THE TEUE TEMPER OF EMPIRE. 



does not fail to recognize that what has been called the cash- 

 nexus, is not the only relation that links the King's over-seas 

 dominions to each other and to the United Kingdom. When 

 King George and Queen Mary returned from their colonial 

 tour in 1901, and again after their Indian tour in 1906, his 

 Majesty, then Prince of Wales, spoke earnestly of the need of 

 a larger sympathy in the relations of the Empire ; and perhaps- 

 only those who have lived in the Crown Colonies and India can 

 appreciate the full significance of telegraphy as an instrument 

 of sympathy. In most of the Crown Colonies the cost of 

 telegrams is still prohibitive for domestic purposes. In the 

 interests of commerce, which telegraphy supplies with the only 

 instrument that can keep it in uninterrupted touch with the 

 markets of the whole world, if a penny-a-word telegram rate is 

 not at present possible, the experience of the past encourages us 

 to hope, in spite of the combinations and methods which are the 

 real obstacles to cheap telegraphy, a very great reduction of 

 rate may be made. When the Atlantic cable was lirst laid, the 

 minimum charge was £20 for a message not exceeding twelve 

 words, and it was confidently asserted by the promoters of the 

 cable that any reduction of that charge was impossible. 

 However, in telegraphy, as in other things, the true temper of 

 Empire recognises that it is always the impossible that 

 happens. The charge got itself reduced to one shilling a word. 

 In 1887, Mr. Henniker Heaton, at the Koyal Colonial Institute, 

 advocated the construction of a cable from the Cape of Good 

 Hope to Australia. Sir James Anderson, who was present^ 

 said : " There is some talk of taking a cable from Australia 

 to Mauritius across the route of the trade winds to the Cape. 

 There is not even a sandbank on which to catch fish. There 

 is not a port to which a cruiser or cable-ship can go to 

 replenish their supply of coal, which they are certain to require 

 to do. There are no ships going there. There is no trade and 

 nobody wants to go there." Fourteen years later, a cable from 

 Durban to Mauritius, and thence continued by an all-red route 

 to Australia was laid, and arrangements were made to enable 

 a chain of governors, on the opening day, to associate the whole 

 Empire in a message of congratulation. 



Passing to the interests of navigation in telegraphic communi- 

 cation, I need do no more than mention the transmission of 

 weather telegrams indicating the track of cyclones and atmos- 

 pheric disturbances. It only remains for a system of wireless 

 telegraphy for communication with ships at sea to be established 

 to complete the value of telegraphy for security of navigation. 



