The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1875-08-09
Telegraphing by Land and Sea.

Telegrnphing by Land and Sea.
We have been recently honored by the
telegraph with several rumors in reference
to the success of the Direct Cable Company,
which has been laying cable from England
to America in opposition to the present SER
vice. These rumors have been of a mysteri-
Gus character. 1t chad broken" 1t would
not work" There was "a fall in it's shares.
There was strouble in the management"
The other day we had a despatch from the
London Times to the effect that the present
postal service in England was "a mistake, e"
that the English government could not make
it pay a decent revenue at the rate of q shil-
ling despatch of twenty words.
The effect of these rumors is plain enough.
If it were not that we regarded our telegraph
service as above suspicion we should be in
clined to believe that there was some stock
jobbing purpose underlying them all. When
we hear whispered, in every breath almost
stories about desperate and bold stock-job-
bers laying their plans to capture the whole
Geographic service of the country, we can
well understand WHY we should be instructed
in this mysterious manner about the failure
of the postal telegraph system in England"
and the misfortune of the Direct Gable Com
pany. SO far as the Western Union is con-
cerned, no one questions the admirable man.
ner in which Mr.. Orion, the President, has
managed its affairs. We do not censure him
nor in any way the directors. They have
their property, and can of course do what
they please with their own. Our advice to
Mr.. Orion IL to strive, without ceasing, to
prevent the efforts of spectators to seize the
lines. It is this terror of just such result
that gives increasing strength to the move
ment in favor of postal telegraphy. We in
woke the aid of the government, not because
we believe that public officials can do the
mere work of the telegraph more efficiently
than private parties but because the govern
ment is our natural bulwark against such in
huences as we deplore-infuence that aim
to subject the whole telegraph system to the
mercy of desperate gamblers in stocks. AS to
the Direct Cable Company we have no special
opinion, but there is no reason why that line
should not lay cable just as well as the line
which now holds this extraordinary monopoly
between England and America. In fact, the
tendency of communication between England
and America is to multiply cable lines. Cheap
telegraphy is as much necessity of our
English civilization as cheap postage it is
step toward that moral and commercial
union between the English speaking nations
to which Mr.. Forster referred in the House
Sc n 1ao
the wish that there should be no custom
houses on the soil of the English speaking
nations We unite in the wish of Mr.. Fors-
ter, because we believe in everything that
will bring the Saxon races of the world into
closer relations. If the Direct Cable Com
pany have had q misfortune they have the
power to mend it just as the other lines did.
The line has our best wishes for its success,
and we deprecate the use that has been made
of the telegraph to bring odium upon its
owners.
The story quoted with SO much alacrity
postal telegraph is a failure as now managed
in England, is of course a job. 1t is part
of that same system of jobbery which year
or two ago, when the postal telegraph was
under discussion, induced the cable COM
panies to telegraph, at their own expense,
long letters and articles from writer's in Lon
don intended to affect legislation in Con-
gress Now, we do not know to what extent
the postal telegraph system in Great Britain
is pecuniary success, but it is certain that,
as a matter of public convenience and
utility, it has proved the greatest blessing
that has been achieved since the abolition of
the corn laws and the establishment of penny
postage. For shilling an Englishman in
the Hebrides can send o message to his
friends at Queenstown or Bristol. In
America despatch over the same dis
lance would require probably five times
as much money. We also are at the
mercy of n corporation whose shares are
footballs for desperate spectators. If the
postal telegraph service in England is not an
absolute revenue it resembles in this respect
the postal service of the United States. Our
Post Office never has paid. We in the East
are taxed to pay for the delivery of letters to
our friends in the West. 1t would be an alb
Surd argument 10 say, because the postal
service of the United States is an expense,
that therefore it should be abolished. We
could have our postal system in New York
and New England and make it pay a profit,
because here we have large populations and
short lines of communication We in the
East are only too proud to do our share to-
ward giving the West the advantage we pos
sess in the way of postal service. We are
willing to do the same in the way of postal
telegraph service Postal telegraph is as
much necessity as cheap postage or a cheap
press.
AFTER VISITING PARIS and exchanging cour-
tesies with Victor Hugo, who will probably
put them in his next romance, the American
-. ,to,toJ for Top1pn on tbair