The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1888-02-16
POSTAL TELEGRAPH.
Speech of Journalist Jones at the National
Publishers Meeting.

1
Speech of Journalist Jones at the National
Publishers Meeting.
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind, February 9.-At the
meeting of the National Publishers asso-
citation to day Government Control of the
Telegraph" was the topic assigned to Col.
@. N. Jones, of the Jacksonville, Florida,
Times, and he discussed it in q carefully
prepared paper. He begun by saying
that he proposed to deal with the subject
In a practicable way, for the reason that
he regarded it as very practicable. The
strongest argument In behalf of govern
ment telegraph system, and the one that
is most relied upon, is that it
would be cheaper, and most of the ad-
vccates of government control seem to
think the argument is closed when this as
sertion is made. The speaker, however,
felt constrained to say that the expense of
this and other countries with government
work, furnishes no reason for believing
that exceptional cheapness would be
feature of it. The characteristic fault of
all work done by the government is cumb-
rousness and costliness. Whenever the
government wants work done at reason
able price, that work is let out by contract.
The government might make lower rates
for telegraphing than would be
made by any private corporation be-
cause the latter must make expenses and
pay for betterments and improvements,
or its place in the business world will
soon be vacant. The government, if it
so chooses, can fix rate less than cost
and make up the deficit by taxation, and
this ia precisely what would be done by
the United States government if the ex-
perlence of other countries having
government telegraph system is any
criterino. Colonel Jones then gave sta
tistics showing that in Great Britain the
deficit in operating the government
telegraph had increased from $685.
621 in 1881 to $2,349,200 in
1886. This deficit must be made
good by taxation, and is such taxa
ton justified on the ground that it is
public benefit? In 1887 over 100000
messages were handled by the
Western Union Telegraph company, and
these were sent by less than 100000
people. The whole of the telegraphing
in the United States is done by less than
two per cent of the population. These
make it plain that to cheaper telegraphy
by reducing the rates below cost, and max
ing up the deficit by taxation, means to
tax ninety-eight per cent of the people,
who never use the telegraph, for the bene-
fit of stock brokers, spectators, gamblers,
pool men, bucket shop proprietors and
sporting men generally, who have sent
eighty-seven per cent of the messages.
Not only is this unjustifable on grounds
of public policy, but it is unjustifable on
purely business grounds. The men who
send these messages make no complaint
of the cost, because it comes on as part
of the legitimate and necessary expenses
of their business. The only considerable
body of men asking for reduction of
Telegraph tolls are the Knights of Labor,
not one in a hundred of whom use the
telegraph. These miguided people are
simply asking the government to tax
them for the benefit of class of
people toward whom they are so
irreconciably hostile that membership in
their organization is prohibited them.
These are considerations which determine
US against the scheme of government
telegraph on grounds connected with the
public welfare. The speaker then CON
sidered the subject from the point of
view of practical newspaper man.
The newspapers of the United States,
he said, are now employing the cheapest
and most efficient telegraph service of
any newspapers in the world. The British
telegraph press rate is 25 cents for sew
enty-fve words during the day and %
cents for 100 words at night to each place
where but one paper is served, and cents
for seventy five words during the
day, and cents for 100
words at night for each additional paper
| cyiuaY1 hu tho
speaker, showing that, viewed in any way
possible, the American press rate is now
cheaper than the same service in England
from one-ffth to one-half. These figures
apply TO the service of press associations,
the cost of special telegraph service in the
United States being one-half cent per
word, and in Great Britain one-third
cent per word. In the United States,
however, the distance is an average of
four times greater than in England. The
bill introduced by Senator Cullom pro-
vides that the night rate for news
paper dispatch, when the same dispatch
goes to more than one office, shall be 20
cents per hundred words. This is more than
twice the rate now charged by the Western
Union for transmitting Associated Press
reports, and ten times the rates charged
by the same company when the reports
are delivered by leased wires to four or
five papers in the same city.
The truth is, that the substitution of
government telegraph service for that of
he Western Union on the basis of the
Cullom bill, would speedily result in one
of two things: Either the bankruptcy
of large proportion of the
, newspapers away from the great
;. ,centers, or in depriving the public
of very large proportion of the news of
the world, which it now enjoys through
the daily newspapers. Nothing SO far
reaching in it's effect upon the press of
the country has ever been proposed in
congress. 1t would be about the same as
if congress should enact law legislating
out of existence half the daily papers of
the country, and putting the remainder on
short rations, as regards the telegraphic
news service; but even this is not the most
serious objection from newspaper mans