PROCEEDINGS FOR 1903 XIX 



The Council warmly recommends the subject to the favourable 

 consideration of the Society and suggests that Dr. Bell's letter, with 

 an enclosure of copy of a letter to the Hon. Sir Wm. Mulock, on the 

 subject be referred to Section IV., with a request to nominate a com- 

 mittee to take such action as will lead to the meeting of the Congress 

 being held at Ottawa. 



16. The British World Telegraph Cable. 



Every loyal subject of the English Crown must feel intense satis- 

 faction at the successful completion of the Pacific cable from Van- 

 couver Island to Fiji, Australia and New Zealand. With this feeling, 

 which they share in common with all British subjects, the Society must 

 acknowledge some additional pride, inasmuch as a Canadian, and one of 

 their own colleagues, was the originator and moving spirit of the enter- 

 prise, and has been continuously identified with its progress until its 

 final success. The design of this great work presented itself to the mind 

 of Mr. — now Sir Sandford — Fleming, when, as engineer-in-chief of 

 the Government Pacific Railway, he was surveying its route across the 

 continent. It was a great idea, carried to completion by patience and 

 perseverance. It was he who supplied the energ}^ made the calcula- 

 tions, rallied its friends, overcame the hostility of competitors, inspired 

 the necessary diplomacy, initiated and directed the essential surveys, and 

 finally compelled into accord the hesitating Governments of Great 

 Britain and the interested colonies. The result is that the longest of 

 submarine cables is at work, and that Canada is not now at the end of 

 a telegraphic cul-de-sac, but on a main line of communication. This 

 is the first ocean cable owned and worked, not by joint stock companies, 

 but by states, and those all British, while the magic band itself touches 

 no foreign soil. It is in reality a thread of nervous life, throbbing 

 round the Empire like the classic morning drumbeat of Britain encir- 

 cling the world, but outstripping the sun with the speed of thought. 

 We are familiar with the distances across the Atlantic, but the distances 

 across the Pacific are less generally known — they are : — 



Vancouver Island to Fanning Island 3458 miles. 



Fanning Island to Fiji 2043 " 



Fiji to Norfolk Island 981 " 



Norfolk Island to Queensland 837 '' 



Norfolk Island to New Zealand 519 " 



7838 " 

 Seven thousand eight hundred and thirty-eight miles owned and 

 worked by the Governments of Great Britain and her greater colonies. 



