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New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9195, 26 October 1888, Page 4

It will be generally admitted that the breaks in cable communication -with Europe are becoming over-frequent and the inconvenience and embarrassment resulting must be developing i n the public mind an impatience with the inefficiency of the present service, Whether the possession of telegraphic communication with Europe is an unmixed boon, everything considered, may be questioned. It has certainly removed that element of adventure which has in olden times been a stimulus to commerce, and it has destroyed those advantages possessed by commercial prescience and skill, which have made so many fortunes. And it may be also questioned whether the fragmentary fashion in which it serves up scraps of news of current events ( does not largely destroy our enjoy. ment of the interest attaching to the narrative of the _ momentous events that are making contemporary history. However this may be, it has created a condition of things that makes telegraphic communication a necessity of our existence ; and the merchant who has come to rely on it as the basis of his commercial undertakings, cannot be otherwise than embarrassed and put to loss by such frequent interruptions of communication ; while private persons and newspaper readers are all more or inconvenienced or annoyed by the suspension of privileges on which they have come to rely. And just as the stoppage of our city water supply, or gaslight, or the two-penny post—for all of which we have similarly created a necessity—would cause an outcry, colonists have just reason for resenting these frequent interruptions of a service which they have contributed so liberally to found, and which has become a part of the necessities oi their daily life. The feeling cannot but be aggravated by the evident indifference of the Cable Company in respect of the whole matter. They cannot, of course, prevent the breakage of cables occasionally ; one of them in the particular stretch of ocean where these breaks occur is old, and appears to be rotten ; and the other one has either been badly laid, or is carelessly exposed to the grappling irons of the repairing steamer, or traverses an ocean bed that is peculiarly liable, to volcanic disturbances ; in any case the company appear to show a culpable negligence in not having in readiness some means ot promptly conveying the cable messages over the place of breakage, so as to minimise the inconvenience to the colonies. This evident indifference to the interests of colonists is deserving of censure, and though the company can just now laugh at the colonies in their helplessness, and may even take a pleasure in seeing them made to realise the importance oi the service by being deprived of it, we feel assured that the Eastern Extension Cable Company are going the right way to work to build up a determination throughout the colonies that we shall be served for only as short a time as is possible, by only one line of communication with Europe. We can well realise now what it would be, in the event of international hostilities in Europe, to be dependent on a service that is liable every few weeks to interruption from breakages, apart from the danger involved in that cable route being right through the midst or' seas and countries that are sure to be the areas of military and naval operations. That the Indo-European route would be utterly valueless to us in the event of a general war, is as palpable as anything could possibly be; and the frequent interruptions of it in times of piping peace;' embarrassing and annoying as they are, afford but a shadow of the evils we should have to endure under the anxieties and dangers of impending or actual war. A breakage such as has now occurred, with no effort, apparently, on the part of the Cable Company to promptly minimise the inconvenience, will surely accentuate the longing of all colonists for the construction of the trans-Pacific cable, with its land lines stretching over British territory ; and it is earnestly to be hoped that our own Government, as well as all the Governments of Australia, will do everything possible to hasten a consummation so devoutly to be wished.