The formation of Eastern Extension:
Hobart Mercury 1 July 1873
In the news brought by the mail, published in today's issue, will be found reports of the fourth ordinary meeting, and an extraordinary general meeting, of the British Australian Telegraph Company, held in London on the 21st April. The business transacted was of considerable importance to these colonies, affecting as it does telegraphic communication to the mainland of Australia, and also to Tasmania. The Directors' report stated that they had agreed on terms of amalgamation between the British Australian Telegraph Company, the British Indian Extension Telegraph Company, and the China Submarine Telegraph Company. It had been arranged that the amalgamated company "the India, Australia, and China Telegraph Company" should acquire the Tasmania Submarine Telegraph Cable for £70,000 in shares. Subsequent meetings of the three amalgamated companies, we learn, have resulted in formal resolutions for winding them up, and the name of the new company, which has a capital of £3,000,000, has been definitely fixed as "the Eastern Extension, Australasia and China Telegraph Company".
The purchase of the Submarine Cable to Tasmania, is a matter which will scarcely make any difference to the Colony at present, but at the same time we presume the Government will be made aware of the new arrangement. We might express a wish that the Amalgamated Company will deal a little more liberally, and be willing to grant a few more favours, than the Colony has received from the Company which has the management of the cable now. They have carried out a selfish policy against their own interests, for had their concessions to the Press been made earlier, they would have benefited thereby. Judging from what was said at the meeting of the British Australian Company by the Chairman, the new Company will be disposed to reduce the rates on their lines by a system of "social telegraphy" so that the line would be more frequently used for private messages. Unquestionably the rates both on the Tasmanian cable and the Australian line are high, and it is a matter worth consideration whether a reduction of rates would not result in increased receipts.
Listing on the Stock Exchange.
Once the new company was agreed to and registered, offers were made to share holders of the preceding companies to transfer their holdings to the new company. In May 1873, the circulars to the shareholders of the British Indian Extension Telegraph Company Limited, the China Submarine Telegraph Company Limited and the British-Australian Telegraph Company Limited were issued requesting them to take up the shares in the Eastern Extension Australasia and China Telegraph Company Limited, to which they were respectively entitled. The transfer books of the Eastern Extension Australasia and China Telegraph Company were opened and the transfers were to be registered immediately after the share certificates in the Eastern Extension Australasia and China Telegraph Company were issued to the shareholders in the three companies first named.
The Eastern Extension Telegraph, as it was based in Adelaide, was listed on the Adelaide Stock Exchange - see Adelaide Advertiser 28 August 1873 p. 7.
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/89486929?searchTerm=%22Pacific%20cable%22&searchLimits=
On 5 August 1873, the Directors of the Eastern Extension Australasia and China Telegraph Company, Limited, declared an interim dividend for the three months ended on 31 March 1873 of 3s. per share. A similar interim dividend of 3s per share was declared in October for the quarter ending 30 June 1873.
The Amalgamation of the British-Australian Cable company into the Eastern Extension Company was completed in October 1873.
When proposals for the Pacific Cable were being developed, there was strong opposition from the Eastern Extension Telegraph Company. This wealthy corporation, which had long enjoyed a very lucrative monopoly, at an early date perceived how injurious to its interests any opposition would become. When it saw that real business was meant, the company offered to lay a cable from Australia to the Cape, with a branch to India, and an immediate reduction in the rates, with prospective further reductions. For these favors, a modest subsidy of £100,000 per annum was asked, but this trifle, it need not be said, was refused. In the hope of retaining its trade, the company then reduced its rates. In addition to the above-named subsidy, the Eastern Extension asked that the right to establish its own collecting and distributing offices should be conceded to it, a demand which was strenuously resisted by Victoria with the result that this State has been penalised ever since the reductions took place until within a week ago.
An important aspect was the agreement between the new Commonwealth Government and the Eastern Extension Company. In 1902?? the Commonwealth made an offer the the Company ...
By February, 1906, the Government was awaiting a response. Various newspapers carried a story such as:
EASTERN EXTENSION CO MELBOURNE,
l9 February 1906.
No information has yet been received as to whether the Eastern Extension Cable Company will accept the new agreement, as amended by Parliament last year, but it is anticipated that the company, which has only a few days left to make up its mind, will not sign the proposed new contract unless it is amended in one or two particulars which still necessitate a further reference to legislation.
In April 1906, the Company announced it would not accept the agreement and it felt the amendments made by the Senate were contrary to the letter and spirit of the agreement, and a marked contrast to the assurances given to the company in 1903.
On 4 July 1906, the Company presented to the Postmaster-General with a memorial signed by many merchants, asking that the Eastern Extension Company should be allowed to reopen its cable offices in Melbourne. The memorialists pointed to the fact that, when the company opened in Melbourne, it gave great facilities to business men and generally a superior service. They referred to the fact that Sydney, having two private offices, was in a better position than Melbourne from a business point of view. They added that some of the large cable users were inclined to do their business from Sydney if the Eastern Extension Company not be allowed to open in Melbourne.
On March 19, 1919 the decision was announced that the Company had decided to move its Australian headquarters from Melbourne to Sydney. Responsibility as General Superintendent would change from Mr. L. Webster to Mr. G. Brook on 1 July 1919.