Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 58.djvu/543

Rh children of the twentieth century. But where we may expect and shall undoubtedly get increased success is in multiplied facilities for sending telegrams all over the earth, and in widening their usefulness and convenience to all ranks and sections of the community. To obtain these necessary advantages there are two requisites—first a great and general cheapening of tariffs and, as a certain consequence of such reduced charges, a duplication or even a quadrupling of many of the present cables to prevent blocking; and, secondly, an indefinite extension of both lines and cables everywhere. Progress in submarine telegraphy undoubtedly means a lessening in the price of service and a firmer control by the State, as an obvious corollary to the large help to the companies already given by the general taxpayer, quite as much as it means those scientific inventions and scientific discoveries which the coming years have in store for us. At the present time the charges are far too high, ridiculously so as regards India, and the use of the great cables is, therefore, very often beyond the power of the small capitalist and the trader of the middle sort. Yet certain and early news is of supreme importance to large numbers of both classes. Its absence hampers or stops business, while its price is too severe a tax upon average profits. This fact has led to the invention of ingenious and elaborate codes. They might possibly have been devised in any case; but there is no doubt that messages by code would be certainly expanded so as to prevent all possible ambiguity, if telegraphing to distant countries were not so costly. The spreading of land-lines and sea-cables about the earth has gone on rapidly since 1870; to the extent that those already completed would seem even to be in advance of their requirement, if that requirement were to be measured by their full employment. Nevertheless it is to be wished that new companies could be formed and new lines laid down to excite competition and thereby to cheapen rates; or else that our Government should step in and regulate charges over subsidized British lines. For the power of the great telegraph corporations, by reason of their monetary resources, enables them to overcome ordinary rivalry and to treat public opinion with indifference. A general cheapening of rates has constantly been followed by increased profits, earned by the resulting augmentation of traffic, but it needs an enterprising directorate to face the necessary initial expenditure, except under pressure. Boldness and foresight in finance are naturally less prominent features in the management of the great telegraph companies than contentment with a high rate of interest on invested capital. All their energy and watchfulness are employed to crush, competition rather than to extend their activities indefinitely. Moreover, money-making is their business, not Imperial statesmanship. If it were a question of the added security or the close coupling-up of the Empire (which are probably synonymous) on the one hand and a