THE UNITED STATES.

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.

PROPORTION OF TELEGRAMS TO LETTERS.

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 for 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:—

EARLY HISTORY OF THE TELEGRAPH IN AMERICA.

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, and, 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.

EVILS ARISING FROM SEPARATE ORGANIZATIONS.

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.

In 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.

TELEGRAPH COMPANIES IN THE UNITED STATES.

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 companies, 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.

DOMINION OF CANADA.

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.

TABLE C.

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.

BELGIUM.

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 its 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.

TABLE D.

TABLE F.

TABLE H.

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.

BELGIUM.

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.

UNITED STATES.

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.

BAVARIA.

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.

DENMARK.

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, and 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.

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.

That 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.