Communications and Power

Reuters

When Henry Collins established the first Reuters office in India in 1866, his company had already become one of the dominant communications powers in the world. Through reciprocal news exchanges which would be enshrined in agency treaties in 1879, Reuters shared with its two major competitors, Havas and Wolff, a division of the world into ‘spheres of influence’, reflecting the positions and priorities of their national sponsors. The strategic interests of Germany and Wolff were on the continent, and that company received exclusive right to exploit Austria, the Scandinavian countries, and Russia. In return for their abstinence in Northern Europe, the others were amply compensated. Havas was granted the French Empire by right, and received as well the countries of Latin Europe and eventually South America. Reuters obtained the monopoly for the British Empire and the Far East.

Like the founders of British interests in India, Reuters' agents came to do business, to carry commercial news from Britain to the merchants on the spot, and to share in their financial success. The need for speed and accuracy had never been more important than in the mid-1860s, when the American Civil War had caused a dramatic rise in cotton prices and the chance for quick profits. By 1865, the first Indo-European overland line was in place. Four years later, the Indian Submarine Company's cable completed the final link between Aden and Bombay, providing a halfhour telegraph exchange between London and Simla. Although the service was expensive, £1 per word with a minimum of £20 per cable, there was no lack of subscribers. Forty clients were required in order to make the commercial service viable.