TELEGRAPH EXTENSION.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 283, 10 April 1869, Page 2

TELEGRAPH EXTENSION.

♦ (From the Otago Daily Times, March 25.) The Cape of Good Hope people, recognising the probability of telegraphic communication being shortly established between Great Britain and Australia, have proposed to the Imperial Government that the line of telegraph should pass through their territory. Resolutions were passed in the House of Assembly not long rince, in pursuance of which the matter was formally brought under the notice of the Secretary of State for the Colonies. The route proposed was a submarine one — from London to Gibraltar, thence to Sierra Leone, thence to St. Helena, thence to 1 the Cape of Good Hope, and so on to Australia. It is evident that such a line of tele- . graph has few recommendations on the face , of it. The intermediate places to be connected arc of little or no importance in a commercial sense. It is essential to the success of such an undertaking : that the line of telegraph should connect wealthy and enterprising communities, so that the results may justify the enormous expenditure necessarily incurred in construction and maintenance. This is of i course a primary consideration ; and consequently the proposals of the Cape of Good Hope stand small chance of acceptance, either at the bands of the Imperial Government or private speculators. There is no comparison, moreover, between a deep sea and a land line . of telegraph. .The expense of .. construction combined with the difficulty of , repair in case of accident, form grave objections to a cable line. The Cape of Good Hope is unfortunately situated for telegraphic purposes. It

may be safely predicted that telegraphic communication between England and Australia will be established for many years, before the Cape will have any reasonable prospect of being connected with those countries. It is a thriving colony, and possibly its newly opened goldfields may add greatly to its prosperity ; but present appearances do not justify the hope that deep sea cables will be manufactured for the purpose of connecting it with Europe. The true line of communication between England and Australia is traced in a recently published despatch from the Secretary of State for the Colonies to Earl Belmore. As our readers are aware, a Company has been projected in London for the purpose of carrying out the proposed communication. Negociations have been entered into with the Lords of the Treasury on behalf of this enterprise. The Company proposes, in the first place, to lay cables from England to Gibraltar, and thence to Malta. The next stage is to Alexandria; but telegraphic communication already exists between those points, by means of a cable belonging to the Imperial Government. This cable it is proposed to transfer to the new Company, as also a land line between Alexandria and Suez. From some point on the Red Sea to which a land line will be laid, the Company proposes, to lay a telegraph cable to Aden, and thence to Kurrachee. Here the line will connect with the Indian Government telegraph, extending as far as Rangoon. From this point, a cable is to be laid to Singapore. At Singapore, the line of communication will branch out towards China and Japan in one direction and towards Australia in another. The Lords of the Treasury appear to be satisfied with the project. In their official communication on the subject, they ' think it advisable to designate these lines of communication which they consider are most called for by Imperial and commercial interests, and towards the formation of which they are of [opinion that the countenance and encouragement of Her Majesty's Government may properly be afforded.' The lines designated are practically the same as those we have mentioned. As the recommendations of the Lords of the Treasury are not likely to be ignored by the Cabinet, we may hope that action will sooner or later be taken in reference to them. The Australian colonies will be called upon for heavy subsidies of course, but subsidies were offered by them several years ago. From the Suez telegrams we published yesterday, we learn that the prospectuses of two Companies, projected for the purpose of extending telegraphic communication to Australia, have already been issued in London. The last mail, it will be recollected, brought intelligence that the cable was actually being manufactured for one of these associations. It is highly probable that the British Government has been induced to move in this matter by the rivalry bf America, and the serious interference threatened by American merchants with British trade in the East. Telegraphic communication is of course a necessary part of their designs in competing for this trade. The Pacific Railroad is to be supplemented by a Pacific Telegraph. A line of communication— said to be already on the eve of completion —is to stretch continuously from California along the coast of British and Russian America to Asia, and through Asia to Europe ; China and Japan being connected by cables from Hakodadi to Shanghai. The ten great seaports of China will be connected by a cable nearly nine hundred miles long. The aspirations of American traders are forcibly expressed by a writer in one of their journals, who speaks of the proposed telegraph as " the chief agent in subjecting the vast commerce of Asia to our rule." Napoleon the First, in the midst of his gigantic scheme, would have paid a tribute of admiration to an enterprise so daring as that of which an outline is furnished in the following passage :—' With the telegraph completed from our Pacific coast co as to unite with the Russian system overland to India and Europe, connecting Japan and China with San Francisco, we at once divert and direct the whole tide of Asiatic commerce from the West to the East. With this telegraph London would have to communicate through New York and San Francisco, in order to conduct the commerce of Europe with Japan and China. The ideas— the monetary exchanges — and tbe daily wants of that vast commerce, would become so engrafted upon our own commerce and people, that in the future we would not only command but control the Europeau trade of the East.' The conclusion is strictly logical. However deep our sympathies as British colonists may be with the mother country, we cannot resist a feeling of satisfaction at the thought of competition on so magnificent a scale, and for such magnificent results. The world at large must profit by it, and perhaps no part of the world more directly than these distant and neglected dependencies. For some years past the British Government has been urged to construct or to encourage men of capital in constructing a line of railway across its own territory in North America, for the purpose of securing the interests of British commerce. No amount of pressure, however, could induce tbe Imperial authorities to entertain the project; and the result is that the Americans have stepped in and accomplished it for their own purposes. So with regard to the telegraph. Tbe necessity of connecting Australia and the East with London has been dwelt upon from year to year, yet up to the present moment little appears to have been done by the Imperial Government.