“As rates are higher in America, a greater proportion of messages
are sent to stations in class A than in England, and a smaller
proportion to class D. The average receipt per message, at these
rates, is $1.00. The gross receipts of the Western Union Company,
for the year ending the 30th of June, 1868, were $6,952,273.[16]
This sum, divided by the average receipts, gives the whole number of
messages transmitted, viz. 6,952,000.
Footnote 16:
This amount embraces the total revenue of the Western Union
Telegraph Company for that year, and includes the receipts for
telegrams, press reports, and from all other sources.
“It may be objected that those estimates are incorrect, and
therefore the deductions are unreliable. If the Western Union
Telegraph Company furnish a statement of messages annually
transmitted, the required corrections will be made. If it is not
given, it will be because the estimates of the average rates are too
low, and the deductions too favorable to that company.”[17]
Footnote 17:
The statement on page 7, of the number of messages annually
transmitted by this company, shows that Mr. Hubbard’s estimate gives
less than 70 per cent of the number actually sent over the wires. The
average rate per message in the United States is fifty-seven cents.
As the average of these English rates is a little over 75 cents, while
the greatest distance for the highest English class is less than for the
shortest American class, which he averages at 41 cents, we do not see
how he can assert that the American rates are higher than the English!
In answer to the charge of want of uniformity in the tariffs, we would
call attention to the fact, that the lines under our control were
constructed by a great number of separate organizations, having tariffs
upon all bases, which had to be added together at all the termini of two
or more lines, so that a message going a few hundred miles would require
the payment sometimes of two or three rates. For instance, a few years
since there were five telegraph companies owning the lines connecting
Portland, Maine, with Cleveland, Ohio, and the tariff between these two
places was ascertained by the addition of the local rates from Portland
to Boston, Boston to Springfield, Springfield to Albany, Albany to
Buffalo, and from Buffalo to Cleveland. The same system prevailed
throughout the United States, until after the consolidation of the lines
made it possible to transmit messages between places thousands of miles
apart without the necessity of booking or rechecking at intermediate
points. This result necessitated a remodelling of the tariffs, and the
work has been going on uninterruptedly ever since; but when it is
considered that a complete revision of the system required a separate
tariff-sheet to be made out for over three thousand offices, changing
and equalizing the rates to more than three thousand other offices, the
immense labor and responsibility incurred in the undertaking may be
imagined. It was impossible to effect this revision at once with any
number of clerks, and for obvious reasons only a limited number could be
employed upon it, as they can only act under the instruction of the
executive officers, who are charged with all the other duties of an
extensive organization.
Various plans have been suggested for simplifying and equalizing the
tariffs, but difficulties of a practical nature present themselves in
all of them. The existence of rival lines, built by speculators whose
profit is in the construction of them, and which essay to do business at
rates less than the cost of the service, necessitates the reduction of
our rates along certain routes disproportionately, and prevents the
adoption of a general rate strictly proportioned to distance. In the
course of the coming year, however, it is expected that the work of
revising our whole tariff system will be accomplished, to the
satisfaction of all.