LONDON DISTRICT TELEGRAPH COMPANY.

We copy the following official statement of the London District Telegraph Company from the Telegraphic Journal, London, July 30, 1864. The capital of the company is £60,000, and the average cost of telegrams transmitted over its lines, for distances that cannot exceed ten miles, was 6d., equal to eighteen cents in our currency, and yet the loss in four and a half years’ business was £9,573 3s. 7d.:—

Half-year endingNumber of Messages.Receipts for Messages.Expenditures.Deficiency.
£s.d.£s.d.£s.d.
June,186026,15555019112,2821071,32624
December,186047,3651,0581923,294062,16817
June,186164,7852,137174,3941232,177114
December,186177,9392,59215104,663541,995137
June,1862123,2803,956485,07717111,077154
December,1862124,2223,999324,9584289404
June,1863129,7104,2166114,7211344094
December,1863131,2164,326405,12594796154
June,1864152,7954,8021004,863171060120

The Directors of the above company express much satisfaction in being able to present to the shareholders so favorable a statement of its business; but it strikes us that a system which entailed a net loss of one sixth of the capital invested in a little over four years is not a desirable one for imitation.

TELEGRAPHS UNDER GOVERNMENT AND PRIVATE CONTROL COMPARED.

The assertion that the Telegraph facilities are better in those countries where it is under governmental control than in those where it is left to private enterprise is entirely erroneous, as the following tables, compiled from official data, will show.

Statistics of Telegraphs constructed and operated under Government Control.
NAME OF COUNTRY.Number of Offices.Number of Miles of Line.Number of Miles of Wire.Number of Messages Sent.Population.Proportion of Offices to Population.
Austria85124,61873,8542,507,47239,411,3091 to 46,311
Belgium3562,1876,1461,128,0054,984,4511 to 14,000
Bavaria 2,1154,945 4,541,556
Denmark89 2,515308,1502,468,7131 to 27,000
France1,20920,62868,6872,507,47238,302,6251 to 31,600
Italy5298,20020,1201,760,88925,925,7171 to 49,000
Norway73 269,3751,433,4881 to 19,000
Prussia53818,38655,1491,964,00317,739,9131 to 33,000
Russia30812,01322,214838,65368,224,8321 to 221,000
Switzerland2521,8583,717668,9162,510,4941 to 10,000
Spain1428,87117,743533,37616,302,6251 to 109,000
4,34798,876275,09012,486,311
Statistics of Telegraphs constructed and operated under Private Control.
NAME OF COUNTRY.Number of Offices.Number of Miles of Line.Number of Miles of Wire.Number of Messages Sent.Population.Proportion of Offices to Population.
Great Britain and Ireland2,15116,58880,4665,781,18929,591,0091 to 13,714
Dominion of Canada3826,7478,935573,2193,976,2241 to 10,400
United States4,12662,782125,56412,386,95231,148,0471 to 7,549
6,65986,117214,96518,741,360

Thus it will be seen that Continental Europe, where the telegraphs are under government control, furnishes but 4,347 offices for a population of over 250,000,000, while Great Britain, the Dominion of Canada, and the United States, where telegraphy has been left to the control of the people, untrammelled by governmental interference, monopoly, or restriction, furnish 6,659 offices for a population of 64,000,000! The number of telegrams transmitted per annum in Continental Europe is only 12,486,311, while there were sent by the people of the three countries where it has hitherto been free from government repression, 18,741,360. The tariff of charges in Continental Europe averages eighty-one cents per message, while in the three countries where the people manage the business it averages but fifty-one cents.

Private enterprise alone laid the submarine cables through the Persian Gulf and Mediterranean Sea, across the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the Vineyard Sound, the Strait of Florida, the English Channel, the North Sea, and the German and Atlantic Oceans.