REDUCED TELEGRAPH TARIFF.

Westport Times, Volume IV, Issue 637, 26 March 1870, Page 2

REDUCED TELEGRAPH TARIFF.

Prominent notice deserves to be given to the really revolutionary alteration which the Commissioner of Telegraphs contemplates in the charges made for telegraphic messages. It was considered to be a sufficiently great change when the minimum of half-a-crown for messages was made applicable to all the colony, but the concession had its drawbacks in connection with messages for short distances. Now—or, at least, after the Ist of April—all messages of ten words, inclusive of the address, but exclusive of the signature, may be transmitted for a shilling, every additional ten words being only sixpence. This reduction of charges will, no doubt, greatly develop the public adoption of the telegraph as a means of communication, while it will ultimately increase the revenue of the department. A commensurately low scale of charges is, made for Press messages, and, in view of an increased use of the line by newspapers, what is chiefly to be desiderated is a system of telegraphic correspondence throughout the colony. Such a system—separate, of course, from the Telegraph Department—has yet to > be devised. To make the lines as available for public use as possible,

a reduction in the gratuitous shipping telegrams is to be made, and it is a reduction of which no one can complain.