CABLE TALK.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIV, Issue 8073, 14 October 1887, Page 6

CABLE TALK.

The New York World, of September 6, says there is good reason to believe that Jay Gould will acquire, within a very short time, Mackay's Commercial Cable Company, and thousands of miles of land lines. Mackay practically owns that negotiations have been in progress for some time between himself and Gould with this end in view. There is every prospect, therefore, that the broad scheme of cable and telegraph competition in the interest of the general pnblio will go the way of many smaller and earlier enterprises. One thing which stands in the way of Mackay's turning over the property to his rival is the question of pride. Mackay does not want to sell out and vanish from the public gaze utterly, and then be ridiculed by those who bad hailed him as the sworn foe of the telegraph monopoly. He wants to figure in the reorganised Board somehow or other. Meantime, the Commercial Company has reduced transatlantic cable rates, beginning September 15. They are now 12 cents a word to Great Britain and Ireland, and 15 cents to Germany. The directors have also increased the capital stock from 4,000,000d013 to 6,000,000d018j the additional 2,000,000d01s being required for the new cable, from Waterville, I Ireland, to Bristol, England.