F.—4Aa

1876. NEW ZEALAND.

TELEGRAPH CABLE NEGOTIATIONS. (PAPERS RELATING TO A PROPOSED SECOND LINE FROM AUSTRALIA.)

Presented to both Souses of the General Assembly by Command of His Excellency.

Iso. 1. The Hon. the Colonial Secretary, New South Wales, to the Hon. the Colonial Secretary, New Zealand. Colonial Secretary's Office, Sir,— Sydney, New South Wales, 18th May, 1876. I have the honor to invite the attention of your Government to the subject of making provision for a second telegraph cable to connect the Australasian Colonies with the rest of the world. 2. As might have been, and indeed was, predicted long ago, very great inconvenience has arisen from telegraphic communication between Australia and Europe being confined to a single line. The evidence taken by a Select Committee of the Legislative Assembly of this colony, in the year 1873, was strongly in favour of a second line. The evidence of merchants and professional gentlemen who had given great attention to the subject of telegraphy, showed that its use was very much limited between places very far apart, except where comparative certainty of communication was guaranteed, by the existence of more than one line. It was stated, for example, that no merchant would dare to conduct his financial business with the mother country, as a rule, by means of telegraphy, if he had to depend on a single line. And this uncertainty, it was alleged (to say nothing of its generally depreciating effect upon the value of telegraphy as a means of communication), greatly reduced the class of business alluded to, and in a variety of ways limited the number of messages along the lines. 3. There appear to be four prominent modes of making provision for a second line :— Ist. By the use of the line from Sydney to New Zealand, and thence by the Sandwich Islands to San Francisco. This line would probably cost something like £2,100,000, which, without the aid of America, would, however desirable, be too expensive. Mr. Cracknell, our Superintendent of Telegraphs, will shortly visit America, and will then endeavour to ascertain whether, notwithstanding that the Great Republic has up to this time done little or nothing for cable communication, there be any prospect of aid from that quarter. 2nd. By a cable from Normanton, in Queensland. This line would ultimately take the same course as Nos. 3 and 4, the lines which appear to be the only ones from which Australia can now choose ; and as it would require 700 or 800 miles more cable than the longest of those lines, it must, I fear, be passed by, as each mile costs upwards of £300. 3rd. By a cable from Port Darwin alongside the present cable,* and substantially following the same course on land through Java, and taking the route

* See Postscript. I—F. 4a. v