9306 m. of
line in a total of 11,080 m. Cable communication with Europe by way of
Buenos Aires was opened in 1875, and is now maintained by means of two
underground cables across the Andes, 32 m. in length. A West Coast
cable also connects with Europe and North American states by way of
Panama. There were 15,853 m. of telephone wires in the republic in
1906, all the principal cities having an admirable service. Modern
postal facilities date from 1853. The Chilean post-office is
administered by a director-general at Santiago, and has a high degree
of efficiency and liberality, compared with those of other South
American states. The postal rates are low, and newspapers and other
periodical publications circulate free, as a means of popular
instruction. The postal revenues for 1904 amounted to 2,775,730 pesos
and the expenditures to 2,407,753 pesos. Chile is a member of the
International Postal Union, and has arrangements with the principal
commercial nations for the exchange of postal money values.

The sea has been the only means of communication with distant parts of
the country, and must continue to be the chief transportation route.
There are said to be 56 ports on the Chilean coast, of which only 12
are prominent in foreign trade. Many of the so-called ports are only
landing-places on an open coast, others are on shallow bays and
obstructed river-mouths, and some are little-known harbours among the
channels and islands of the south. The prosperity of Chile is
intimately connected with her ocean-going trade, and no elaborate
system of national railway lines and domestic manufactures can ever
change this relationship. These conditions should have developed a
large merchant marine, but the Chileans are not traders and are
sailors only in a military sense. In 1905 their ocean-going merchant
marine consisted of only 148 vessels, of which 54 were steamers of
42,873 tons net, and 94 were sailing vessels of 39,346 tons. Nineteen
of the 54 steamers belonged to a subsidized national line whose West
Coast service once extended to San Francisco, California, and a large
part of the others belongs to a Lota coal-mining and copper-smelting
company which employs them in carrying coal to the northern ports and
bringing back metallic ores for smelting. The navigable rivers and
inland lakes employ a number of small steamers. The foreign commerce
of the republic is