52 On the Electric Telegraph hetiveen England and India. 



India,, that the Government intended making very considerable 

 repairs to the land line, or perhaps lay a submarine cable direct 

 from Rangoon to Calcutta, which latter would perhaps meet the 

 difficulty. 



This now brings us to the first gap to be filled up, from Ran- 

 goon or Moulmein to Malacca, a distance of about 1000 miles. 

 This section I never considered the Australian colonies should 

 have anything to do with, the cost of which should be chargeable, 

 partly to the Indian Government and partly to the proposed 

 line to China and Japan. It is a circuit we are completely shut 

 out from by the intervening Netherlands India telegraphs, and a 

 work over which we have no control. 



There are two proposals, however, for this section, one by Mr. 

 Gisborne, for a submarine cable touching at King's Island and 

 Penang to Singapore, forming a portion of the line to connect 

 Saigon, Hainan, Hongkong, Amoy, Foochoo Too, Shanghai, and 

 Japan ; this cable will be about 1200 knots in length, and esti- 

 mated to cost about £500,000. 



The other by the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance 

 Company, who have undertaken to carry out concessions ob- 

 tained by the Eastern Asia Telegraph Company, which have since 

 been made to them to complete, the communication between 

 Moulmein to Penang, Malacca, and Singapore, entirely by land 

 line, or partly by land and submarine cable, also a land line from 

 Moulmein to Bangkok in Siam, and a further extension to Saigon. 

 Both lines to be undertaken immediately. So that all doubts as 

 to this section not being filled up may now be set at rest. 



This leaves only a short length of cable of about 100 miles 

 from Malacca to Siak to connect the lines in Sumatra and Java 

 with the line down the Malay Peninsula : a provisional concession 

 has been applied for from the Government of Netherlands India, 

 by Mr. Alexander Frazer, of Batavia, which, if granted, will give 

 unbroken communication from London to Banjowangi, on the 

 east coast of Java. 



There now remains the portion, which may be styled the Aus- 

 tralian section, to be dealt with, and I think I shall be able to 

 show that with a little combined action, how very inexpensively 

 this great work can be completed 



The telegraph in Queensland will, at the end of this year, be 

 in operation to Cardwell, Rockingham Bay. The Government of 

 that colony, to whom great credit is due, have cautiously but 

 persistently pushed their works northward, almost before the 

 requisite population for its support had formed the track. The 

 Gilbert Gold-fields will, I have no doubt, give the construction 

 of the line towards the Gulf of Carpentaria additional impetus, 

 and we may expect to be able to speak the Gulf of Carpentaria 

 before the end of 187Q. 



