TELEGRAM FROM ENGLAND TO AUSTRALIA.

Thames Guardian and Mining Record, Volume I, Issue 42, 24 November 1871, Page 3

TELEGRAM FROM ENGLAND TO AUSTRALIA.

The Brisbane Courier of the 4th instant observes: —The charges for telegrams from England to this colony by the way of South Australia will probably be as follows : —For a message of twenty words, including address and signature, £9 19s, and half that rate for every ten words or fraction of ten words additional. Of this amount, £8 9s will be paid to the companies owning the different portions of the line between England and Port Darwin ; £1 will be the South Australian charge for transmission by their overland line ; and 10s for transmission from Adelaide to any portion of this colony. The charge proposed to bo made by South Australia on their overland line is exorbitant, and greatly in excess of the rates for similar distances within the other colonies. For instance, the distance from Normanton to Wentworth in New South Wales, near the South Australian border, is 2780 miles, and the charge for messages will be only 10s, whilst we have to pay 20s for the 1600 miles of the Port Darwin line. In no other case within the colonies are the rates anything like so high. The fact is that the rest of Australia will have to pay heavily for the South Australians having run a line across the continent through an unsettled country, where there is no business to contribute to the cost of the working expenses. Even to the South Australians themselves the charge made for a message from England will be greater than if their own overland line had not been undertaken and the Java cable landed at Normautoa instead.