Management of the Cable
See Hobart Mercury 1 July 1873 in History in Australia.
Post 1901
After Federation, the Commonwealth wanted to divest itself of responsibility to the Eastern Companies. It therefore commissioned a report seeking a valuation of the cables worth.
The Sydney Morning Herald of 16 January 1902 reported:
"The (Tasmanian) State Treasurer leaves for Melbourne tomorrow morning to interview the Postmaster-General, the Attorney-General and the Treasurer of the Commonwealth regarding the cable rates between Tasmania and Australia. Mr Bird hopes to induce the Commonwealth Ministry to take over the contract now existing between the cable company and the Tasmanian Government and to make the charge in connection with it a charge against the Commonwealth, and not against the individual State".
The Sydney Morning Herald of 17 March 1903 reported:
"The estimate of the value of the Australia to Tasmania cable service of £70,000 supplied to the Postmaster-General by electrical experts attached to his department is not, it appears, to be taken as final. The House Affairs Department has checked the experts' valuation of buildings and fittings used to work the cable and it has reduced the first estimate by a fairly large amount The central authorities also took exception to the experts having any special allowance for goodwill and several other claims made by the Eastern Extension Telegraph Company. The experts are, therefore, revising their calculation, and are likely to reduce it by several thousands of pounds".
On 11 June 1903, the Mercury reported the next step in these deliberations, which were now compicated by the development of wireless telegraphy providing an alternative to cables:
"The Postmaster - General, Senator Drake, said that it was not the intention of Ministers to submit to Parliament any proposal for purchasing the cable between Tasmania and Victoria. Legal opinion was being obtained to ascertain whether it would be a breach of the existing contract with the cable company for the Commonwealth Parliament to provide for the establishment and working of a system of wireless telegraphy between the two States.
The Postmaster-General also informed Senator Keating that the Government did not, this session, intend submitting to Parliament a bill to authorise the purchase by the Government of the Commonwealth of the Bass Strait cable. An offer had been obtained in the direction of acquiring this cable for the people of the Commonwealth and the offer was still under consideration but the final report had not yet been received.