65
317
! ?「 3། 4།
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
C.O. 885
6
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
18 November 1896.]
Chairman-continued.
Mr. LUCAS.
837. And that is the reason why the steel must not be too hard?-The very hardest steel would produce such a rigid cable that you would lose elasticity; although you would gain in strength it would be no advantage to you. You have got to carry this weight of copper, 6 cwt. to the mile; that is a dead weight in the cable, and when you are working in picking up these cables in anything like 3,000 fathoms with the very best material, you have got no margin to spare: you have got nothing to give away at all, and if we were to load up our cables with a greater weight of core than that I think we should find, at all events when they were a very few years old, that it would be impossible to pick them up or repair them.
838. I think that entirely exhausts that point of the subject. I should like to ask you one Do you know the question on the speed. maximum number of letters allowed to a word by any telegraphic companies ?-Ten letters to the word is allowed by the European Convention. 839. Ten letters to the word is the maximum? -Ten letters to the word is the maximum in code. They have recently made it 15, as long as it is open and not in code.
840. Ten in code and 15 in open is the maxi- mum ?—Yes.
841. Ten is the maximum to Australia ?- Yes.
842. In code or out of code ?-In cole.
Mr. Gillies.
843. The extra European in code or out of code?—Yes; but those questions you might ask some telegraph man better.
Chairman.
844. In 1894 the Dominion Government called for tenders in Forms A, B, and C?-Yes.
845. Form "A"-"The cable to he owned and controlled by Government, to be worked under Government authority, and to be kept "in repair by the contractor for three years. Form "B" The cable to be owned, main- "tained, and worked by a company under a "fixed subsidy for a term of years." Form "C" The cable to be owned, maintained, "and worked by a company under a Government guarantee." And eight alternative routes were offered for the consideration of tenderers. Now, the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company, which you represent, criticised the proposals rather freely. The chairman-Sir George Henry Richards, that would be, I sup- pose-?—Yes.
46
846. He objected to the conditions, and he objected also to the routes offered for consideration. Can you tell the Committee what it was in the pro- posals and route that Sir George Henry Richards mainly objected to 7--He held very decided views upon that subject. In the first place, he was very strongly of opinion that the route should be the trade route, that the cable should go where the steamers call, that it should be laid in as short sections as the Pacific Ocean would allow. Then he was of opinion that for a cable to land upon an
Chairman-continued.
[Continued.
island which is British was really very unimpor- tant. If it was a
case of war, and these cables were to be destroyed, anybody who wants to destroy a cable will not go to the island to do it. If I were employed to destroy a cable by the Goverment, supposing that a cable was in their way, and they wished it destroyed, I should certainly not go to the islands upon which it lauded to destroy it. All the mischief that I could do on an island, or at a telegraph station, even if I was to blow the station up, could be put right in a few hours after I had left. I should go out of sight of the island altogether, and would do more mischief to that cable in a week than would be put right in many months. I have doubt about that; and whether the cable lands upon a neutral island, or whether it lands upon an island which is coloured red on the chart, would not make any difference to its safety in a time of war.
100
847. There may be other reasons besides that of the question of destruction which make an all-British route preferable, may there not be? -I fail to see any disadvantage in the landing upon islands which are not British. There has been no disadvantage in landing upon such islands as Madeira and St. Vincent.
848. Are there not great opportunities for a foreign power, whose soil you use as a telegraph station. to read your messages if it wishes to do
think we so? -1
are perfectly safe from that.
849. How?-1 think that in the early days there was nothing said about the cables being British; they were looked upon more as being in- ternational.
850-4. No, but that is not my question. My question is, how can you prevent a foreign power, if it gets hold of your code, reading your messages if the stations are an foreign soil?— [£ these islands were held by the Great Powers it might be of some importance; but islands that are not held by Great Powers, and neutral islands, are unimportant in that way.
855. I understand the reason why Sir George on grounds of principle, preferred the route by Honolulu and Samoa was, firstly, that he thought it ought to follow the line of commerce and the lines of steamers; and, secondly, that he pre ferred the shorter sections the better - Yes, have a diagrant here which shows the weights of copper and gutta-percha required to give a speed of 125 letters per minute over all lengths up to 3,600 miles.
1
856. Knots? Yes. I think that this dia- gram explains clearly why it is we consider it so important to keep down the length as much as possible. It is very well known, of course, that the speed of a cable depends on, and is inversely proportional to, the product of the total resist- ance of the conductor multiplied by the total inductive capacity of the core, so that, other things being equal, the speed varies inversely as the square of the length of the cable. That is, a core of 100 lbs. of copper and 100 lbs. of gutta- percha for a length of 500 knots gives a speed of 120 words a minute, and for 1,000 knots it would give 30 words a minute; 2,000 knots then
18 November 1896.]
Mr. LUCAS.
Chairman-continued. would give 7 words a minute; that is, you see, decreasing inversely as the square of the length: or, on the other hand, if it requires 100 168, of copper and 100 lbs, of gatta-porcha to give 30 words at 1,000 knots, it will require 400 lbs. of copper and 400 lbs. of gutta-percha to give the same speed at 2,000 knots. 900 lbs. of copper and 900 lbs. of gutta-percha will give the same speed at 3,000 knots, and of course 1,600 lbs, of copper and 1,600 lbs. of gutta-perchi will give the same speed at 4,000 knots.
857-8. Because Sir George Henry Richards was dissatisfied with the proposals and condition and the alternative routes your company declined to tender at all?-They did tender.
859. Your company did not tender for any of the alternative routes; was not that so? I think his impression was that the tender was a little premature before the route or anything else had been decided upon; but I think he did not decline to tender, and I think he gave you the best information which he had at his dis- posal on the whole subject, and I hope he threw some light on the question of speeds and of the nature of the work.
860. Oh he did, indeed; but you see my point was simply that he did not tender for the routes that were offered ?— No.
861. He did tender for the route rid Honolulu and Sumea, for a cable to New Zealand only, for 1,870,000/ That was so, was it not? Yes. You treat it as a tender; I think he intended to give some general idea of the price. It was very obvious that the asking for tenders was, at all events, a little premature. I am quite sure his wish was to place the best information and the beat facts in the hands of the Committee at that time.
862. I do not doubt it, but what I want to get at are his reasons for the objections. Especially he objected to that part of the conditions which made the maintenance and repair of the cable by the contracting company part of the contract : the maintenance and repair for three years ?—Yes.
863. Now, was his reason for objecting to that the same as his reason for thinking the whole proposals premature. That is, without a com- plete and full survey of the route chosen the con- ditions were all uncertain? I think he so ex- pressed himself at the end of his letter.
864-7. I have only one further question to ask you, Mr. Lucas: that is to go back for one moment to this question of survey and the Siemens process.
He says: "And I may also say that this method has been used for "six out of the seven cables which WC "laid across the Atlantic." Mr. Siemens claims that the strain on the cable actually measures the depth, and that the measurement is shown by a dynamometer; were you aware of that?—In the first place the cable does not touch the bottom when it is being laid, say, in deep water, 2,500 fathome, for a distance of 20 miles astern; therefore, a cable or wire can give you no indication of the depth of water under the ship.
1
Mr. Murray.
868. Your criticism on the process, in fact, is
[Continued.
Mr. Murray-continued. that though it tells you the facts it tells you them too late to be of any use to you ?—Too late. Cer tainly they noticed an irregularity in laying this cable across this place that they have now called the Faraday Hills, and they went back after- wards and sounded, and found that it told them quite right, but it had told them too late; the rable hail gone over the Faraday Hills. They had not avoided them.
Chairman.
869. Your point is that the Faraday Hills ought to have been avoided altogether?-1 do not say that, I say any shoal patch.
870. No. Any Shoal patch? Any shoal places; particularly those you have to deal with in the Pacific, and which are obviously more numerous than in any other ocean; these coral formations with deep water all round, and of which so many have been found at a little depth below the
surface.
Mr. Gillies.
871. Are you speaking from any personal knowledge or from reports from the Admiralty?
Of the Pacific Ocean ?
872. Yes?--I have been there; but I am speaking from having studied the soundings that have been taken and the charts.
I think that it is obvious to anybody who looks over the charts with care, that the Pacific Ocean is in some parts very thickly studded with small islands and shoal patches with very deep water all round them.
Mr. Murray,
73. I gather, then, that you think that the shallow patches are as great a danger as great depths?—Yes; they are just as great a danger as the great depths. Of course if you lay the cable across very great depths you might get over without any accident at the time of laying, but you can hardly get over the shallow patches without an accident, but if you do, it is pretty sure that the cable will go in the course of a few years. On the other hand, if you lay a cable acrois one of these very deep hollows, you lose a lot of cable, which would be detrimental to its speed; it would lengthen your line unnecessarily, and you would never be able to pick up or recover the cable in those great depths,
874. There is no actual difficulty in the shallowness, is there ? It is merely the up and down which makes the difficulty ?-The difficulty is that the cable is being paid out at a very flat angle. Now if it comes to something on which it suddenly rests, a considerable length is sus- pended, and if it does not part at the time of laying, it certainly would do so in the course of a few years.
$75. And what you want then is a gently undulating bottom, and not one with marked prominences rising very suddenly?—Yes; there is no fear from the depth; 3,000 fathoms is quite a safe depth to lay a cable, but if you come across these shallow places, that would shorten the life of the cable very much indeed, even if it did not lead to an accident at the time of its laying.
I
876. Because you could not be sure of its
66