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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

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ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

24 November 1896.]

Chairman-continued.

Mr. PREECE.

again, owing to Sundays and holidays, we always in our telegraphic calculations for all purposes take the number of business days of the year at 300, so that you have to take 300 days.

Mr. Gillies,

1366. That is like excluding Sunday ?-Ex- cluding Sundays and excluding bank holidays, and festivity and gala days, and things of that kind, it comes to something like 300 working days in the year. The result is that you cannot calculate upon transmitting more than 540,000 words between England and Australia by means of this cable, and this number, I think, agrees fairly well with the figures that have been sup- plied by Sir John l'ender of the traffic done in Australia.

Sir Donald Smith.

1367. Only 1,800 words a day of 10 hours?- That is it.

Chairman.

1368. This, I understand, is based on the actual experience of the Eastern Telegraph Company No. These are my calculations, and I give you all my reasons, and I give you them in the hopes that you will get it either con- firmed or upset by the practical experience of the Eastern Telegraph Company.

1369. But I wish to get this exactly clear. Do you mean to say that the business available for this line (the probable business) could all be transacted in 300 days in the year of 10 working hours a day at the rate of three words a minute?--No. This calculation is an attempt on my part to show what the proposed cable tendered for by the Silvertown Company would carry. I start with the assumption that this cable will carry 75 words per minute. I work that down to three words per minute; I then take 10 hours a day as virtually the high pressure hours of the day. and by that calculation I show you that the pro- posed cable will not carry more than 540,000 words in 12 months.

1370. I will assume your three words per minute, but I want to go very closely into this question of 10 hours. Ten hours you tell us is by practical experience what these telegraph cables work at?-It was my practical experience of the work of telegraphs generally. I want particularly to consider this part of the business as absolute estimate, and I want to have it con- firmed or upset.

1371. All business that comes to the tele-

cer-

graphs over which you have control can be cleared in 10 hours working?—Yes; tainly: That is much more than our tele- graphic experience in England. It will be more like four or five hours.

1372. Then supposing the work to be double, would it not be merely a question of staff to work 20 hours a day? It would be a question of business more than staff, because you cannot attract it.

Chairman-continued.

Continued.

24 November 1896.]

1373. I said suppose the business to be doubled, could not that business be worked off on the same line in 20 hours by merely increasing the staff? No, because I have assumed that the high pressure of course with this work cannot be maintained during the 24 hours, even with a fresh staff of clerks.

1374. Why not?-For the reason that I gave, that clerks tire, and you cannot maintain high pressure for a long period.

Mr. Murray.

1375. And you cannot get the work at the right time? That is another element. That is where the work does not come; it only comes in driblets as a matter of fact.

Chairman,

1376. But supposing one office, we will say going to America, suppose on some great occasion an immense amount of work comes in during the day, that would be worked off during the night?

Of course.

1377. And customers do not complain us 寇 general rule because their telegrams may be delayed an hour or two?--No.

1378. Is it your experience that they do?—I beg your pardon,

1379. Is it your experience that if a telegram is handed in for Australia, we will say to-day, is the public fairly satisfied if they get an answer within a certain number of hours?--I think so. I think very well satisfied if they get an answer in 24 hours.

1380. In 24 hours ?-Yes.

1381. And therefore, at a stress, arrears could be worked off during the night? Yes.

1382. That being so, I do not understand why you are of opinion that we are obliged to reckon the working of any cable at 10 hours as the only time at our disposal. Because these calculations are based on the assumption that our maximum speed is obtained under great pressure, and that this great pressure cannot be maintained for reasons that I have given. You must not take a maximum speed as your working speed, but you must take a mean speed. That has varied very much by the companies I gave you.

1383. But you cannot be accused of taking a maximum speed: You have, by a process which has interested the Committee very much, reduced the working speed down to three words a minute?--Yes.

1384. That you do not consider a maximum speed ?-No; I call that the ordinary working speed.

Then

1385. The ordinary working speed. why cannot that speed be maintained for as many hours over the line as you can find staff' to work it? So you could if you had the work.

1386. Quite Bo. That is my whole argument. Given the work, you could go on for 10 or 20 hours if you could find the staff?-Unquestion- ably, if the work comes in in a regular current throughout the 24 hours you could work it off at the speed that I have given you there.

1387. Therefore, given the work to come in in

Chairman-continued.

Mr. PREECE.

a way which wou'd permit of its being worked off in 20 hours instead of 10, the number of words that could be sent would be double?—It would.

1388. Over a million instead of 540,000?— Yes.

Let me qualify that by saying this : As a matter of fact, you will find by evidence that it does not. That is my point. It is possi- ble, but I am putting this as clearly as I possibly can for you, because I think it is the crux of the question before you the business you may anticipate and the rate at which you may get the business through the cable are roughly the two main considerations apon which your labours depend, and I am putting this forward more as an estimate on my part, because I believe you will get it verified by actual facts from the Eastern Telegraph Company.

1389. According to your estimates the pro- posed Pacific cable-the one proposed by the tende er would be a very slow one indeed - Very slow indeed.

1390. And it does not ever comply with the specification; and its design, in your opinion, is inadequate for its purpose ?—Yes,

1391. You designed a cable to comply with the specification ?—Yes, in order to comply with the specification that the speed should be 12 words a minute; and taking the words in their actual sense as seven words a minute, I only allowed seven in this calculation, instead of eight. Then I made out that to lay a cable from Vancouver to Fanning Island to carry 12 words a minute would mean a cable 940 lbs. of copper and 940 lbs. of gutta-percha. Of course, this is not a core that I recommend; I am only putting it in as the size of the cable which would be required to meet the specification of 12 words per minute. It is very strong, very massive, and although it would do the work thoroughly well, there are objections which have been urged by one or two of the witnesses to such a very heavy cable from mechanical grounde, so that, without experience, since-mind you, this calculation was made, I think, in 1893-since then automatic working has been introduced, which has considerably modified our views, and if I were naked now to design a cable for the Pacific I should not design this particular cable.

1392. What cable would you design ?-] should design a cable that should contain all the copper that we could put into it. Two or three of the witnesses said that they thought 650 lbs. of copper, and 450 lbs. of gutta-percha was # good convenient mechanical size; but I think that one of them said that they might go up to 750.

That was Mr. Lucas. I should not like to say at once before you what dimensions I should adopt, but I should not adopt 940 lbs. of copper and gutta-percha. The copper would be perhaps 750 and the gutta-percha perhaps some- thing like 600. That would probably be about the size of the cable.

1393. I wish to get this quite clearly, if you please. Whereas in 1893 you advised for this cable, or rather, for this section of cable, a cable of the massive type of 940 lbs. copper and 940 lbs. gutta-perchia, the probability is that if you were to reconsider the matter now in the light of more recent experience, you would re-

Chairman-continued. commend 600 gutta-percha and 750 copper?- That is so.

1394. I need not point out that the difference of cost between the first and the second speci- fication would be very great ?--Would be very great indeed. The estimated cost of the cable that I sketched out to meet the specification was 2,900,000, but that was a cable, not only of that massive character, but it was a cable made with the very best materials that we knew of, and Mr. Siemens gave evidence which showed how vastly the difference in the cost of steel has changed since then. The steel that I proposed to use was what is known as plough steel, which stands 120 tous on the square inch, and the price then, was, I think, 457. per ton.

We now can

get steel that will stand about 90 tons to the square inch for about 127. a ton, so that alone would take 400,0007. or 500,0007. off the tender, bringing it down from 2,900,0007. to 2,400,000Z., In addition to that the reduction in the weight of copper and in the weight of gutta-percha, and necessarily in the weights of the other materials, would bring the estimate-it would be over 2,000,0007, but not much over 2,000,0001.

1395. Without binding yourself to a final opinion on the subject, your present estimate of the cost of the cable would be something just over 2,000,000l. ?—Yes.

Mr. Murray.

1396. But that is only carrying you as far as New Zealand; it is not the same as Route 1 under the request for tenders by the Dominion Government That is true; but, of course, these prices are affected very much by the price of the cable between Vancouver and Fanning Ieland. It would mean that of the lighter type 600 knots more would be required.

Chairman.

1397. The answer you have just given you apply to the route which you specially advised on ?-Yes.

1398. Can you, in the same rough manner, and without binding yourself, make an estimate for Route 1 of the Dominion Government ?-- I could do so.

1399. Can you give the Committee any esti- mate of what you think the probable business obtainable by a Pacific cable would be?—No, I cannot. I have not gone at all into the traffic question, or the finance question. On this point, I think you will find Mr. Lamb will be able to oblige you.

1400. I find it stated by Mr. Sandford Fleming, in a memorandum which he laid before the Committee, that in 1893 the total number of words transmitted to Australia by the telegraph was 1,400,000. That has now grown, I under- stand, in 1895, to something just under 2,000,000. Assuming the present business to Australia to be 2,000,000 words per annum, and assuming, as Mr. Sandford Fleming has aesumed in his cal- culations, that the new line would at once drop into half the business, we may take it that the new line would have a business of a million

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