Venezuela

by Leonard V. Dalton

Those who know something of Venezuela away from the few ports and towns generally visited by Europeans will doubtless consider the title of this chapter a misnomer. Indeed, it is the lack of adequate means of communication between the different parts of the republic which hinders more than any single cause its progress and development. Revolutions and internal dissensions have been the immediate trouble, but these, if not caused, are at least fostered, by the absence of better roads than bridle-paths and of more permanent lines of communication than single telegraph wires; though in justice it must be said that in times of peace the last-named service is far ahead of the other branches.

Venezuela is included in the Postal Union, though owing partly to the custom of “farming” the stamps, the cost of transmission of letters in the interior is twopence-halfpenny and from Venezuela to foreign countries fivepence.

The Post Office is considered as a branch of the Ministry of National Development, and employed 358 officials in 1909. The G.P.O. in Carácas is well administered, and from this the quality of the service ranges through the principal offices of each State to the two hundred rural offices scattered up and down the more frequented parts of the republic. More and more money is being spent annually in an endeavour to make the service thoroughly efficient, and in 1908-9 the expenditure under this head was B 848,444, or £33,602. In 1908 the number of interior postal packets carried was about 4,500,000, 2,750,000 letters were received from, or dispatched to, foreign countries, with 18,500 parcels; the number of letters dispatched abroad was rather smaller. The comparison between 4,500,000 and 4,500,000,000, the number of letters handled by our own Post Office some years back, makes the Venezuelan service seem insignificant, but at least it exists and is capable of expansion to an efficient system of communication throughout the country.

In the Centro the mails are, of course, carried by train between the big towns, and the deliveries are fairly punctual, while the service to the seaports is sufficiently good; elsewhere, however, the mail-trains of mules wander casually along the “roads,” the postbags often forming only an insignificant part of the loads; in more outlying parts still the mails are carried on foot. On one occasion the author with a friend was guided along about thirty miles of obscure track by the “postman” (aged sixteen), who had one U.S.A. mailbag, which during part of the journey was occupied jointly by the letters and tins of sardines and other provisions for the long tramp; the letters did not appear to suffer greatly, but this familiar use of a mailbag of a foreign Government seemed somewhat unorthodox, even though it be less so than the application of the striped remains to sail-patching, many of the small sloops and goletas being wafted on their way by means of fragments of mailbags, generally Uncle Sam’s.

But though the postal service outside the principal towns and most populous districts is very primitive, the telegraph service, with its cheap rates, is well managed and efficient.

The first telegraph line in the country was that between La Guaira and Carácas, opened in 1856; in 1909 there were 7,839 kilometres of wires in the country and 179 offices, with a staff of 800 men. In the financial year 1908-9 the cost of the service was B 2,041,385, or £80,847, and 394,792 messages were sent in 1908, at a total charge of B 936,657 (£36,429); more than half of these were official.

In addition to the Government lines there are a few private wires along the railways, and telegraphic communication with the outside world is carried on by means of the French cable, which runs from La Guaira to Curaçao.

Such telephone lines as exist are mainly in the hands of private companies or individuals, and only 10 of the 120 lines existing are owned by the State. The British Telephone Company in Carácas has a very efficient exchange there and trunk lines to the chief towns of the Centro, and also a telephone service in Ciudad Bolivar.

Means of transport are in much the same condition as lines of communication—that is to say, there is in existence the nucleus of a complete system; but “the end is not yet,” and to-day one must be prepared for anything in travelling over wide areas in Venezuela.

In and around Carácas, and between most of the large towns of the Centro, one may travel with as much ease and comfort as in parts of Europe, and better than on a certain line running out of London, but beyond, though there may be in some directions roads on which carts can be used, one is more often reduced to the means of locomotion of sixteenth-century England. Outside the Centro there are a few comparatively short lines, which can hardly be regarded as forming part of the railway system of Venezuela, though they may one day become part of it.