The National Geographic Magazine 



which has guided in the conception and 

 reaHzation of tnis cable system has been 

 that none of the lines shall touch foreign 

 soil. So important has been this prin- 

 ciple in the proposed British-Pacific cable 

 that we find Great Britain, for some years 

 past, anxiously negotiating for sove- 

 reignty over an insignificant island in the 

 Hawaiian group upon which to land her 

 proposed cable to Australasia ; and, failing 

 in this, we find her boldly ready to lay a 

 single span of cable of over 3,500 nautical 

 miles in length from Vancouver to Fan- 

 ning Island, for the sole imperial reason 

 that the cable shall touch only soil ex- 

 clusively owned and controlled by Great 

 Britain. This principle will be bought in 

 this case at the price of permanently 

 placing at a disadvantage British cable 

 traffic in the Pacific; since, as will be 

 pointed out later, the United States, by 

 the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands, 

 can reach the East across the mid-Pacific 

 by cables having no single span longer 

 than the present Atlantic cables, and yet 

 adhere to the same principle of landing 

 only on territory belonging to the United 

 States. 



BRITISH-PACIFIC CABLE. 



England at present has direct tele- 

 graphic connection with Vancouver with 

 wires independent of any foreign power. 

 Practically all of the Atlantic cables land- 

 ing at Newfoundland or Nova Scotia 

 from the coast of Ireland are under 

 British control, and, in connection with 

 the Canadian Pacific telegraphic lines, 

 therefore furnish England with direct 

 communication to the west coast of North 

 America. 



The proposed British-Pacific cable has 

 been prominently before the British Gov- 

 ernment as an imperial measure for a 

 number of years. It has been the subject 

 of colonial conferences and of exhaustive 

 research by a Pacific Cable Commission. 

 Its construction is now assured beyond 

 a reasonable doubt. The route from 

 Vancouver is to Fanning Island, thence 



to Fiji Island, thence to Norfolk Island, 

 and from thence by two branches to New 

 Zealand, and the eastern coast of Aus- 

 tralia. The land lines of Australia would 

 then complete telegraph connection with 

 the western coast. 



In the Indian Ocean it is proposed to 

 connect West Australia to Cocos Island, 

 and thence to Mauritius, and from thence 

 to Natal and Cape Town. Cocos Island 

 is further to be connected with Singapore 

 by a branch cable. Singapore is already 

 in connection with Hong Kong by an all- 

 British cable. Another branch is also 

 proposed from Cocos Island to Ceylon. 

 At Mauritius a connection would be 

 formed with the existing cable at Sey- 

 chelles, Aden, and Bombay. In the At- 

 lantic Ocean, in order to avoid the shallow 

 seas along the west coast of Africa, Spain, 

 Portugal, and France, a cable from Cape 

 Town, touching at St. Helena, Ascen- 

 sion, and mid-ocean stations, and extend- 

 ing to Bathurst, which is already con- 

 nected by existing cables to Gibraltar, has 

 been laid within the last few months. 

 Its construction was hastened after the 

 outbreak of the Boer war to furnish an 

 alternate British route to South Africa 

 by the West Coast. It is further pro- 

 posed to extend the cable from Ascension 

 to the British Island of Bermuda, per- 

 haps touching at Barbados as a mid- 

 ocean station. At Bermuda a connection 

 would be formed with the cable already 

 existing at Halifax, and that point with 

 the Canadian and trans-Atlantic lines. 

 The extension of the above cables in the 

 Pacific, the Indian, and the Atlantic 

 oceans would involve the expenditure of 

 something like £6,000,000 sterling and 

 the laying of about 23,000 knots of new 

 cable. With the equipment and experi- 

 ence which Great Britain has had in 

 cable-laying, these new cables can be 

 manufactured and laid by England in an 

 incredibly short time, and there can be 

 little doubt but that this extension of' 

 British cables, if not along the exact line 

 above specified, yet with slight variations 



