31 & 32 VICT.

Cap. 110.

THE TELEGRAPH ACT, 1868.-31 & 32 VICT. CAP. 110.

AN ACT TO ENABLE HER MAJESTY'S POSTMASTER-GENERAL TO ACQUIRE, WORK,
AND MAINTAIN ELECTRIC TELEGRAPHS.-[31st July 1868.]

Preamble.1

1 Omitted by Stat. Law Revision Act (No. 2), 1893, 56 & 57 Vict. c. 54.

PRELIMINARY.

I. Short title.-This Act may be cited as "The Telegraph Act, 1868." II. Provisions of 26 & 27 Vict. c. 112, incorporated.-The Telegraph Act, 1863, shall be incorporated with this Act, except so far as the same, or any part thereof, may be expressly varied, altered, or be inconsistent with this Act; and the term "the company," in The Telegraph Act, 1863, shall, in addition to the meaning assigned to it in that Act, mean the PostmasterGeneral.

III. Interpretation of terms.-Terms to which meanings are assigned by The Telegraph Act, 1863, have in this Act the same respective meanings; and the word "land" in such last-mentioned Act shall, in addition to the meaning thereby assigned to it, include any term, estate, easement, interest, right, or privilege, in, over, or affecting land, and shall include the works, tubes, wires, posts, and other property purchased or acquired by the Postmaster-General. In this Act

The term "the undertaking" shall mean the whole or any part of the electric and other telegraphs, wires, posts, pipes, tubes, and other works, instruments, materials, lands, tenements, hereditaments, and buildings, Parliamentary, prescriptive, and other rights, powers, privileges, patents, and all other property whatsoever of any company, corporation, or persons engaged in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in transmitting messages for money or other consideration by means of electric or other telegraphs:

The term "any company" shall mean any company, corporation, or persons now engaged in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in transmitting, or authorised to transmit, messages for money or other consideration, by means of electric or other telegraphs, or mechanical agencies, and each and every of those companies.

PURCHASE.

IV. Power to Postmaster-General to purchase undertakings of telegraph companies. It shall be lawful for her Majesty's Postmaster-General, and he is hereby authorised, with the consent of the Treasury, from time to time, out of any moneys which may be from time to time appropriated by Act of Parliament and put at his disposal for that purpose, to purchase for the purposes of this Act, the whole, or such parts as he shall think fit, of the undertaking of any company, and any undertaking, and all other property purchased under the powers of this Act, shall be vested in and held by her Majesty's Postmaster-General, in his corporate capacity, and his successors: provided always, that no such purchase be made, and that no agreement other than the agreements confirmed by this Act for any such purchase be binding, unless the said agreement, accompanied by a minute from the Treasury, in 1 Unnecessary words omitted by 56 & 57 Vict. c. 54.

which the grounds of the agreement shall be set forth, shall have lain for one month on the table of both Houses of Parliament without disapproval.

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SALE.

V. Power to telegraph companies to sell their undertakings to the PostmasterGeneral. Any company, with the authority of two-thirds of the votes of their shareholders present in person or by proxy at a general meeting of the company specially convened for the purpose, may sell all or any portion of their undertaking to the Postmaster-General for such sum of money as may be mutually agreed upon between the Postmaster-General and the company; and the execution by any company under their common seal of a conveyance to the Postmaster-General of their undertaking, shall be sufficient to vest the same in the Postmaster-General for all the estate, right, title, and interest of the company therein, with all incidental rights, privileges, and easements, and the same may be used, exercised, and enjoyed by the PostmasterGeneral in the same manner and to the same extent as the same respectively are, or if this Act had not been passed might be held, used, exercised, and enjoyed by any company, and the receipt of two of the directors of any company for the purchase money, endorsed upon the deed of conveyance, shall be a sufficient discharge for the same to the Postmaster-General, who shall not be bound to see to the distribution thereof.

1 The words "duly stamped" omitted by 56 & 57 Vict. c. 54.

VI. Acts, etc., of companies selling their undertakings to remain in force, and the powers thereof to be exercised by the Postmaster-General.-All Acts, charters, and grants, and all valid deeds and agreements made to, from, by, or with any Company whose undertaking shall be sold and conveyed to the PostmasterGeneral under the powers of this Act shall (except as far as they are by this Act expressed to be varied or repealed, or are inconsistent with the provisions of this Act), remain in full force, and all matters to be done, continued, or completed, or which, but for the passing of this Act, would, might, or could be done, continued, or completed by or against the company so selling their undertaking, their officers or servants, shall or may (as the case requires) be done, continued, or completed by or against the Postmaster-General, his officers and servants, and those Acts, charters, grants, deeds, and agreements shall be construed as if the Postmaster-General had been named therein instead of the company so selling their undertaking; and it shall be lawful for any person to enforce any such Act, charter, grant, deed, or agreement, by action, suit, or other legal proceeding against the Postmaster-General in the same Court, and in the same manner, and with the same rights and liabilities to pay costs and otherwise, as if this Act had not been passed.1

1 See also 33 & 34 Vict. c. 88.

VII. Companies may require Postmaster-General to purchase their undertaking under certain circumstances.-If the Postmaster-General shall acquire any one undertaking under the powers of this Act he shall, upon the request, in writing, of any company possessing an undertaking established by special Act of Parliament or royal charter at the time of the passing of this Act, purchase the undertaking of such Company, upon terms to be settled (failing agreement) by arbitration, provided such request be made within twelve calendar months after the Postmaster-General shall have so acquired any one undertaking; and any railway company possessed of a telegraph open to the use of the public on the first of January one thousand eight hundred and sixty

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1868.

31 & 32 VICT. Cap. 110.

eight for transmitting messages for money, or possessing any beneficial interest in such telegraph, shall be included in this provision, and any such railway company shall be entitled upon a like request, in writing, to require the Postmaster-General to purchase the right of such railway company to transmit such messages or other beneficial interest.

Provided always, that nothing in this Act shall enable the PostmasterGeneral to purchase the undertakings of the Atlantic Telegraph Company or of the Anglo-American Telegraph Company (Limited), or any part of such undertakings.

IX. Postmaster - General to enter into contracts with certain railway companies. Whereas the railway companies in the United Kingdom are for the most part either themselves owners of telegraphs which are used for the conveyance of public messages, and which are also essential for the safe conduct of the traffic on their respective undertakings, or they have contracts for various terms of years with telegraph companies, whose telegraphic apparatus is placed in the stations and along the railways and canals of the railway companies, by which contracts provision is made with respect to the matters aforesaid: and whereas with certain railway companies agreements have been entered into by the Postmaster-General (subject to the approbation of Parliament), which agreements are referred to in Schedules to this Act, and it is expedient that with respect to certain other railway companies, namely, the London and North-Western, the Midland, the Lancashire and Yorkshire, the Great Northern, the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire, the North Staffordshire, the Great Eastern, the London, Brighton, and South Coast, the Metropolitan, the Metropolitan District, the Metropolitan and St. John's Wood, the Highland, the Sutherland, the Leven and East of Fife, the Glasgow and South-Western, and the Great North of Scotland, the provisions hereinafter contained be made as to the undertakings belonging separately to the said companies or held by them jointly with any other company, or held by them respectively on lease; be it therefore enacted as follows:

(1) The Postmaster-General shall give to each railway company three months' notice before he acquires the undertakings of any of the telegraph companies with which the railway company has agreements; and on the expiration of such notice such agreements shall cease and determine :

(2) On such acquisition as aforesaid all the posts, wires, instruments, and other telegraphic apparatus belonging to the railway company, and also all posts, wires, instruments, and other telegraphic apparatus belonging to the telegraph companies on the railway company's lines and canals which are necessary for establishing a complete system of telegraphy in connection with the working of trains and the traffic of the lines and canals, shall become the absolute property of the railway company, and shall be handed over to them by the Postmaster-General free of charge in efficient working order, so that the railway company may be in a position at once to take up and carry on their own telegraph work on their own system, and thereafter the said posts, wires, instruments, and other telegraphic apparatus shall be maintained and worked by the railway company:

(3) On such acquisition as aforesaid the Postmaster-General shall be entitled to use from telegraph stations not on the lines of railway all the wires belonging to the respective telegraph companies on the line, and employed exclusively in the transmission of the public telegraph business, which are erected on the poles to be handed over to the rail

way company under paragraph (2); and he, at his cost, shall also be
entitled to call upon the railway company to erect and maintain
additional wires on the said poles, provided they are sufficiently strong
and high for the purpose; and also to erect new poles at places to be
agreed upon with wires over any of the lines and canals of the Company,
but so that such new poles shall not interfere in any way with the con-
venience or working of the railway or canals of the company, or obstruct
the working of the traffic thereon. The railway company shall main-
tain all the posts and wires used for public messages, the Postmaster-
General paying for the same as may be agreed or settled by arbitration:
(4) The Postmaster-General may require the railway company to affix
wires to existing posts (if they can bear them), and the company may
have a like power to affix wires to the posts belonging from time to time
to the Postmaster-General, if sufficient for the purpose, and the cost of
maintenance of such posts shall be divided between the Postmaster-
General and the company, in proportion to the number of wires belong-
ing to each on each post:

(5) The Railway Company may shift the poles, wires, and apparatus
belonging to the Postmaster-General when necessary for the purposes
of their works or traffic; but in all such cases the Postmaster-General
shall pay to the railway company the actual costs incurred in shifting such
poles and apparatus, but if such poles support the wires of the railway
company and of the Postmaster-General, the cost of shifting the same shall
be apportioned according to the number of wires belonging to or respect-
ively used by the railway company and the Postmaster-General.
(6) The Postmaster-General shall pay the Railway Company the following
sums by way of compensation:

a. Twenty years' purchase of the amount of the net annual receipts
(if any) of public telegraph messages received and forwarded by the
railway company on their own account, reckoned on the basis of
the receipts derived therefrom over a continuous period of twelve
months prior to the thirtieth day of June one thousand eight
hundred and sixty-eight:

b. Twenty times the amount of the estimated annual increase,
calculated upon the average increase of the preceding three years
of the said receipts from telegraphic messages, or where the business
has been commenced within three years calculated upon the increase
during such shorter period, such annual amount in case of difference
to be settled by arbitration:

c. All rents and annual or other payments payable to the railway
company by public telegraph companies during the still unexpired
periods embraced in their respective agreements, and at the terms
mentioned in said agreements respectively:

d. Such sums as shall be agreed upon, or in default of agreement as
shall be settled by arbitration, in respect of the loss by the railway
company of the privilege of granting other wayleaves and making
future arrangements with telegraph or other companies, and in
respect of granting a monopoly to the Postmaster-General for the
conveyance of telegraphs over their railways as herein provided for:
e. Such sums as shall be agreed upon, or in default of agreement as
shall be settled by arbitration, as the value of the railway
company's reversionary interest (if any) in the telegraph receipts
from public messages on the expiration of the agreements with the
respective telegraph companies:

1868.

31 & 32 VICT. Cap. 110.

f. Such sums as shall be agreed upon, or in default of agreement as shall be settled by arbitration, for the loss occasioned by removal of any clerks now provided by the telegraph company, and for any extra cost which the railway company may incur in working their telegraph for railway purposes as a separate system:

g. The Postmaster-General shall transmit to their respective destinations all messages of the railway company in any way relating to the business of the company to and from any "foreign stations" in the United Kingdom free of charge:

h. On such acquisition as aforesaid the Postmaster-General shall, as herein provided, have a perpetual right of way for his poles and wires over the whole of the railway company's system, and in consideration thereof he shall pay to the railway company such sum per mile per wire over the whole of the said system, by way of yearly rent, as shall be determined by agreement between the parties, or failing agreement, as shall be fixed by arbitration:

The arbitrator, in determining the amounts to be paid to the railway company under this Act, shall have regard to the agreements which subsist between the railway company and any telegraph company, and also to a compulsory sale being required from the railway company; and in estimating the amount to be paid under any one part of this section shall have regard to the advantages to be obtained and the disadvantages to be sustained by the railway company under any other part of this section:

(7) The railway company shall, if required by the Postmaster-General so to do, from time to time, at such times and under such regulations as shall be agreed upon, receive messages for transmission by the public or private telegraph wires (but if the latter, the railway messages to have priority), and shall at the Postmaster-General's sole risk and expense transmit the same either to their place of destination, if upon the company's lines, or to some convenient post office as shall be arranged, and in respect of such receipt and transmission the company shall act as agents of the Postmaster-General, and shall receive in respect thereof such remuneration as shall be agreed upon, or in case of difference as shall be from time to time settled by arbitration. The Postmaster-General to provide the necessary instruments at the railway company's stations for the public wires, such instruments to be maintained by the railway company at the expense of the PostmasterGeneral:

(8) The railway company may, notwithstanding anything in this Act
contained, and without payment to the Postmaster-General, from time
to time make arrangements with coalmasters, ironmasters, and traders
generally upon the Company's system for the erection and working of
private telegraphs between coalpits, ironworks, factories, warehouses, and
offices in connection with the stations of the company, or over their
line; but such telegraphs shall be used for the transaction of private
business only, and no money payment shall be made or received in
respect thereof except by way of annual rent or payment for wayleave
and other accommodation:

(9) Except as aforesaid, the railway company shall not transmit or permit
the transmission of any telegraphic message through their wires :
(10) All matters of difference between the Postmaster-General and railway
companies arising under this Act shall be settled by arbitration, in
conformity with the enactments of The Railway Companies Arbitration