CABLE COMMUNICATION WITH THE CAPE.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 8762, 28 February 1900, Page 2

CABLE COMMUNICATION WITH THE CAPE.

As everyone nows look forwards to daily messages from the seat of war in South Africa, it may be interesting to give a few particulars of the existing cables and the proposals of the Eastern Extension Company for a line from Durban to Australia. The Company has two lines of communication fi'om England to the Cape — both of which start from Cornwall, one going to Lisbon and the other to Gibraltar. The j Gibraltar line runs to Malta, Alexandria, and the Suez, down the Red Sea to Aden, and thence along the African coast to Zanzibar, Dclagoa Bay, and Durban. From Dnrb'in to Capetown the communication is by two land wires. The line between Zanzibar and Mozambique has been duplicated. A second line is being laid down on the western route between Capetown and St. Vincent. As was announced in our cable news the other day, the Ascension - St. Vincent section is now complete, and is intended to give a direct west route to the Cape.

The Company now offers to lay a. cable from Durban to EYemantle, in Western Australia, via Mauritius, Rodriguez, nai Opcos Islands. This will be an extension of the direct Bubmiirine line from England to the Gipe, messages passing from the Gipo to Durban by the existing land line'!. The Company does not now ask fur any subsidy or guarantee, but that they should be permitted to open oliices in l'urth, Adelaide, Melbourne, and Sydney, us they have done in the leading British towns. The Company is at once to reduce the rates on ordinary messages to 4s a word, to 3s a word for Government messages, and Is (id a word for press telegrams. They also agree that when the revenue from the Australasian tariff, after the successive reductions, again attains an average for three years of i'.'iiiO.OOO, the rates shall bo successively reduced to 3s Gd, ;)s, ami 2s 9il for ordinal}' messages. It is stated that the existing cables to Australia and South Africa being duplicated throughout, and tripled for the greater part of the distance, the new route will form a complete triplicate connection with those places, will open up communication with Ascension and St. Helena, will supply duplicate linos to Mauritius, and foim another alternate route to India and China if the Mediterranean or Red Sea cables are interrupted, and also secure an additional connection between many intermediate plates. It appears that the Eastern Extension Company is in alliance with a company to lay a cable between San Francisco and Manila. With a cable from San Francisco to Manila, and there connected with the Eastern Extension cable, the two companies will practically become one concern. It is therefore easy to understand why the Eastern Extension Company is so anxious to postpone the laying down of the Pacific cable. A message from Sydney to-day gives some comments made by the Postmaster-General of New (South Wales with respect to the opposition of Canada, New Zealand, and Queensland. The tone is decidedly beneath that which should characterise the utterances of one occupying the responsible position he does.