COST OF AMERICAN TELEGRAPHS ESTIMATED BY EUROPEAN DATA.
In reply to Mr. Washburne’s statement that no such lines as all these writers insist shall be built by the government have ever been built in this or any other country, we respectfully, but firmly, assert that he is mistaken. This company possesses thousands of miles of telegraph lines constructed after the specifications given above, and costing as much as the estimates which he so emphatically distrusts. In order, however, to set this matter of cost at rest, we will endeavor to establish it by comparison with those of all other countries of which we have been able to procure official data.
Mr. Frank Ives Scudamore, one of the assistant secretaries of the British Post-Office, and the gentleman who furnished the reports and data by which the British government were induced to monopolize the telegraph in that country, and who shows no disposition to overvalue the property or services of private telegraph companies, testified before the select committee of the House of Commons, July 9, 1868, that the total number of miles of telegraph in operation in Great Britain in 1866 was 16,000, and that the companies expended in constructing the same about £2,300,000.[[12]]
[12]. Special Report, Electric Telegraph Bill, ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, 16 July, 1868. See testimony on pages 149 and 150.
The capital stock of the various companies represented a larger sum than this, and Mr. Scudamore himself acknowledges that he has got the amount under the mark rather than over it; therefore we presume that Mr. Washburne will allow this to be a fair estimate. Now £2,300,000 sterling is equal to $11,132,000 in gold, or $16,475,360 in United States legal money. This sum, divided by 16,000 miles of line, gives us $1,029.71 as the cost per mile.
The Belgian system comprised, at the end of 1866, 3,519 kilometres of telegraph lines, equal to 2,187 English miles. The cost of constructing these lines, up to December, 1866, amounted to 2,055,083 francs, equal to $411,016.60 gold, or $608,304.56 currency; which would give $274.14 for each mile of line. It must be borne in mind, however, that the Belgian government, owning all the railroads, could transport all the telegraph material free, and in many other ways greatly reduce the cost of the lines; of course the right of way cost them nothing, and with us this is an important item.
Bavaria has 2,115 miles of line, which cost for construction 843,207 florins, equal to $340,092.28 gold, or $503,338.35 in our currency. This would make the cost per mile $240. The same conditions, however, which reduced the cost of construction in Belgium tended to the same result in Bavaria.
In France there are 20,028 miles of lines costing 23,800,791 francs, equal to $4,760,158.20 in gold, or $7,045,034.13 in currency, making the average cost of each mile of line $351.75.
| RECAPITULATION. | |
|---|---|
| Average cost per mile of telegraph line in Great Britain and Ireland, | $1,029.71 |
| Average cost per mile of telegraph line in Belgium, | 274.14 |
| Average cost per mile of telegraph line in Bavaria, | 240.00 |
| Average cost per mile of telegraph line in France, | 351.75 |
| Total cost of telegraphs in Great Britain and Ireland, | $16,475,360.00 |
| Total cost of telegraphs in Belgium, | 608,304.56 |
| Total cost of telegraphs in Bavaria, | 503,338.35 |
| Total cost of telegraphs in France, | 7,045,034.13 |
| Total cost for the four countries, | $24,632,037.04 |
| Total number of miles of telegraph line in Great Britain and Ireland, | 16,000 |
| Total number of miles of telegraph line in Belgium, | 2,187 |
| Total number of miles of telegraph line in Bavari, | 2,115 |
| Total number of miles of telegraph line in France, | 20,028 |
| Total number of miles of telegraph in the four countries, | 40,330 |
| Average cost of construction of each mile of telegraph line for the four countries above named, | $610.76 |