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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

C.O. 885

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PACIFIC CABLE COMMITTEE:

is laid from California, be obtained from Honolulu. But this route would involve a departure from the principle of using only British territory for landing-stations, and as this principle has been formally endorsed by the Canadian and Australasian Governments at the Conferences at Ottawa and Sydney the Committee consider that it should be adhered to, and that a departure from it would be a material change in the character of the scheme which was approved at those Conferences.

8. The length of the cabie over the route recommended would be, allowing 10 per cent. for "slack" actually used, about 7,986 nautical miles, viz. :—

Vancouver to Fanning Island 3,561, or a little less from Vancouver to Palmyra Island ;

Fanning Island to Fiji, 2,093, or a little less from Palmyra Island to Fiji;

Fiji to Norfolk Island, 961;

Norfolk Island to New Zealand, 537;

Norfolk Island to Queensland, 834.

9. The Pacific cable as a means of communication between Australasia and Europe would be, of course, dependent on the land lines across America and on the trans-Atlantic cables; and it would be necessary for it to have some working arrangement with them. Such arrangements are universal in the case of submarine cable companies, which must obviously make terms with the land lines by which their traffic is received or forwarded. The only telegraph line which at present runs from the eastern sea- board to Vancouver is that of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company. This Company is in connection at Canso in Nova Scotia with the Commercial Cable Company, which possesses three cables from Great Britain to Canso; and the nature of the arrangement between them is shown in the telegraphic correspondence contained in the Appendix to this Report. The Commercial Cable Company is an American Company, but all the landing-stations are on British territory. It is stated that the other trans-Atlantic cable companies, whether British or foreign, are in connection and alliance with the Western Union Telegraph Company, which is also an American Company.

10. The Western Union at present effects its junction with the Canadian Pacific Railway Company's telegraph lines at Montreal, but it is highly probable that were a Pacific cable laid from Vancouver to Australia it would (if it does not already possess such a connection) make its own connection with Vancouver through the United States territory as far as British Columbia.

11. The effect of this position of affairs is that the choice of routes would lie between an American cable company having its stations exclusively on British a land system passing over British territory and soil and in connection with controlled by a British company, and cable companies which, whether British or American, and which, whether possessing stations on British or American soil, are in connection with a land system controlled by an American company, and possibly passing through the greater part of its length over American territory.

III. COST.

12. The cost of laying the cable depends mainly on the materials used in it; and, as the quality of these can be tested, the question is practically one of quantity. The outer coverings are much the same in all specifications, according to the conditions of the case, but the conductor of copper and the insulator of gutta-percha vary in quantity in proportion to the speed of transmission required, and, therefore, the question of cost practically depends upon them, the heavier the cable in these respects With regard to all the sections, except the the greater being the speed and the cost. long one from Vancouver to Fanning Island, opinions as to the composition of the cable do not much vary, and as the speed of the whole line is limited, for through traffic, to that of the longest section, it will only be necessary to go into particulars with regard to that section.

REPORT.

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13. On this branch of their inquiry, the Committee have taken a large amount of technical evidence from electrical experts. This evidence has been in some important respects conflicting, and the Committee have been obliged to form their own conclusions, weighing one authority against another.

14. The principal points which the Committee have had to consider are:-

1. The weight per nautical mile of the core best suited for the purposes of the long section.

2. The theoretical speed of transmission obtainable from a given core over a given distance.

3. The deductions which have to be made from the theoretical speed of trans- mission to arrive at the actual practical speed in "paying " letters.

4. The number of hours per diem during which a cable can be worked for

commercial purposes.

The Core.-15. The cores recommended to the Committee varied from 500 lbs. copper and 320 lbs. gutta-percha (Mr. Siemens) to 800 lbs. copper and 550 lbs. gutta- percha (Mr. Preece, of the General Post Office), but the Committee have decided to select for detailed consideration from between those limits, two types, which have been recommended from different points of view.

16. The first would contain 552 lbs, copper and 368 lbs. gutta-percha, and was that recommended to the India-rubber, Gutta-percha, and Telegraph Works Company by Lord Kelvin in November 1895.

17. The Committee do not consider that it would be wise economy to lay down a cable of any lighter type than this. The speed of transmission would be reduced to too low a figure.

18. The second would contain 650 lbs. copper and 400 lbs. gutta-percha, and is that which was adopted for the cable laid by the Anglo-American Telegraph Company in 1894. There is a serious mechanical difficulty in handling cable of very heavy weight at great depths, and the Committee are of opinion that it would not be prudent in any case to lay a cable of a heavier core than this over the long section.

Speed, Theoretical and Practicul.-19. It is, however, in connection with the speed obtainable from a given cable over a given distance that the opinions of the experts have differed most materially.

20. For instance, Dr. A. Muirhead gave it as his opinion that a cable of 552 lbs. copper and 368 lbs. gutta-percha over the long section would, with experienced operators and by the use of the automatic curb method of transmission, give a speed of 80 letters per minute; and, similarly, for a cable of 650 lbs. copper and 400 lbs. gutta-percha, 95 letters per minute.

21. Mr. l'reece, on the other hand, stated that the same core as that last-named, over the same distance, and by the same process, would give a speed of not quite 63 letters per minute.

22. For the same cable Mr. M. H. Gray, Mr. Lucas, speaking for himself and for the late Admiral Sir George Richards, and the representatives of the Eastern Extension Telegraph Company, estimated a speed of 70 letters per minute.

23. On the other hand, Mr. Siemens estimated the same speed of 70 letters per minute for a cable of 500 lbs. copper and 320 lbs. gutta-percha, while, for a cable of 800 lbs. copper and 550 lbs. gutta-percha, Mr. Preece estimated a speed of 85 letters per minute.

24, Lord Kelvin wrote to the Committee that in his opinion they might reckon on getting 60 letters per minute, and that possibly they might get 80 letters per minute, out of a cable composed of a core of 552 lbs. copper and 368 lbs. gutta-percha over the long section.

In all cases the speed given was the theoretical speed for simplex working.

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