"دليل الخليج. مجلد I. القسم التاريخي. الجزء II. ج. ج. لوريمر. ١٩١٥" [‎٢‎٤‎٢‎٥] (١٢٦٢/٩٤٢)

Financial and administrative history of the Indo-European
Telegraph Department, 1868-1907.
In 1869 the principal objects of the Indo-European Telegraph
Department were economy and retrenchment. Colonel Goldsmid,
desiring to further these ends and considering that the head of the
Department^ now that all initial difficulties had been overcome^ no longer
required an Assistant, resigned his appointment in favour of Major
Champain, who thereafter conducted the affairs of the department
single-handed.
On the 26th of March 1870 the British Indian Submarine Telegraph
Companj^s cable connecting Bombay and Suez was completed, and
communication with England by way of Malta, Marseilles and Paris
was immediately opened. On the 14th of June 1870, the Falmouth,
Gibraltar and Malta Telegraph Company having also finished their
work, cable communication between India and England via the Red Sea
became continuous but for a short section in Egypt, where there was
a land line from Suez to Alexandria. The Indo-European traffic was
thus distributed among three instead of between two main routes; and
a reconsideration of the tariff fixed by the Vienna Conference in 1868
was demanded, on the ground that its lowness might oblige the
commercial companies interested in the Eusso-Persian and Red Sea
routes to withdraw from the field, leaving the inefficient but state-aided
line across the Turkish dominions to cope with the whole of the traffic.
The companies had in the meantime raised their rates to £4-10-0 per
20 words; but the Turkish line still secured 18 per cent, of the traffic on
account of its ^greater cheapness, and the companies^ lines continued to
work at a loss.
A Telegraph Sub-Conference, attended by Major Champain and by
Colonel Robinson, R. E., Director-General of Indian Telegraphs, was
accordingly held at Berne in September and October 1870, by which it
was recommended that the rate by the Turkish line should be increased
to 112-50 francs or £4-10-0, a change to which the Ottoman Administra
tion were induced to agree. A Telegraph Conference which sat at
Rome in December 1870 and January 1871 was attended by the same
British delegates. Major Champain on this occasion appearing for Persia
also; and on the advice of this body the rate for the unit message of 20
words was reduced from 112*50 francs to 100 francs or £4-0-0. After
an informal Conference held at Vienna in 1873, at which the Director-
in-Chief of the Indo-European Telegraph Department met the Directors-
General of the Russian and Prussian systems, the rate was again altered
with effect from the 15th of November 1873, to 50 francs for 10 words
a special charge for each word over ten. After a Conference at
St. Petersburg in 1875, and with effect from the 1st of January 1876,
the rate was made 5*50 francs per word via Tehran or Suez and 5 francs
via Turkey ; from the 1st of April 1880 it was raised to S'GO francs
Reduction of
expenditure,
1869.
Effect of
completion
of the Red
Sea and
Mediterra
nean cableg,
1870.
Modifications
of tariff.