29th Dec.
In a recent number of the Hlectrical Age of New York, there ai an article by Professor Romyn Hitchcock on the "Proposed Cable between the United States and China." If we are to look with any great hope of success for a permanent alleviation of the heavy price whic we have to pay for our home telegrams, our gaze must be in the direction of a trans-Pacific cable. It is unfortunately to be feared that any efforts we may make to prevent the ratification of the new telegraph convention will be unsuccessful, and that as.long as the Eastern Extension Company and the Great Northern Company remain united, the present rate of two dollars a word will be maintained. It seems impossible to make the Chinese authorities concerned understand how in agreeing to the proposed convention, they are sacrificing their inde-Fendence, and. allowing themselves to tied for ten years to the chariot wheels of the Great Norther Company; and are wilfully throwing away the traffic that they would secure as soon as they connected their lines at Kiakhta with the Russian system. The laying of a trans-Pacific cable would bring a new competitor into the field; a competitor which would, on equal terms, draw away all the traffic between Japan and the west, and a part of the China traffic; and the opening of the' line, if measures were taken by the U.S.
islature to prevent the enterprise falling under the control of the two cable companies under whose joint. monopoly we groan, would surely be followed by a sensible reduction in the tariff.
In discussing his subject, Professor Hitchcock begins with the first sub-} marine cable, which was laid between Dover and Calais in 1850. He runs rapidly through the history of submarine telegraphy, mentioning that the total length of the cables of the world is 140,344 miles, which would stretch more than half way to the moon. "Such," he says, "has been the development of ocean telegraphy in forty years. hat the business Aas been profitable no one can doubt, New lines are constantly being projected and laid. The last Congress was asked to authorise the landing of a cable on the shores of South Carolina. Another is to be laid from Senegal to Brazil, a distance of 2,165 miles. 'I'he longest cable is from Brest to St. Pierre, 2,585 nautical miles. In spite of all this wonderful growth iv every part of the world, not a single line crosses the Pacific Ocean. What a comment this is upon the enterprise for which the American people are famed. This great nation has no telegraphic connection with the Hawaiian Islands. As a naval station for our Pacific fleet at those islands would be of immense importance, our goverment might well undertake to lay a cable there at its own cost. But there is no need of that. Let the cable be extended to Japan and China, and it becomes immediately a paying enterprise. Let the capitalists of this country come to realise the enormous business to be done over such a cable, and they will have it in working order within two years."
Professor Hitchcock points out the roundabout course that a telegram between the United States and Yokohama has now to take; and indeed it does seem preposterous that a despatch from San Francisco to Yokoh: distance of less than 5,000 mi a direct line, should have to go vid New York, Gibraltar, Suez, Aden, Bombay, and then by Madras, the Straits, Hongkong and Shanghai to Japan. It is impossible that all the business of the Far East with the United States should not go by the trans-Pacific cable when it is laid, and some of the traffic with western Europe would also be sent over the Pacific, the facilities for transmission across the continent of North America being so complete, and there being now no less than ten cables connecting Europe with Canada and Newfoundland. Professor Hitchcock continues:-—" It. may be questioned whether the business would be sufficient to make the undertaking profitable. No person in China would ever raise such a question. There is not a shadow of doubt of it. Moreover, the Hawaiian government will pay company laying the cable. Japan will also make a generous payment. There are no obstacles to interfere with laying the cable. 'I'he water is deep, and a cable in deep water and on a good bottom will remain intact for a century. The operation of laying a cable is now comparatively a simple matter. The entire line can be put down in twelve months. Should a break occur at any time the cable can be grappled and repaired. Breaks are very accurately located by the electricians, and so wonderfully is the apparatus for picking up cables adjusted, that a cable has been raised from a depth of 2,700 fathoms."
It is possible that capitalists would require a little more than Professor Hitchcock's assurance before. putting the three millions sterling required into a Pacific cable. It may pay in time and pay handsomely; but. as the present cable companies have not more work than they can manage, they would no doubt fight desperately for a time against a rival, and the promoters of the cable could not reckon on any profit for the first two or three years at any rate. It is perhaps with some consciousness of this that the Professor adds an appeal to the American people to remember that all their telegraphic business with the Far East is dependent upon British lines—which is not strictly accurate, "Nota single word can our government send to an eastern country toa diplomatic officer or to a consul; not an order can be transmitted to the naval officers on duty in China, Japan, or anywhere in the Far East, without making it known to British operators." And he invokes the pride of the American, and asks them if they ought: not to make their country an integral part of the great telegraphic system of the world, and make themselves independent of lines of communication in possibly hostile hands, This argument might well be used to induce Congress to grant the promised line a subsidy'; but it is more important to show that it will be profitable as a commercial speculation. We. should all of us in the Far East be only too glad to know. that this is sufficiently probable to induce the invited capitalists to come forward; and it is certain that a Pacific cable, if it did not pay at once, would not be long before it would become profitable; and we shall heartily welcome the news that it is to be laid, whoever the organisers of the enterprise may be.
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Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.