Telegraph Co. (the former operating what are now known as the All- America Cables), which, during the war, made large reductions in their tariff, even though, on the greater part of their route, holding a monopoly. The directors expressed their con- viction that (a) the cable performs a very special mission during warfare, and (b) it plays a highly important part in the fostering of trade relations. They were, therefore^ determined to aid in every way possible the efforts to maintain and extend the already large trade between the United States and the countries of Cen- tral and S. America.
It must not be forgotten that an essential accompaniment to a low telegraph tariff is many more communicating strings; other- wise, the congested condition only becomes worse congested. On the other hand, it is also only by great developments of one sort and another in our means of communication that an in- creased, as well as cheaper, telegraphic output can be secured.
Nationalization. One result of the Dominions Royal Commis- sion's exhaustive inquiry was the following expression of opin- ion. 1 " We feel bound, however, to record our opinion that at no distant date the nationalization of the private cable companies will become one of the most urgent problems for statesmanship." Their report states further: " It appears difficult, if not impos- sible, to attain the desired cheapness of cable communication, as to the importance of which we hold the strongest views, without interfering with the rights of private companies." Again: " The urgency of placing cable communication on such a footing that it would be available, not only to the rich, but to all classes, not only to the merchant, but also to the private individual, is mani- fest and imperative."
But it must not be forgotten that the world is indebted, in the first instance, to the enterprise of private companies for the es- tablishment of submarine cable communication. Some of the companies have certainly been assisted in their enterprise by large Government subsidies. 2 Moreover, these companies have met with rich returns over their enterprise.
Telegraph Control Board. Whether State ownership should ever be adopted by a country is, of course, a large question, but it seems obvious that in national and imperial interests a measure of State control is desirable in the matter of inter-imperial com- munications generally. A controlling organization of one sort or another appears to be called for, if only for watching and securing public interests, where clashing with private interests, in return for favours granted by the State.
In the case of Great Britain there are no less than seven Gov- ernment departments (in addition to the Treasury) concerned in this matter. Hitherto one of these alone (the Post Office) has been acting for the Government, and all questions regarding other departmental interests had to be submitted to the Post Office. This was never very satisfactory in the result.
A British inter-departmental board to deal with inter-depart- mental telegraphs of all sorts has been advocated for many years. By this scheme, all the Government departments concerned were to be represented and to meet periodically to discuss and settle all important matters as they arose. The war made it clear to the British Government that something of the sort was necessary; and Jan. i 1919 saw the establishment of such a committee, the whole coming under the aegis of the Committee of Imperial De-
1 Final Report (Cd. 8462 of 1917). 1 These are as follows :
Name of Company
Amount of Sub- sidy
Period of Subsidy
Cables for which Subsidy granted
Eastern Telegraph Co. Easte'rn & S. Afri- can Telegraph Co.
Eastern Extension Co. Direct West India Co.
4,500
f28,000
1.13,500
4,000 8,000
20 years from April 24 1901. 20 years from Nov. 1893. 20 years from Jan. I 1900. Indefinite.
20 years from Feb. I 1898.
Sierra Leone- Ascension. Zanzibar- Seychelles- Mauritius. Three S. African cables. C hefoo- Weihaiwei.
Bermuda-Jamaica.
fence. Such a control board, or committee, becomes increasingly desirable in these days of wireless development, for a nice sense of impartiality and discrimination may be required for decid- ing what should be effected by cable and what by wireless.
Working Developments. The development of the art of sub-- marine telegraphy was considerable during 1907-21 not so much in relation to the cable itself as to the electrical apparatus for working it. These include the introduction of automatic re- lays (associated more especially with the names of the late Dr. Alexander Muirhead, F.R.S., and Mr. S. G. Brown, F.R.S.) on the Eastern, Western Union, All-British and Commercial- Pacific cables, as well as other wide-spread cable systems.
These have almost entirely superseded manual retransmis- sion between cable sections. Secondly, the introduction of magnifiers (or amplifiers, as they are sometimes called), by rendering the signals more legible, has enabled the carrying capacity of the cables to be enormously increased, at the same time adding to their reliability in the matter of accuracy. Such devices are based on the published experiments of Charles Cur- tis in the United States and Edward Raymond-Barker in Eng- land, and emanate in turn from K. C. Cox, T. B. Dixon, Walter Judd, Angus Fraser, E. S. Heurtley and Axel Orling. The Heurt- ley magnifier has been very widely adopted by the Pacific Cable Board, the Eastern Association Companies, etc. In vastly im- proving the character of the signals, this type of apparatus achieves the net result of adding to the effective working speed in the same degree. Indeed, the later results with the Orling magnifier point to a speed increase of as much as 200 per cent.
Thirdly, automatic printing apparatus has been introduced on the land lines worked in conjunction with cables. This apparatus is for the most part due to Mr. F. G. Creed.
Then again, Maj.-Gen. G. O. Squier, Chief Signal Officer of the U.S. army, has experimented with alternating current genera- tors for cable telegraphy, and his researches point to results of a highly advanced as well as revolutionizing character.
The Imperial Cable section of the "All Red " route is associated with some of the latest developments in cable telegraphy. The transmission both at London and Halifax is effected by what are known as converter cable transmitters. These are entirely auto- matic in their working, and, by the use of a switch, will take either Morse or cable type of perforation. There are automatic repeaters at each of the intermediate stations. One of these sec- tions, i.e. Bamfield-Fanning, 3,458 n.m., is the longest existing cable length, and has always been a source of great difficulty in the matter of speed as well as from a commercial point of view generally. In the circumstances, the results that have been achieved, by means of recent electrical devices, are very remark- able. It is, indeed, highly creditable that the score of a cricket match can be got through from Melbourne to London within 15 minutes, despite the six intermediate retransmitting points, over so great a total length. A few years earlier, such retransmissions were always effected manually. Now, however, automatic (ma- chine) repeaters are gradually becoming general for all extensive systems with a number of intervening cable sections. The average duplex working speed on the entire route (controlled by that of the long section) was formerly 18 words per minute, 3 but it has been very considerably increased by means of the Heurtley ampli- fier or magnifier. Something like a 40% increase in the simplex working speed (or 20% duplex) is claimed on this apparatus, which converts the microscopic signals associated with a long cable worked at high speed into characters of reasonable size. On the Atlantic sections some of the very latest de- vices have been introduced for the purposes of efficient and high speed working, such as had previously been adopted by the Eastern Associated Telegraph Companies. In the main, the plan is that of Morse working in connexion with the Gulstad Relay, so that the speed of connecting land lines is brought up to that of cable code working. 4 The Eastern Compa-
3 Nearly all long cables are now worked on the duplex system.
4 On the Indian Government (Persian Gulf) system between Basra and Karachi, the speed for land line Morse was actually raised from 35 to 75 words per minute.
