Submarine Telegraph Cables, laid and worked in June 1870, or in course of manufacture and expected to be laid 1,800 In autumn 1870 As above, and with Indian Government land wires between Bombay and Madras This Company, the Anglo-Mediterranean, and British Indian Sul marine form the continuous route to India popularly termed the Submarine Line. The above list includes, it is believed, all the submarine cables which are now in working order, or which are in course of construction, and in a forward state, likely to be opened during this or the next year. But no account is here taken of cables which have been laid, but have subsequently been taken up again or abandoned; nor of the numerous projected enterprises, some of which are likely to be ere long carried out; and amongst these are the Brazil, about 4,300 miles, from Demerara along the coast of Brazil to Buenos Ayres; and the North Pacific from the Russian Pacific coast at Posietta, viâ Japan, to Vancouver's Island. and San Francisco, about the same length, completing, in Puck's words, 'a girdle round the earth in (less than) forty minutes.' As we have before said, the Post-office authorities have no intention of purchasing these cables at the present time, with the exception of the strictly British lines to Ireland, and the cables to the Hague and Norderney which formed part of the bargain with the Electric and International Company. But the day may arrive when, on imperial grounds, the Government will have these cables forced upon them by the interests of the nation, although, it must be borne in mind, that the risks and triumphs of these great submarine lines have been met and won entirely by private enterprise, and that (except in one case (which was a failure) the Government has done nothing to assist the adventurers to whom it is so deeply indebted. The advantages of telegraphs are measured by the length of distance they run. To all remote points the telegraph will practically supersede the post; it will link together all our military stations and establishments. At a day not very distant, the War-office must have its cable to every British military post throughout the world, as it now has to Aldershot and Chatham. The Navy department, in like manner, must have instant means of communication with its sea sentinels wherever they may be on the broad ocean. We cannot hope to hold together, in a military sense, our great dependencies, unless they are within instant call. The world is rapidly assuming a nervous energy it has never before known. When war comes, we shall be able to strike simultaneously from many points at once; and when peace arrives, we shall resume our mercantile activity throughout the globe the day the treaty is signed. It is impossible to suppose the Government will be able to restrict their control of the marvellous new agent to these islands, or that the country will permit it to forego its centralising power. This England of ours has a heart too large for its immediate body, and its vital force will only have full and sufficient play when it will be able to act and sympathise with her people in every quarter of the globe when occasion may arise. Taking this wide view of the necessity of the telegraph as a governing agent, we think we may assume that, sooner or later, all the cables running from these islands to our colonies and dependencies will fall under imperial control. What will they cost? the reader naturally asks, mindful that we have just purchased the home wires at six and a half millions of money. What these ocean cables may be worth a dozen years hence it would be difficult to estimate, considering the rapid manner in which the world is being educated in their use, but we think we can give a very fair estimate of their present value. |