XXX THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
On the old telegraph route between England and Australasia by 
way of the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, it was found necessary 
to duplicate the cables, the object of this duplication being to provide 
against the delays resulting from breaks in a single cable. With this 
provision the second cable came into use wherever a break occurred, 
and the telegraph traffic was there thrown into the second cable until 
repairs were effected. 
The Pacific Ocean is crossed by a single cable and experience 
goes to show that a break may occur without any warning whatever. 
Suppose a break occurred in that long section, 3,500 miles, between 
Vancouver and Fanning Island, or indeed, should a break occur any- 
where or at any time on the Pacific cable, telegraph intercourse would 
be interrupted between Australia, New Zealand and Canada for an 
indefinite period. 
To ensure freedom from interruption a second cable should be 
provided. The second cable need not however be laid side by side 
with the first cable. The object to be gained could be much better 
effected in another way. 
Taking advantage of the spheroidal form of the earth and the 
other conditions presented by the problem to be solved, there is every 
reason why the second cable should be provided by the establishment of 
the second division of the globe-girdling chain; that is to say, by the 
cables projected from Australasia to England by way of the Indian 
Ocean, South Africa and the Atlantic. 
By the completion of the whole circle of the globe-girdling scheme 
of State-owned cable, a vast strategic benefit would be achieved. Ob- 
viously, if a breakdown were to interrupt telegraph transmission by 
one route, messages could be sent by means of the cable leading in the 
opposite direction until the broken cable could be restored. 
Thus it will be seen that, with the complete globe-girdling circle 
of State-owned cables established, we would find ourselves in possession 
of a duplicate scheme of submarine communications. Every single 
point in the circle would practically have two ways of communciation 
available, and it would be in the power of the Cable Board, in control 
of this gigantic enterprise, to send messages in an easterly or westerly 
direction as circumstances may require. The people in the British 
Dominions around the globe would be doubly united by two opposite 
means of State-owned communications. They would thus be in pos- 
session of a “cheap, certain, constant, convenient and universally 
acceptable system of telegraphy.” Thus united with the motherland, 
they would find themselves always within the circle of the world’s 
activity. 
On this most important branch of the subject, reference is made 
to pages 425-427 of the little book edited by the late Dr. George 
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