The telegraph business of Belgium is peculiar. Half of it only can be
said to be Belgian at all, the other half being messages in transit, or
international, which are sent at comparatively little cost, and for the
transmission of which it makes terms with other nations. On the inland
or Belgium business proper, the only class which can with any propriety
be used in the argument in hand, there was, as has been seen, a loss in
1866 of thirty-four per cent, and in 1867 of thirty-seven and a half per
cent. The greater cost of an inland message arises from the fact that it
is received, forwarded, and delivered in the kingdom, requiring the
various service connected with such duties; while transit messages
simply pass through the state, and impose no expense for labor in
transmission, reception, or delivery, and international messages require
no delivery in the country sending them.
But besides its annual losses to government, there exists a serious
drawback in the value to the people of the reduced tariff. The
diminished rate in Belgium is accompanied by no promise of prompt
delivery. Despatches at a half-franc each must take their chance of
transmission, and submit to the delay caused by other service. Speed
rates are established to compensate for loss by the reduced tariff.
Thus, a message requiring immediate transit is charged three times an
ordinary message, reversing the plan of the Western Union Company, which
transmits promptly and indiscriminately at ordinary rates, but makes an
immense reduction when the night hours can be used. Of course business
men, to whom time is money, are obliged to pay an extra franc to secure
that promptness and certainty of transmission without which the
telegraph is of little value for all important transactions. The tariff
has been, therefore, practically increased to one and a half francs, or
forty-two cents for distances which cannot average more than
seventy-five miles, and probably do not exceed fifty. The cheap messages
take their chance. In America, a repeated message is charged half a rate
more than the ordinary tariff. In Belgium it pays four single rates.
Cipher messages are also charged four times the price of ordinary
messages, while here they are received at ordinary rates.
Were the United States government to construct lines under the Washburne
bill, and adopt this Belgian system, its tariffs between Washington and
Baltimore—about the average distance of the Belgian service—would be,
for prompt delivery such as our telegraph companies perform, _forty-five
cents_, instead of the existing charge of ten cents; for messages to
which no assurance of promptitude is given, fifteen cents; and for
repeated messages, _sixty cents_, instead of our present rate of fifteen
cents. If, now, with all its advantages of cheap labor and the profits
arising from international and transit messages, the Belgian government,
on these bases of charge, admits a clear loss in 1866 of 255,282 francs,
how will it be possible for Mr. Washburne to secure a profit to
government large enough in a few years to pay the cost of the line, on a
common tariff of fifteen cents for all classes of messages?