PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
C.O.
Reference -
•885
17 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
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The Eastern Extension Company assumes an attitude which is absolutely indefensible. If that Company ever regarded itself as too sacred to be interfered with, the illusion was entirely removed a few hours before the present century commenced, by the united act of the six Governments who then resolved to establish the Pacific cable. That act cannot now be undone, and the completed line of “Empire Cables" is but a natural corollary thereto. It is not denied that Australasians have been indebted to the Company for giving them the first telegraphic connection with the outer world; but that historical event occurred a third of a century ago. The Company has been already rewarded for its enterprise, and it is not now proposed that any of the Company's cables or property be assumed for public use without giving fair and full compensation therefor.
However deserving its enterprise in the first instance, however profitable that enterprise for many years proved, at this stage in the history of the nations it is impossible to recognise that the Company possesses an inde- feasible right to obstruct measures vital to the free development of a great World-Empire.
I have elsewhere pointed out that it must not be supposed that the establishment of a single trunk line of State cables around the globe would irretrievably ruin, or even, in the end, do any real injury to the private companies. In some respects it would be an actual advantage and benefit to them. It is quite true that there would be a great change, a new develop- ment, approaching a revolution in business generally, by the introduction of the chain of “Empire Cables," but the new trunk line of telegraphic communication would intersect the cables of the private companies at a number of points, and prove an actual feeder to them. It would furnish abundant telegraph traffic at low rates for dissemination by these private cables acting as branches.
An Imperial Intelligence Department.
An interesting phase of the subject is brought to light by the recent visit of Sir Frederick Pollock and his colleagues to Canatla. These gentlemen came to the Dominion as envoys from England to explain the conclusions reached by a large committee of Englishmen of position representing various interests.
The proposals of Sir Frederick Pollock and those associated with him are given in the following summary statement which appears in an article by that gentleman on Imperial Organisation, published after his return to England, in the “Nineteenth Century" for December 1905:-- -
(1) An advisory council including representatives of all parts of the Empire, and presided over preferably by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, to be formed on the basis of the existing Colonial Conferences.
(2) A permanent secretarial office attached to the President of the Imperial Council, to acquire and systematise information material to the common concerns of the Empire for the use of the Cabinet and the Council, and, so far as might be expedient, for publication (since described as an Imperial Intelligence Department). (3) A permanent Imperial Commission whose members could represent all such branches of knowledge and research, outside those matters pertaining exclusively to any department, as would be profitable to Imperial affairs; they would normally be put in action by the Prime Minister appointing special committees to deal with the particular questions on the request of the Imperial Council.
Sir Frederick Pollock and Mr. Geoffrey Drage spoke at public meetings in Toronto, Montreal, Winnipeg, and other places. They addressed the Canadian Club in Ottawa on October 21st, 1905, and directly afterwards 1 submitted the views I hold in a letter to the club. I did the same on October 26th, in a second letter. Both letters were printed, and to a limited extent circulated. Copies were sent under a covering letter from me to several well-known gentlemen, some of whom are practically removed from active Dominion politics; and, as it was regarded of public importance that
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the wisest available advice should be obtained, the hope was expressed to these gentlemen that they would be good enough to give briefly their views.
I have been favoured with more than a hundred replies, and they reveal the fact that remarkable, unanimity prevails on essential points. With scarcely an exception, the view is held that the true policy for the several Governments is to inaugurate adequate means by which the people of the Empire may obtain and continue to maintain neighbourly intercourse with each other. The large majority of the gentlemen consulted emphatically declare that the best possible means to accomplish that object is some such plan as that outlined in the letters to the Canadian Club which are appended hereto. All who have given the subject full consideration appear to think that the organisation of an Imperial Intelligence Department on a compre- hensive scale is the first necessity, possibly the only means by which harmonious and permanently satisfactory relations between all the units of the Empire can be had.
As indicated elsewhere, the Intelligence Department should be very much more than a mere bureau in which collected information would be deposited for safe-keeping, and perhaps rarely seen by any one other than the gentlemen in charge. It should be established in the common interest, and especially for the benefit of the many. It should be a wide-spread organi- sation, co-extensive with the Empire, dedicated to the collection, transmission by cable, and publication in a free-handed manner, of intelligence on any subject of general interest, for the information and education of the British people in every quarter of the globe.
A Free Press Service.
In addition to a central board in the British metropolis, there should be local boards and agencies in each self-governing community, where desired information would be collected. It would be the duty of each board to take proper means to arrange and edit the information for free transmission by cable to the other boards, and by them made available for simultaneous publication in the daily or weekly journals in all the great cities of the Empire. For further explanations I beg leave to append extracts from an article on State Cables and Cheap Telegraphs as Aids to Imperial Consoli- dation." In this article it is pointed out how press messages may, within certain limitations, be transmitted without cost,
By this means the people of the whole Empire would be brought into continuous touch. Each person on opening his daily newspaper would look into the column or columns under the heading "Empire Cable News" for the Imperial intelligence of the day, and would there find a trustworthy record of the matters of most vital importance and interest to every British community.
No argument is needed to point out the advantages which would spring from such an agency. It is impossible to conceive any other means which would so speedily and so effectively enlighten the masses of British people on all matters which concern their common welfare. Even small portions of such Einpire news, regularly furnished daily in the newspapers, would be a thousand times better than the almost entire absence of such intelligence which now generally obtains. It undoubtedly would have a powerful educative influence, and the high political effect would be to foster a broad Imperial patriotism. It would open to the intelligence of all our people, within the circle of the Empire Cables," wider issues connected with the advancement and development of the Imperial fabric, and we are warranted in believing that it would stimulate the sense of common citizenship, and in time lead to reciprocal aflinity eventually approaching a general unity of ideas.
The machinery of a fully-equipped Intelligence Department once pro- vided, we may then with confidence assume (in the words used by the Colonial Office and repeated by the Canadian Government in recent cor- respondence), that the better union and the collective prosperity of the British Empire "may be wisely left to develop in accordance with circumstances, and, as it were, of their own accord,”
*
* Correspondence relating to the future organisation of Colonial Conferences." The Times," December 8th, 1905.