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339
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
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C.O. 885
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ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-
COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
23 November 1896.]
Chairman-continued.
Mr. WARD.
the rate at 2s. the word those shares were not at par, or only about par; I do not think they were any higher than they are at the present time.
1595. Do you menu that the effect of bringing down the rate from 28. to la, a word was that the amount of words coming in business to the various Transatlantic lines has very largely in- creased ?—I think that the lowering of the rate from 2s. to 18, has caused the business to increase, and the other factor is, of course, the natural increase of commerce itself, and the increasing necessity of the public to telegraph.
1596. What I want to get at is whether the halving the rate gave an impulse such as there was no sign of previously --I should only judge if you will look at it in this
way.
There were three companies, the present pool companies," there were four companies in the field when we came in. After we came in and the matter was settled between us, the rate was fixed at 18., which reduced it to one-half, and instead of four there were five companies, yet the stock of the Anglo-American Com- pany, which may be considered the main English company, is equal to-day to what it was at the time the rate was 2. a word. I think that should prove pretty well that there must be a good deal more words. And mind you, the Commercial Cable Company is able to hold its own," and pay a dividend as well. I think that must be sufficient proof that there has been an expansion in the business.
1597. You are of opinion that that expansion would not have occurred in the same degree if the rate had remained the same?—I do not think so. Of course, there would have been some expansion the natural development of trade would have caused some expansion, but I ques- tion if the expansion would have been so great.
:
1598. The present rate per word to Australia is 4s. 9. It has been suggested to propose a rate, if this Pacific cable were made, of 3s. a word. In your opinion, drawn from general experience, would such a lowering from 43. 9d. to 3s. for a through word from London to Australia have much effect on the existing traffic?—It would have a tendency to increase the traffic, but I could not judge what effect it would have; that is to say, I could not judge
a lower tariff positively of the effect. Certainly always has a tendency to increase the traffic up to a certain point.
1599. But I suppose you cannot expect the same result from a lowering of rate in a com- paratively small population to what the effect would be when dealing with a very much larger population?-Exactly. That is to say, in Great Britain and the United States-it is not exactly a parallel to judge_by.
1600. You are, I presume, in very close touch with banks, merchants, and press agents accus- tomed to frequent telegraphing?—Yes; we get a good deal of business from them.
1601. Are
you
in any position, from the light of your experience, to form an idea as to the pro- portion of traffic which such customers would give to a specific line, assuming that the Eastern line to Australia lowered its rates to those of
Chairman-continued.
[Continued.
the new line-No, I could not tell you. I have no idea what could be done between here and Australia.
1602. Would the general tendency of such customers be to send their custom to the old line, rates being equal ?-1 do not know about that. It seems to me, the rates being equal, that it would be a matter of the superiority of the service, and the manner in which the business was pushed, looked after, that would have & great deal to do with it.
1603. What do customers look to chiefly, besides the tariff?-A speedy and accurate service.
1604. To a speedy and accurate service?— Yes.
1605. And the fewer repeating stations. I suppose, the quicker and the more accurate? Necessarily, every repeating station is a risk of
error.
1606. On the other hand, a long section of cable is pretty certain to be a slow section — Well, yes; but I would rather have a long sec- tion with a somewhat slower speed than have
repeating station in.
EL
and
1607. You would ?—Oh, yes.
have been
1608. Have you had any experience of work- ing the lines, the ownership and adminis- tration of which lay with the government,
not with a company?—| associated with government lines, but not in this country. I was eight years with the Japanese Government, but that would scarcely meet the point that you wish to get at.
1609. Suppose a line to be held by a govern- ment, or a combination of governments, would they have considerable opportunity of turning traffic into any route that they chose to favour? -Governments, I think, are supposed to treat everybody on the same basis, are they not?
1610, I am assuming a line owned by a governinent?-Owned by a government? Well, in that case, the government, of course, would In fact, probably take all the unrouted traffic.
I should imagine they would do so if the lines were owned by them. They would take all the unrouted traffic over their own lines.
25 November 1896.]
Mr. WARD.
Chairman continued. 1615. You have, in fact, arrangements in the country for pressing your business ?-For pres- sing our business, exactly, in the country. Of course there are three or four-several of the most important points, where we have our own stations, and we have leased wires from the Government—such as Liverpool and Glasgow, but in all other provincial places we have to depend upon putting ourselves before the tele- graphing public.
1616. How many of your own receiving sta tions have you?-In England?
1617. Yes? We have, I think it is, 10; we have Liverpool, Glasgow, Dundee, Edinburgh, Leith, Newcastle, Manchester, Bradford, Bris- tol, Cardiff and Swansea; that would be 11.
1618. And when a message is handed in at one of those receiving stations, how do you forward it-Bristol receives the messages from Wales, Cardith, and Swanses, and sends them direct on to Waterville-the Scotch stations send through Glasgow to Liverpool, and thence on to Waterville. They can, if necessary, be put direct through to Waterville without any break at all, if it suits the convenience. Bristol collects from Cardiff and Swansea, and sends into the cable direct; Bradford and Manchester also send to Liverpool, that is to say, Liverpool is the point upon which the Scotch and North of England stations converge, and their messages are sent on from there into the cable. Bristol is the point at which the Welsh stations
converge, and London, of course, does its own business separately, sends into the cable.
1619. Assuming that a cable existed from Vancouver to Australia, would your present connection and stations help you to get traffic for Australia via your line ?—Oh, well, yes.
1620. You think they would give you an opening for an extension of your business?—— Well, I should expect to get some of the busi- You see we do not care which way it goes as long as we get our proportion of it.
Dees.
1621. But 1 assume no telegram going to Australia goes over your line now-No, we have no way of getting to Australia over our lines now.
not
ka
1611. What is the proportion of routed to unrouted traffic ?-That I cannot tell you. -1 have 1612. In your experience? thought of that for a moment. You see we can- not judge here in England, because all the unrouted traffic is handed over to the Anglo-American Company, by reason of an agreement that exists. I believe it existed be- tween the old telegraph companies, and had to be assumed by the Post Office; and, therefore, I do not know what the amount of all the un- routed traffic is.
1613. Is it a very common thing for customers to superscribe particular routes ?-Oh, yes. Yes, they do it, and we get a great deal of business. We should not get much business from the pro- vinces if it were not addressed by our lines.
1614. Then what steps have been taken in order to commend your particular line to pro- vincial customers ?-We canvas everybody who telegraphs, and supply them with our forms and that kind of thing.
1622. And so a new field of operations would open to you ?-Just so.
1623. What is the exact length of your cable to Canso can give you that I have it here. We have three cables from Canso to Waterville; one ia 2347:53 knots, one IN 2388-359 knots, and one is 2164 302 knote.
1624. How do you account for the fact that one is practically 200 miles shorter than the other laid round the system? The first two were southern edge of the Great Bank of Newfound- land. The idea was, if possible, to avoid the possible danger from fishing vessels on the Banks, but we concluded that in laying the second one which was laid 10 years later--our two first cables were laid in 1884, and the last one was laid in 1894—the shorter one—we con- cluded from our experience that it would be much to our advantage to make a heavier cable
[Continued.
Chairman-continued. that would resist the ordinary anchors of the fishing-vessels on the Bank and run it straight across the Bank. We also put in a very much larger conductor, so that we could get more out of it, so that we had a shorter cable with a larger conductor, and we can do of course, well, one third as much more work.
1625. That is the type of cable that your experience has led you to adopt finally?— Exactly.
1626-7. Can you tell the Committee what the core of that cable consists of?---The core of our last cable contains 500 lbs. of copper per knot, the amount of gutta-percha the dielectric- 320 lbs. per knot.
1628. Can you tell the Committee how many paying words per minute your experience shows you you can get out of that cable, that is after deducting all the signals that do not pay, all the service signals?—Yes, well, we calculate the amount of work by five-letter words, you
see.
1629. Give it me in letters then, the number of letters?-No; I do not recollect. I should like to be positive about that as far as I can; I think we can do about 34 five-letter words a minute duplexed under ordinary pressure.
1630. That is under pressure, including every- thing?—Thirty-four five-letter words a minute, yes; that is, we can work up to that.
1631. Under pressure you could work up to 170 letters a minute?-1 got those figures from the superintendent of the cable station the other day, and if I had known that you were going to ask me for these figures I would have brought them with me. I do not like to commit myself positively to these words till I can refer to the letter and see.
1632. You can verify those?—I can verify those. I will give you the letters simply without the service inlications or anything of that kind, just merely the number of letters which we gene- rally get through per minute.
Mr. Jones.
1633. On one cable ?—On this particular cable, our larger cable, our better cable.
Chairman.
1634. If you could add also, separately, the number of service indications too, so as to give the gross and net?- Very few; we cut them down as finely as we can.
1635. You say that you calculate your words at five letters, but as a practical fact do your words average five letters?-I take it that the five-letter words were meant to indicate plain language. It has been the custom with us always, I think, telegraph people, to take five letters per word for language, but in commercial messages, which are very nearly always written in code, the words are longer.
1636. How many working days do you consider that there are in a year for the purpose of a cable?-
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