mr. Preece has introduced the American system in his own country, and in this he has shown great wisdom, as it is, and always has been, very much superior to the European system. If it had not been for Mr. Preece’s visits to the United States, and his ability to adopt our system and improvements, I am afraid that the English would still be dragging along with the old-fashioned dial needle instruments, as they are singulary averse to what they call ‘American ovations.’ ” /\ “ During the past summer I have met and con- versed with representative electricians from nearly all parts of the world, who came here to visit the exposition. Each of them has inspected the West- ern Union office and system in Chicago, and in every case has stated distinctly that the progress of tele- graphy in the United States was very far in advance of what it was in Europey Our instruments, switch- boards, etc., appear to be a revelation to most of them. Then again, the United States is the only country in which telegraph lines are operated direct from dynamo current. In Europe they still adhere to the old battery system (in some cases using storage batteries), and the gentlemen who visited me were surprised to see the great advance we have made in this direction. The only European instru- ments which we have adopted in this country are the English Wheatstone, which we work to advantage on some of our long circuits ; while in England they are gradually substituting our Morse system, includ- ing the duplex, quadruplex, etc., for their old machinery. In fact, an electric manufacturing company of Chicago is shipping telegraphic instru- ments to nearly all parts of Europe. It appears to me, therefore, that the United States are very much in advance of all European countries in all branches of electrical industries, the telegraph and telephone included, and, in fact, in all mechanical industries, very nearly all of the great inventions having been made by Americans. ” “ Have you anything to say in reference to the ^lectrical exhibit at the World’s Fair?” “The electrical exhibit was a very fine one; but no satisfactory exhibit of electrical industries in the United States could be given within the confines of any single building. To appreciate the extent of such industries one should travel all over the country and see the thousands of cities and towns which are lighted by electricity and furnished with trans- portation for the people by means of electric street railways, running at a rate of speed varying from five to twenty-five miles an hour. This list which I hand you will give you some figures from which you can form an idea of the extent of exhibits from the different countries, as they appeared in the Electricity Building at the World’s Fair.” The list shows the following figures : Square feet. United States occupied 141,397 Germany occupied 24,172 France occupied 20,338 Great Britain occupied 5,031 Japan occupied 1,103 Austria occupied 1,000 Italy occupied 1,000 Other countries, less than (each) 1,000 In connection with the facts and figures set forth in the foregoing interview, the following additional statement may be of interest : The deficit (including interest on purchase money) in the British telegraph system has been as follows for the periods mentioned : For the fiscal year ending : March 31, 1893 ,£465,570 (over $2,250,000) t March 31, 1894 £477,327 (over $2,310,000) / March 31, 1895 £452,803 (over $2,191,000) Or an average of £‘465,233 (over $2, 251, 000) for each of the three years named. ) ~ ■«£- ■ ■ "V -• •