SUBMARIXE TELEGRAPHY 247 



diplomacy are to some extent counterbalanced by very obvious 

 disadvantages. Even the gain to individual merchants admits 

 of doubt. By diminishing risks, telegraphy is sometimes 

 thought to diminish profits. The mere convenience of sending 

 a message quickly is outweighed in many minds by the annoy- 

 ance of receiving, at all odd hours, scraps of news, often unin- 

 telligible from their conciseness. But on the broad ground that 

 with the assistance of the telegraph the wants of one country 

 can be supplied from the excess of another, in little more than 

 half the time required for the purpose without the telegraph, 

 we may claim for that invention a recognition that it is useful, 

 in the sense that free trade, good roads, or fleet ships, are useful. 

 The measure of that good is a problem in political economy 

 which it is not now our business to solve ; it is certainly out of 

 all proportion with the price paid for the information sent. Up 

 to the present time full advantage has not been taken of the 

 power we possess. From a want of organisation and some 

 political difficulties we cannot at this moment send a message 

 to any distant part of the world with a certainty that it will be 

 delivered without considerable delay and probable mutilation. 

 Mr. Reuter, to whom we owe the organisation of the despatch 

 of public news, has begun to organise a system by which, in 

 time, the great capitals of Europe may really be placed in 

 instantaneous communication. A Parliamentary Committee 

 has been considering proposals of a similar kind extended to 

 the East ; but, meanwhile, a message sent through the Atlantic 

 Cable may be delayed five or six days in the wilds of Nova 

 Scotia, and mutilated messages continue to arrive after a fort- 

 night's journey from India. So long as this is the case, no 

 calculation can be made of the employment which would be 

 found for our great submarine cables if worthily worked. But 

 the fact that much remains to do, even after the Atlantic Cable 

 has been laid, need not prevent a just pride in a really great 

 victory, achieved, not by chance, but by a knowledge resulting 

 from the patient efforts of many minds for many years. 



