Enclosure 505043
Resolutions
Recl
This Chamber having been asked to give its support to the effort, now being made by Chamber of Commerce in India and other Eastern countries to secure a reduction in the cost of telegrams between the East and Great Britain, is heartily in sympathy with the movement, and hereby records the following resolutions :-
1.- That the rate from India to Great Britain, which is now 4s. per word, is excessive and admits of substantial reduction.
2.- That the Chamber is of opinion that a reduction of the tariff would be followed by a sensible increase in the traffic, and that, if there is hesitation on this account, the Government should, as was done in the case of the Australian Colonies, give the Telegraph Co. a limited guarantee against loss of revenue.
3.- That the principle of cheap telegrams should follow the concession of a penny post, as it is certain to prove a powerful factor in promoting trade with the Mother Country, and that, so soon as the time seems ripe, an all British line should be constructed between the United Kingdom and its great colonies and dependencies either by laying a cable the whole distance, touching only at British ports, or by completion of the existing land lines.