The Charleston daily news. [volume] (Charleston, S.C.) 1865-1873, 1869-07-30
OCEAN TELEGRAPHS.
The Atlantic Cable Competition.
From the London Star. July a. ]


The success Of the French Atlantic cable
will occasion great regret to the propriet ,rs Of
tine English line, bus il their interests are
much injured they have no one but themselves
to blame. They had no confidence in what was
really the strongest part OF their enterprise
namely, it's capacity to serve the general pub
lie and not merely one particular class. Mes
sages to and from America oue ht to be as COM
mon sc similar MossaEes &TG between Ensiand
and France, for q constant stream Of travellers
is passing between the two countries, and o
large proportion would be very glad to tele-
graph their safe arrival to frie de. Then
Amerlcal,s who live here, or in other parts OF
Europe. would often be glad to ask by tele-
graph after relatives who happen to be Ill, or
% send news OF their dauyhter's marriages or
OF equally interesting incidents in domestic
life. But this kind of business has been de-
llberately discouraged by the managers OF the
A minister n.a, send d.. rn.nor.snt ,resso 90
to bis agents. though even then tho nmnunt OF
his bill is likely to startle his government, as
we may see in the case of MIR. Seward. He
sent message to the American representative
in Russia. for which between f4OtO and $4,000
was charged. The government has not yet
Deen aDle to make up lts mind to pay for that
costly dispatch. Again commercial men who
have American connections are obliged to use
the cable. If the tariff we're much higher even
than 1t is, they wOul0 still have no choice but
to pay the money and send their messages.
me hIm which first learns the price Of cotton,
OF iron, or Of shares and bonds, has an ln,-
mense advantage over competitors who are
acting without this information Such traffic,
therefore. nee ssarly develops itself. But i;
laying cable beneath the Atlantic The i'm
'me1se advantage which might have been gain
ed by inviting the general body OF the pubic
to use the cable has been thrown away. The
line would inevitably break down next week,
ana 1t was necessary for them to scrape to
gether all the money they could III the in-
terval.
Tive coy,o ro.;+;on of.ho E.,,,.L ..L, ~,
pand their ideas. In the first place. they will
ind their Frencn customers gong to the other
slop, uuless they reduce their prices ; in the
next, the French company might easily attract
ing reasonable scale. At the recent meeting
OF the Engli,h company one of the officials de-
plored the fact that they hal not enjoyed
Longer & re- isase zee q the monopoly before rivals en-
point OF view but the public cannot be expect
ed to svmpathlzs with 1t. If any body deserves
sympathy in reference to-, Atlantic cable
schemes 1t is the shareholder or director IN
the original company, who has not vet Ct received @ I'd
back penny OF hls money. They were the
people who paid for the experiment which
made future successes certain. aud they have
derived no profit whatever from the second
cable. It is o plain matter of business with
the present proprietOrs, and as they have acted
In narrow and nigeardly spirit towards the
pubic. they cannot expect Us to mix our tears
A great fuss has recently been made about a
reduction In the tariff. Messages were to be
sent for two pounds. But when man came
| to write down his message. he found that he
was expected to pay for every word or figure IN
the dates or addresses; whereas five words had
| formerly been gwen IN. The address alone
now exhausts the two pounds, thus: 'sThomp.
son to Barker. liz Twenty sixth street, New
York" Here are the ten words at once, which
form the limit Of y message for two pounds.
OF eourse the rate is almost prohibItory as re-
CARDS the ordinary run of people. A man with
RaEs SsalpSSBt aena n M9rd to h 5
- very Ill. Mo,sdHeS OF JiiaJ UvscTiftion would
be dispatched by hundreds every day, If the
scale OF charges invited them. At present there
| is scarcely work enough to employ one out of
| the two English cables now in existence.
Would it not be far better to charge ten shl,.
hngs for cable messages. and multiply the cus-
toners hundredtold. than to let the wires lie
comparatively idle? Remonstrances, however.
having failed, we are very glad that the sharp
| goad Of competition has been applied to the di-
rectors. The French proprietors may easily
do the greater part Of the business il they will
come down to ths public needs. Ol that ac-
count We may well wish the new ine success.
We may not hear 80 much about it's binding
the~Old World and tho New together in PER-
| petusl friendship. for we have found out that
Observation-Disclosures are possible even with
| telegraph wire lying comfortably beneath the
| Atlantic. But the cable will be q distinct ad-
vantage to the world, and everybody but the
shareholders in the "Angio-Amerlo NJ will be
| glad to hear that the difficulties which sur.
rounded the promoters have been successfully
overcome.