GOPY.
586
The China and Japan Telephone Company, limited.
The Honourable
Sir,
1. Sercombe Smith,
Acting Colonial Secretary,
Hongkong.
Hongkong, 4th June, 1891,
I have the honour to acknowledge receipt of your letter of the 25th ulto, giving cover to a draft of a Bill entitled "An Ordinance for Authorising the Construction of a Tramway within the Colony of Hongkong" and requesting me to furnish you with any observations that may occur to me.
The Exchange controlled by this Company is worked on what is known as the Single Line System, using earth connections, and this system has been found to be perfectly successful and to meet the requirements of Hongkong, the lines being too short for any appreciable induction to take place, and they are readily restored after typhoons.
I gather from the copy of the Ordinance that it is proposed to use the Single Trolley System, if so we can only continue our business by doubling the number of wires in the streets and roads of the Colony, at great expense, to provide each Subscriber with two wires, instead of one as at present. This multiplication of wires will give rise to much more serious stoppages by typhoons than hitherto; there will also be a heavy expenditure in providing entirely new switch-boards, fuse-boards and other apparatus incidental to metallic circuit working; and the cost of maintaining the new system will, roughly speaking, be twice as great as at present.
I venture to suggest that at a comparatively small additional cost the Double Trolley System could be installed, this system is in every way suited to the requirements of the Colony and has been for many years, and is still successfully in use in Cincinnati and other American Cities, and would not interfere in the least with telephone or telegraph wires, or with gas or water pipes, or that we be compensated for the expenditure forced upon us by the Single Trolley System, in a manner which may meet with the approval of the Directors of this Company at 14, Austin Friars, London.
I have etc,
(Signed) W. Stuart Harrison,
Manager.