THE SCIENCE OF DISTANCES. 537 



of picturesque romance no less than the student of commercial geog- 

 raphy. It also supplies suggestions and many facts, both to the 

 physical geographer and to the student of seismic phenomena. Science 

 has taught the companies to economize time, labor and material in 

 cable-laying operations, as well as how to improve the working in- 

 struments. Human ingenuity, business perception and organizing 

 power have shown once more their startling possibilities when directed 

 and controlled by cool, clear-eyed intelligence combined with gen- 

 eral mental capacity. 



It is only necessary to reaffirm, for the reasons already given, the 

 national, the imperial, the commonwealth requirement for cheap teleg- 

 raphy, and the profound necessity there is both strategically and 

 politically for complete government control by purchase, guarantee 

 or other equitable means over main cables which connect Great Brit- 

 ain with her daughter states, her Indian empire, and her dependen- 

 cies. Our communications with our own folk must be independent of 

 private companies and completely independent of all foreign nations. 



All the details which I have given are illustrative of man's success- 

 ful energy and of his progressive ingenuity in enslaving the great 

 forces of the earth to diminish distance, to shorten world- journeys, 

 and to speed world-messages. Another human achievement, the pierc- 

 ing by Lesseps of the Suez Isthmus, has had remarkable conse- 

 quences. It had been talked of in England centuries ago. Christo- 

 pher Marlowe makes Tamerlane brag: 



' And here, not far from Alexandria, 

 Whereas the Tyrrhene and the Eed Sea meet, 

 Being distant less than full a hundred leagues, 

 I meant to cut a channel to them both 

 That men might quickly sail to India.' 



The illustrious French engineer solved one great problem in 1869, 

 only to originate others which are of profound importance to com- 

 mercial geography — and to the British Empire most of all. The Suez 

 Canal has brought India and the Australasian Commonwealth won- 

 derfully near to our shores. It has greatly diminished many time- 

 distances, but why has it not injured our Eastern trade? Also is 

 there any danger or menace of danger to that trade? From the 

 very beginnings of the great commerce, the Eastern trade has en- 

 riched every nation which obtained its chief share. It has been the 

 seed of the bitterest animosities. It alienated Dutch and English, 

 blood relations, co-religionists, co-reformers, into implacable resent- 

 ment, and bitter has the retribution been. On the other hand it 

 brought into temporary alliance such strange bedfellows as the Turks 

 of the sixteenth century and the Venetians. At the present day 



