It will be observed, by an examination of the above table, that low
tariffs are not the only causes of the enlarged use of the telegraph.
The annual percentage of increase in messages, as tariffs were gradually
reduced, was vastly less than during those years when the rates remained
unchanged. During the year of 1851 only 9,014 telegrams were transmitted
through the French empire, the tariff averaging $1.60 per message. Five
years later, notwithstanding that the average cost per message had been
_increased_ to $1.73, the number of messages had increased to 360,299,
and in 1858 to 463,973,—more than fifty times the number sent in 1851,
or _an increase of more than five thousand per cent in eight years,
without any reduction in rates_. The increase in the number of messages
during the next eight years, from 1858 to 1866, was only six hundred per
cent, notwithstanding a reduction in the tariff from 7.60 to 2.79
francs.
This same peculiarity of increase, without regard to the cost, is also
observable in all other countries, as will be seen by a perusal of the
official tables.