Postmaster-General assisted by a Deputy Postmaster-General and a suitable number of attached officers and the engineering branch being controlled by a Director of Telegraphs in charge of the two Circles. Subordinate to this officer there were several Divisional Superintendents who were assisted by a number of attached officers. In 1914 the complete amalgamation of the two Departments was sanctioned by the Secretary of State and introduced from 1st April. The superior staff of the Direction, in addition to the Director-General himself, consists on the engineering side of a Chief Engineer, Telegraphs, with two Dy. Chief Engineers. For traffic work there is a Deputy Director-General, with an Assistant and an Assistant DirectorGeneral. On the 27th March 1920 a Controller of Telegraph Traffic was appointed to assist the Deputy Director-General in the inspection of offices and in controlling telegraph traffic. In the Circles the scheme which has been introduced follows closely on the lines of the experimental one referred to above. For telegraph engineering purposes India is divided up into five Circles, each in charge of a Director. For Burma special arrangements were considered necessary and the engineering work is in charge of the PostmasterGeneral who is a Telegraph officer specially selected for the purpose. These six Circles are divided into twenty-one Divisions each of which is in charge of a Divisional Engineer. On the 1st July 1922 Sind and Baluchistan circle was formed with its headquarters at Karachi. This circle is in charge of a Deputy Postmaster-General. On the 31st March 1924 there were 7 Circles and 20 Divisions. The telegraph traffic work is under the control of the Postmasters-General, each of whom is assisted by a Deputy Postmaster-General and a suitable staff of attached officers. The audit work of the Telegraph Department is, like that of the Post Office, entrusted to the Accountant-General, Posts and Telegraphs, assisted by a staff of Deputy and Assistant Accountants-General. telegrams vary with the countries to which they Foreign Tariff.-The charges for foreign Inland Telegrams and Tariff.-Telegrams and state telegrams to countries in Europe are addressed. The rates per word for privato sent to or received from places in India or are as follows:-Ceylon are classed as Inland telegrams. The tariff for inland telegrams is as follows:— State Ordi- Defer (BriUrgent nary. red. tish. Govt.) Rs. a. Rs. a. Rs. a. Rs. a. countries in State. Ex- Ordi- All nary. Rs. a. Rs. a. Great Britain and Most other countries 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 Radio-Telegrams. For radio-telegrams addressed to ships at sea from offices in India or Burma and transmitted via the coast stations at Bombay, Calcutta, Karachi, Madras, Port Blair or Rangoon the charge is ten aunas per word 'in nearly all cases. The late fee system does not apply to Daily Letter-Telegrams and such telegrams are not accepted during the closed hours of an office. On Indian lines Daily Letter-Telegrams are transmitted after Deferred Foreign telegrams. In the Daily Letter-Telegram service the special instructions relating to prepayment of replies are admitted other special services are inadmissible in DLT Telegrams. Packed messages, i.e., messages intended to be communicated to different persons, are not accepted in the text of Daily Letter-Telegrams Daily Letter-Telegrams to Great Britain and Ireland via Eastern or Indo or 1. R.T; are accepted at one-fourth the rate for ordinary telegrams, subject to a minimum of 20 words per telegram including the indication DLT. The charge for a week-end telegram to Great Britain and Northern Ireland is 3 annas a word via Eastern or Indo and 24 annas a word via I.R.T. subject to a minimum of 20 words per telegram including the indication TWT. TELEGRAPHS. ABBREVIATED LIST OF RATES * "via I. R. T." COMPILED FROM FIGURES SUPPLIED BY THE DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF POSTS AND TELEGRAPHS. Effective from 1st October 1927 Subject to revision without notice. Ordy. Defd.D.L.T. Rs.a. Rs.a. Rs. a. (b) For more than ten words, The sender of a radio-telegram may prepay a reply. He must insert before the address, the instruction "R. P." followed by mention in Rupees and annas of the amount prepaid e.g., R.P. 7-8. This expression counts as one word. DAILY LETTER-TELEGRAMS. Daily Letter-Telegrams in plain language, which are dealt with telegraphically throughout are accepted on any day of the week, excluding Sundays and telegraph holidays, and are ordinarily delivered to the addressee after forty-eight hours. They are subject to the conditions prescribed for Deferred Foreign telegrams with certain exceptions as stated below. The charge for a Daily Letter-Telegram is a quarter of the charge for a full rate telegram of the same length and by the same route subject to a minimum charge equal to the charge for 20 words at such reduced rate. No deferred rate to Yugoslavia and Turkey. This list is issued by the Traffic Manager, Iadian Radio Telegraph Company, Ltd., Central Telegraph Office, Bombay. 2 7 1 31 Private State Press 4,107,270 14,539,371 860,382 1,068.063 35,910 453,992 Private 2 5 1 21 2 7 1 31 1 12 0 14 2 7 1 34 Week end Telegrams (To Great Britain only), accepted lon Saturday or any previous day or delivery on the following Monday-24 annas per word. Daily and Week-end Letter TelegramsMinimum charge for 20 words. Ordinary rate telegrams may be written in Code. Telegrams are accepted at all Government Telegraph Offices. Usual rules apply regarding Registration, Reply Paid, etc. Full lists published in Post and Telegraph Guide. Growth of Telegraphs.-At the end of 1897-98 there were 50,305 miles of line and 155,088 miles of wire and cable, as compared with 511.866 wire including cable and 98,126 line including cable miles, respectively, on the 31st March 1927. The numbers of departmental telegraph offices were 257 and 153(including 53 Coast Radio offices, respectively) while the number of telegraph offices worked by the Post Office rose from 1,634 to 3,852. Foreign... State Press 9,896 30.806 5,278 39,293 5,754,415 19,022,602 The outturn of the workshops during 1926-27 represented a total value of Rs. 20,30.853. At the end of the year the total outlay of the Indian P. & T. Department to end of the year staff numbered 14,661. The total capita amountedr to Rs. 12,14,31,780. The Net profit for the year was Rs. 10,24,962. Wireless.-The total number of Departmental wireless stations open at the end of 1926-27 was twenty-four, viz., Allahabad, Bombay, Calcutta, Delhi, Diamond Island, Jutogh, Karachi, Lahore, Madras (3 stations), Mhow, Nagpur, Peshawar, Poona, Port Blair, Quetta, Rangoon (3 stations), Sandheads (two pilot-vessels), Secunderabad, and Victoria Point of which only Port Blair and Victoria Point booked telegrams direct from the public. The new Duplex high-speed service between Rangoon and Madras continued to work satisfactorily, the Baudot system being employed generally for this circuit." Telephones.-On the 31st March 1927 the number of telephone exchanges established by the Department was 271 with 15,041 straight line connections and 2.074 extension telephones. Of these exchanges, 112 were worked departmentally. The number of telephone exchanges established by Telephone Companies was 18 with 28,384 connections. Sanitation. The history of the sanitary departments in India goes back for about fifty years. During that period great improvements have been effected in the sanitary condition of the towns, though much remains to be done; but the progress of rural sanitation which involves the health of the great bulk of the population has been slow, and incommensurate with the thought and labour bestowed on the subject. The reason lies in the apathy of the people and the tenacity with which they cling to domestic customs injurious to health. While the inhabitants of the plains of India are on the whole distinguished for personal cleanliness, the sense of public cleanliness has ever been wanting. Great improvements have been effected in many places; but the village house is still often ill-ventilated and over-populated; the village site dirty, crowded with cattle, choked with rank vegetation, and poisoned by stagnant pools; and the village tanks polluted, and used indiscriminately for bathing, cooking and drinking. That the way to improvement lies through the education of the people has always been recognised." Of recent years the pace has been speeded up as education progressed, education developed, and funds were available. In a resolution issued in May 23rd, 1914, the Government of India summarised the position at that time, and laid down the general lines of advance. This resolution (Gazette of India, May 25th, 1914) should be studied by all who wish to understand the attitude of the Government of India towards sanitation prior to the passing of the Reform Act of 1919. It will be found summarised in the Indian Year Book of 1922 (page 475 et seq.) and earlier editions. One of the greatest changes effected by the Reform Act of 1919 was the transfer of sanitation to the provinces making it a subject, directly responsible to local control through Ministers. It is yet full early to attempt to indicate the effects of this change. The Public Health Commissioner with the Government of India in a general review of health organisation in British India which he laid in January, 1928, before the Interchange Study Tour organised for Medical Officers of Health from the Far Eastern Countries by the Health Organisation of the League of Nations, concluded that the State effort in regard to Health Organisation in British India is one of no mean importance, that it has evolved over a couple of centuries during which many mistakes in policy must be admitted, that it has provided the Officers and the stimulus necessary for laying the foundations of medical education, that it has tried to uphold the ethical standards of western medicine and that in whichever way it is regarded it is an effort of which no Government need be ashamed." He quoted, the remark of the Government of India in their Resolution of 1914, that "in the land of the ox cart one must not expect the pace of the motor car." The Public Health Commissioner in his latest published annual report (for 1925) notes the introduction of the political element into health matters as a result of the Reforms and says that the improvements being introduced before the Reforms are in some provinces now in a fair way to maturing but that in other provinces "with less appreciation of the actual needs so far from adding to the organisation as they have found it have shown a desire to scrap even some of what they originally possessed." But, he says, "though the picture is neither bright nor the future rosy, it is becoming increasingly evident that a considerable section of the Indian community is thinking seriously on these public health problems: amid much futile and destructive criticisms of State and municipal efforts hereand there valuable and suggestive criticism can be met with which goes to prove my contention." Inia's birth rate in 1925 was nearly twice that of England and Wales, her death rate was twice that of England and Wales and nearly three times that of New Zealand and her infantile mortality rate was nearly 24 times that of England and Wales and nearly 44 times that of New Zealand. "The information furnished for the great group of infectious diseases of world import, i.e., plague, cholera, small-pox, yellow fever, typhus, malaria, and dysentery shows (says the Public Health Report already cited) that if we except typhus and yellow fever, India is one of the world's reservoirs of infection for the others and the main reservoir of infection for plague and cholera." The significance of these facts must, adds the Commissioner, be obvious to all who think: "Briefly their implication is that India's house, from the public health point of view, is sadly out of order and that this disorder requires to be attended to. It is not for India to say that so far as she is concerned prevention is impossible. think of the effect of sunlight on tubercle ridden children; of the effect of feeding on rickets, scurvy and beri-beri; of the way in which malaria, cholera, yellow fever, dangue, ankylostomiasis and filariasis can be and have been overcome we need have no fear in regard to India provided the necessary measures are put into operation." If we The Public Health Commissioner in an address before the annual congress of the Ear Eastern Association of Tropical Medicine, held in Calcutta in December, 1927, urged the importance of instituting a Central Ministry of Health which should be charged with the functions of co-ordinating the policies and activities of the departments concerned in the several provinces and with keeping them abreast of scientific progress. There is at present no Public Health Act for the whole of India, nor under existing administrative arrangements is one immediately possible, but the desirability of the Central Ministry of Health and of such an Act is likely to be urged in the course of the revision of the Constitutional Reforms now in progress. Birth Rates (per mille). Death Rates (per mille). Chief Causes of Mortality.-There are three main classes of fatal diseases, specific fevers, diseases affecting the abdominal organs, and lung diseases, Intestinal and skin parasites, uicers and other indications of scurvy widely prevali. The table below shows the number of deaths from each of the principal diseases and from all other causes in British India and death rates per 1,000: The Public Health Commissioner in his annual review shows that the outstanding statistical data concerning health during the year 1925 are briefly as follows: (1) The birth rate fell down from 34.45 per mille in 1924 to 33.65 per mille in 1925; (2) The death rate fell from 28.49 per mille in 1924 to 24.72 per mille in 1925; (3) The infantile death rate fell from 189 in 1924 to 174 in 1925. He shows that taking the year as a whole rainfall was within 25 per cent of the normal except in Orissa and the Madras Coast North where it was in moderate excess and in Baluchistan, Sind, Rajputana and Gujarat, where it was in large defect. Birth ratios exceeded death ratios in all provinces except Coorg, where the death rate,was in excess by 3.05. Central Provinces (18.63), Delhi 11.94), Bihar and Orissa (11.9), Bombay (11.0), Punjab (10.09), Ajmer-Merwara (9.68), Madras (9.3) were among the big birth increases. Deaths throughout British India numbered 5,967.918 as compared with 6,879,286 in the preceding year a decrease of 911,368. Registered births exceeded registered deaths by 2,157,490 against 1,438,117 in 1924, all provinces excepting Coorg having contributed to this. The death was 24.72 as against 28.49 in 1924 and a quinquennial mean of 27.74. The urban death rate was 29.65 against 31.65 and the rural rate was 24.30 against 28.19 in 1924. In Delhi, Bengal and Bihar and Orissa the rural rates exceeded the urban ones; in Coorg the urban rate exceeded the rural one by 26.37 in Burma by 17.45 and in the United Provinces by 11.54. rate |