increased salaries, is to produce an improvement, the above measures may probably effect it. But what are these professions but the exact counterpart of what has been tried before? It is precisely the same old futile story of four years back, repeated with embellishments. The gist of the programme is unchanged. At the same time, there is a gleam of hope in the concluding sentence: "The Director-General desires," he observes, “to see the signallers so comfortable and well located, that they will prefer remaining in the offices to wandering in the bazaars; that they may, in fact, feel at home in their offices. He will therefore be much obliged for suggestions, and most happy to afford his support to any practical scheme for forming small libraries and other simple means of amusement." It is well known that the simple falling of an apple led the great Sir Isaac Newton to discover the revolutions of the heavenly bodies and solar systems. Even so, perchance, in this diligent attention to minute objects may be seen the omen of a grand result. Apparently we are at last on the eve of the long soughtafter and brilliant discovery of the revolution of human bodies and the Indian telegraph system. Such then is the unaltered programme, and the result remains to be developed. Where similar previous attempts have ended in failure, and where former promises, made and repeated years ago, are still where they were then, in nubibus, the natural conclusion is inevitable. The Calcutta Englishman of 14th February last, while commenting on the subject, most justly says, "Something more than the new arrangements referred to in a preceding paragraph is required to place our telegraphic system on a satisfactory footing." The Calcutta correspondent of the Times, of the 26th March, while noticing the programme, winds up his remarks with a sort of melancholy despair, that "no material improvement in the present wretched system is expected." It would seem, also, that even the Director-General himself rather hesitates as to the success of some of his propositions, for while he states, "I am sanguine that the scheme that I have submitted will work well," in the very next line he says, "I have some doubts whether the abolition of Directors may after all prove beneficial." Nevertheless, to give the department whatever is its due, the vox populi has once more made itself felt, and we have a momentary spasm of improvement. The Chairman of the Calcutta Chamber of Commerce, in his speech of the 13th December last, says, "It must be added, also, that there has been lately a marked improvement in the speed with which English messages are transmitted over the Indian lines." This refers only to English messages: the praise is qualified. What of the Indian messages? And how long is this qualified approyal to last? A month, two months more? and are we then to have the usual subsidence? Already the shadows are beginning to fall; they will soon lengthen and deepen, as sure as night succeeds to day. Listen to what the Englishman, of two months later than the above faint praise, says, “There is not a firm in Calcutta, perhaps not even a private person who has resided long in the city, who has not his tale of inconvenience and wrongs suffered at the hands of the Telegraph Department." * * * * "No one ever expected to keep the wires up in the cyclone, and all reasonable men will suffer the inconveniences which result from similar accidents in silence; but it passes endurance when, without any cause whatever, letters from Bombay come quicker than telegrams, or when a telegraph office clerk at Allahabad states that he never heard of such a place as Bankipore." * * The remarks then wind up with the following despairing announcement: "We suffer simply because we will not be at the trouble to protect ourselves." Therein lies the lamentable truth and explanation of how the Indian community have allowed themselves for ten long years to be deluded and victimised. Yet in spite of all this, assuming that the measures now being adopted are at last correct, and will lead to gratifying results and the establishment of an efficient and reliable system satisfactory to the public, it may be asked, of what value is that system which has shown itself hitherto, on more than one occasion, incapable of anticipating and keeping pace with the enterprising, scientific, and expanding spirit of the age, and which has periodically to be goaded on by ebullitions of public indignation, to spasmodic and uncertain experiments at improvement and reorganisation ?* * Since the foregoing was in type, the Bombay Times has published the following statement, which verifies the views enforced in this chapter. "The wretchedly inefficient working of the line between Kurrachee and Bombay during the period under review, will be seen from the following compilation from the daily reports supplied by the Indian Telegraph Department itself:From Kurrachee to Bombay. Date. 1866 February 1st Maximum. Days hrs. mins. Minimum. Days hrs. mins. "Only on two days does the line appear to have been even approaching proper working order, while for several days subsequent to the 12th, the line was closed for all local traffic." The mean average speed was therefore 1 day, 20 hours, 32 minutes, the distance being about 860 miles. D CHAPTER VI. THE TELEGRAPH ACTS, XXXIV. OF 1854, AND VIII. IN December, 1854, the Legislative Council of India passed an Act, No. XXXIV. of 1854, for regulating the establishment and management of Electric Telegraphs in India. Six years later this Act was slightly modified and re-enacted as Act VIII. of 1860. By this Act the Government claimed the exclusive privilege of establishing lines of telegraph throughout India, and prohibited their erection and use without a licence. The penalty was a fine of 1007. for erecting an unlicensed line, and 50%. per week for every week such line was maintained, and a further fine of 57. upon every person, for every time he used it. The reasons assigned at the time for departing from the course adopted in England, and placing the telegraph under Government control as on the Continent, were because it was done on the Continent and not in England; and because, as the Government would erect the telegraph at its own cost, it had as much right to prohibit competition "as it had to prohibit the convey ance of letters otherwise than by the Government post, provided the public are allowed the full use of the telegraph." * It was also believed that it would be more advantageous to a country like India, "where uniformity of management is of great importance, and where the circulation of false and inaccurate information, either from design or accident, should be specially guarded against, that the telegraphic operations should be conducted exclusively under the control of Government."† The Government, then, having claimed the right of the exclusive use of the telegraph in India, it follows that the onus of providing the public with every facility has rested entirely with themselves; for it would be manifestly unjust to say that any ruling power can monopolise the most useful system of intercommunication, and yet so far neglect their duty to their subjects as to virtually debar them from all its benefits. Practically, this has been the result. The telegraph has been erected exclusively for political and State purposes. The public have been treated with but secondary consideration, their requirements have not been studied, their wants have not been supplied. A solitary uninsulated wire is certainly not sufficient to meet the demands of one hundred and fifty millions of people, nor the requirements of an external and internal commerce of one hundred and twenty millions sterling, extending to every quarter of the globe. True, yielding to external pressure, the Government have of late years invited the public to come forward and establish a line for themselves; but the offer has * See Minutes by the Most Noble the Governor-General, 20th May, 1853. † Vide Public Despatch of Court of Directors to East India Company, 17th June, 1854, |