PACIFIC SUBMARINE CABLE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5993, 30 July 1887, Page 6

PACIFIC SUBMARINE CABLE.

The Hon Audley Coate, of Tasmania, arrived in San Francisco on June 9, from London and left on the steamship Alameda on July 1 for Sydney. HJs business abroad was the promotion of an enterprise o£ a submarine cable between the Pacific- American coast and Australia, connecting, at the same time the Hawaiian Islands and Fiji. Mr Coates was to make the San Francisco shore end, but being unable to secure a subsidy from the United States, the Government projectors have concluded to fix the terminus at Vancouver, British Columbia. He has secured a substantial subsidy of 400,000 dols per year from the Canadian, Hawaiian, and Australian Governments, of which Hawaii contributes 20,000 dols per year. The whole cost will be 10,000,000 dols, and he states the project is now on a firm basis, and will be pushed to a speedy completion. Arragements are also in progress by the Cable Company for the transmission of messages from England to Vancouver, 8.C., via the Mackay-Bennett line. When all is completed the cost all round will be reduced to about one half the present rates from London to Vancouver. They will be 16 J cents per word instead of about 33, and a rate will be made for the San Francisco Press of one half of what it is now. The present rate from. England to Australia (65 cents per word) will be cut down to 20 cents.