But the risks and cost of that enterprise were so serious, and the traffic likely to be obtained so small, that it was found impossible to act without State assistance. To amend the Communications Act of 1934 to provide increased consumer protection and to promote increased competition in the cable television and related markets, and for other purposes. SEC. 4. CARRIAGE OF LOCAL COMMERCIAL TELEVISION SIGNALS. SEC. 27. APPLICABILITY OF ANTITRUST LAWS. 17 SEC. 17. CONSUMER ELECTRONICS EQUIPMENT COMPATIBILITY. SEC. 8. CONSUMER PROTECTION AND CUSTOMER SERVICE. SEC. 25. DIRECT BROADCAST SATELLITE SERVICE OBLIGATIONS. SEC. 7. AWARD OF FRANCHISES; PROMOTION OF COMPETITION. The trouble with the Colorado River, it will be recalled, began in September, 1904. The California Development Company, promoters of the Imperial land colony, needed more water for agricultural purposes than their old irrigation ditch was then supplying, and to remedy the shortage an incision was made in the banks of the river at a point about four miles below the old tapping point, and below the international boundary line between the United States and Mexico. From 1870 to the present time, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Tunis, France, Italy, Austria, Greece, Tripoli, Crete, Cyprus, Turkey, and Russia have allowed British capital and British enterprise to connect them with our system, in complete reliance upon the proved international uprightness and fair dealing of our citizens.

Nevertheless, the same Committee felt it to be its duty to add that the cable communications between Britain and India are not strategically satisfactory, as long as a cable is not laid by the Eastern Telegraph Company from Southern India to Cocos, a British island south of India. We do not think,' said the Cable Committee of 1902, 'that the remedy lies in Government intervention. We wish to say,' said the Cable Committee of 1902, 'that we are strongly opposed to any scheme for the general purchase of private cables by the State.… But their resources, with the exception of those of Cuba, are so limited that one set of cables under one control would amply suffice for them, uniting them to each other and to the North and South American continents. The cost of the work to the Southern Pacific Railway Company, which, headed by Engineer Epes Randolph, engineered the undertaking, reached an average rate of $10,000 per day for one hundred days. I have seen him at one end of his land-line in Adelaide, and sent him a message from Port Darwin at the other. Unfortunately, the centres of Australian population are in the south, and so a land-line of 2,000 miles had to be laid overland, across the deserts, from Adelaide to Port Darwin, in order to unite the principal capitals of Australia with London.

A line of French cables, largely subsidized by the State, unites New York to San Domingo, and from San Domingo radiates on all sides, south, east, and west to Venezuela, Cuba, and the French possessions of Martinique and Guadeloupe. It also touches at the French islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique. The only line, however, which needs our attention is that duplicate sequence of cables, given on the accompanying map, owned by the West India and Panama Company, and running from Jamaica right through our British Islands to Demerara on the South American continent. These islands in that year were connected with the island of Luzon. Another danger is the south-west monsoon blowing for several month each year in the Indian Ocean. The loss was so serious that in 1895 the Government cancelled the above basis, and agreed to guarantee the sum by which the receipts should fall below £20,000 a year, provided that the amount payable did not exceed £9,000 in any year.

Though this had expired in 1886, the British company, in 1890, duplicated the line, and further, to meet the needs of the case, reduced the tariff in 1898 from 8s. 6d to 2s. 0d. for ten words, the Government agreeing to bear three-quarters of any loss that might result. The capital was raised at a cheap rate by the British Government, and the four Governments concerned agreed to share the loss or profit of the undertaking among them. All these were British Colonies, and the question had thus been solved. To revert to our West African Colonies, the rates to these have been high. To begin with, Cuba provides the bulk of the West Indian traffic, but Cuba is now a republic under the dominion of the United States, so that the West India and Panama Company has never benefited from the Cuban traffic, because the natural outlet for that traffic is through Florida. It now appeared that, under the terms of its concessions from Russia and Germany, that company cannot consent to any alterations of tariff, except with the consent of those Governments, and as these consents were withheld, Germany and Russia blocked the way to any reduction of rate between Britain and India.

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