'File VII/1. Telegraphic Connection to Kuwait.' [‎258r] (545/574)

THE INDO-EUROPEAN TELEGRAPH DEPARTMENT.
By Maurice G. Simpson, M.I.E.E.,
Director-in-Chief, Indo-European Telegraph Department.
(Paper read before the Indian Section of the Royal Society of Arts on 20th January,
1928. Sir Geoffrey Clarke, C.S.I., O.B.E., late Director-General, Posts and
Telegraphs Government of India, in the Chair).
The Chairman, in introducing the lecturer, said Mr. Maurice Simpson, the
Director-in-Chief of the Indo-European Telegraph Department, was giving a
lecture on the subject of his own Department, with which he was naturally very
familiar. The question of telegraphy was very much before the public at present ;
the newspapers were full of discussions as to the merits and demerits of both wireless
and wire telegraphy, and though this was rather outside the immediate subject
of the paper, it was a question so important that it could not altogether be kept
outside the discussion. The Indo-European Telegraph Department had carried
on for about 70 years the most remarkable work in Persia, and the fact that it had
overcome extraordinary physical and political difficulties, and had worked in the
most perfect sympathy with the Persian Government, was one of the greatest
possible tributes to its organisation and efficiency.
The following paper was then read :—
THE INDO-EUROPEAN TELEGRAPH DEPARTMENT.
By Maurice G. Simpson, M.I.E.E.,
Director-in-Chief, Indo-European Telegraph Department.
The Indo-European Telegraph Department is a department of the Govern
ment of India about which very little is generally known, the reason being
partly because its executive operations are almost entirely outside India, in the
Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. and Persia, and partly because it is in the anomalous position of
being the only Department of the Government of India with its headquarters
in London and administered directly by the Secretary of State for India. How
this anomalous position arose, the necessity for its continuance and the admin
istrative difficulties it involves will, I hope, be made clear as we proceed.
Telegraph lines began to be built in 1840 in England, and in 1852 in India,
and in both countries they very rapidly extended. There were early visions
of a telegraphic connection between England and India, but it is not till 1856
that we find the first mention of negotiations between England and Turkey for
the construction for this purpose of a line eastward from Constantinople towards
the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. . The European and Indian Junction Telegraph Company were
then endeavouring to obtain a concession in Constantinople for the construction
of a land line to Kurna at the junction of the Tigris and Euphrates. In 1857
the grant of this concession was definitely refused by the Turkish Government,
who undertook themselves to construct the line, but expressed a willingness