Telegraph Congress
A telegraph congress is the name given to a meeting of the international carriers of telegraphy in the interest of the further development of the international telegraph facilities.
The example given by the German-Austrian Telegraph Association founded on July 25, 1850 in Dresden was soon followed by the Romance states, of which France , Belgium , Switzerland and Sardinia formed a special association in 1852 , and after the two groups of associations through conferences in Brussels and Friedrichshafen In 1858 they had sought a mutual rapprochement, they met in Paris in 1865 for the first international telegraph congress, through which the international telegraph traffic was regulated in a contract valid for all of Europe.
As a unit of tariff he accepted the telegram of 20 words ( twenty word tariff ). Charges from one country to another were generally made the same, and only in countries of extensive land were multiple tariff zones established.
The second international telegraph congress in Vienna in 1868 united the Asian administrations with the European association group. He created the international bureau in Bern as the central organ, which had to collect the news relating to international telegraphy, to prepare the work of the periodical conferences and also to promote science by publishing the Journal télégraphique .
At the third international telegraph congress in Rome in 1872 it was agreed that the large private cable companies would be admitted to the congresses without, however, granting them voting rights.
The fourth international telegraph congress in Saint Petersburg in 1875 divided the international treaty instrument into two documents, of which the first, which deals with the unchangeable legal relationships between administrations and the public, was signed by the diplomatic representatives of the state governments, while the conclusion of the second, which concerned the regulatory provisions, was only carried out by the technical delegates.
The following congresses only dealt with amendments to the implementation provisions (regulations) for this contract.
At the Fifth International Telegraph Congress , London 1879, agreed to do that in Germany founded by Stephan launched word tariff system , and on the sixth international telegraph Congress , Berlin 1885, was designed by Stephan the request for creation of a uniform tariff introduced, at least for European transport. Although this proposal was not generally accepted, Congress decided to further simplify the tariff in preparation for the later introduction of a uniform tariff.
According to the provisions of the Berlin Treaty, the international tariff is formed from a fee for the word, which the state of the dispatch area and the state of the destination area ( terminal tax ) and the states lying between the dispatch and destination area ( transit tax ) each levy separately. The terminal taxes and the transit taxes are determined uniformly for each state. The terminal tax was set uniformly at 10 cents, the transit tax at 8 cents, for each word with a reduction of 6 and 4 cents for smaller countries.
The following member states belonged to the International Telegraph Association at the end of the 19th century: Australia ( New Zealand , New South Wales , South Australia , Tasmania , Victoria ), Belgium , Bosnia-Herzegovina , Brazil , British India , Bulgaria , Cape of Good Hope , Denmark , Germany , Egypt , France (also for Algeria , Tunis , Kochinchina and Senegal ), Greece , Great Britain with Gibraltar and Malta , Italy , Japan , Luxembourg , Montenegro , Natal colony , the Netherlands (also for the Dutch East Indies ), Norway , Austria-Hungary , Persia , Portugal , Romania , Russia , Sweden , Switzerland , Serbia , Siam , Spain and Turkey , as well as all major cable companies.
In October 1882 a conference met in Paris , the work of which led to the conclusion of a convention of March 14, 1884 on the protection of submarine cables, to which 28 states have acceded.