Details below describe aspects of:
Finance
In the 1899 Telegraph Report for Queensland, the Postmaster Mr. J. G. Drake noted:
"The value of paid messages from and to New Caledonia during the year 1899 was £6,493 12s 8d and free business estimated at £700. The proporton due to Queensland on paid messages being £346 10s 6d consequently the returns were not sufficient to reduce the annual subsidy of £2,000 paid by this Colony."
The Queensland and Noumea Cable Company was established with M. Mirabel as Manager. He was based in Bundaberg.
M. Mirabel had his own staff of operators - who were independent of the Queensland Telegraph Service - to transact the business of the cable. As one report noted "the business operation in the French administration differs widely in detail from the ordinary electric telegraphic modus operandi". Who would have guessed that!