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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference -

C.O. 885

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ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE. LONDON

26 November 1896.]

The Marquess of TWEEDDALE. Mr. H. A. C. SAUNDERS,

and Mr. F. E. Hesse.

Chairman-continued.

take in a day, with your modern appliances 2— Oh, well, I do not exactly know. You see you have You may travel 2 11 got to get over the ground. miles a day specially for serundings, but the mere fact of taking soundings occupies only a com- paratively short time with pianoforte wire, and detaching the weight when it reaches the bottom. (Mr. Hesse.) Give an instance of the sounding between Labuan and Hong Kong when we laid the last cable. (Mr. Saunders, We found great inequalities and we made a zig-zag survey, and we were able to avoid very bad ground through it.

Mr. Jones,

1910. How long does it take for each sounding. according to the depth--(Mr. Hesse. We had a ship on this work for two or three months, sur veying for the one section between Hong Kong and Borneo, two or three years ago, and we were well repaid the expenditure by being able to lay the cable on very much better gronus and in shallower

water.

Chairman.

1911. If your directors were to instruct you to survey the section from Vancouver to Faming Island, which you may take to be about 3.200 nautical miles, how long do you think you could do that in 2-(Mr. Saunders. Three thousand three hundred about, is it not? The actual distance is 3,300.

1912. Yes. Mr. Hesse. The actual steaming distance would not be more than 15 days, say, but you might be some weeks upon one small patch.

1913. It is purely a rough guess? -- (Mr. Saunders.) Probably it would take two to three months, I should think, to do it properly. Mar- quess of Tweeddale, And even then would you consider it safe?-(Mr. Saunders. I do not like these waters myselt, of course, but still we could get to know what we had to face.

1914. When you say two or three months, oft course you mean given reasonable weather — Yes. Quite su, under ordinary conditions. A little bad weather would not interfere with sounding. It would not interfere with soundling like it would with the laying of a calde.

1915. I should like to ask you a question about this question of raising cables from this great depth. We had here two days ago a captain of one of these cable ships-Captain Goodsall —Ol, yes; i know him.

1916. I asked Captain Goodsall, and he said that there would be no difficulty, given proper apparatus, in cutting and lifting a cable weighing as much as 940 lbs. of copper and 940 lbs. of gutta-percha:—Yes; but Captain Goodsail has had no experience. I would rather take the opinion of men who have actually laid the heaviest core that has ever been laid yet. Captain Goodsall has had no experience whatsoever of deep water repairs. He was in our service.

1917. He speaks of raising cables from over 2,000 fathoms ?-No, he could not have done it. (Marquess of Tweeddale.) He has Atlantic experience. He was with the Eastern Company.

no

Chairman - continued.

[Continued.

26 November 1896.]

1918 In your opinion a cable of over 650 Hs, of copper and 400 lbs, of gutta percha, even when rut, could not be safely lifted?— Mr. Now a da I would not go quite so far as to say that, but I think it is the maximum weight of core that you should go to. I do not say that that could not be lifted, but I think if you went to anything beyond, I -hould say you would run a very great risk indeed. In fact, in those great depths T can only work in the very finest weather, because the lift of the ship, if there was any great movement on, would be almost sure to break a cables.

1919. Even when that cable is eat and held ? Yes; because there is a great deal of friction : vou see there is an immense amount of friction at

3,000 fathoms on a rope, say an inch in diameter; there is an immense amount of friction through the water on a sudden lift or rise.

1920. What, in your experience, is the more ordinary cause of the faults to which cables are subjected I have sketched out here the whole of them: chafe on hard and unequal bottom. combined with suspension; that is a very common thing I may say in all depths. Our total breaks in deep water in all probability accur more from corrosion and suspension; but that is a common thing. The corrosion combined with suspension in all probability applies to deep water, and then there are the borers of different sorts, and decomposition of the percha by organie matter, which is very common.

very

1921. What is the lowest depth at which you find the horers?—They swarm in about 30 to 701 Fathoms, but they are known in NOT to 900 fathoms, That can be got over by taping the core with brass. And that corrosion of the unter wires is also got over too. I think, almost perfectly by taping and compounding each wire. have picked up our cables after they have been down 12 years, and I have found there was the galvanising on the wire and everything as perfect as possible where taping had been used. Then earthquakes and volcanoes, for which there is no remedy. We cannot get over that, and we have got 15 examples of that in our system. The Lipari -landi rable, north of Sicily, has been broken four times: in 1888, 1889, 1889, The Adep-Bombay was broken in and 1893, 1885 during that typhoon. The Zante-Cauca There was a broke in 1883 in 1,500 fathoms, severe earthquake at that time. The Patras- Corinth, No. 1, in 197 fathons in 1888, and again in 1889 in 408 fathoms, and again on 25th August 1889, in 55 fathoms. Then we come to the Banjoewangie-Port Darwin, No. 1 and No. 2, and Roebuck Bay cables. The whole of these three cables were broken in 1890 by earthquakes, and in 1888 the Banjoewangie-Port Darwin cables were both of them broken again close to Java, so that we were cut off from com- munication with Australia on those two necasions entirely. Faults from air-holes, of course that is a mechanical fault of manufacture. (Marquess of Tiredale.) But you run the risk of it in a perfectly new cable?— (Mr. Saunders.) Yes. Then there are a great number of faults caused

The Marquess of TWEEDDALE, Mr. H. A. C. SAUNDERS,

and Mr. F. E. HESSE.

Chairman-continued.

I

hy fish-bites, and in one case it is very extra- ordinary. It was a case on the Zanzibar and Mozambique eable, in 400 fathoms of water. am sorry I did not bring the piece of core

A core with a tooth with me, but there it was. like the point of a shark's tooth broken off in the In the Extension Company about Chinn they suffer very much from these fish-bites,

1922. That, of course, would generally be in comparatively shallow water?—Yes as a rule.

core.

But here is a case of 400 fathoms. Then there is another the alteration of the bottom by land- slips, sudden alterations, That has caused us at great deal of trouble off the Rovuma River, on the East Coast of Afrion, in the Zanzibar and Mozam- bique cable, and off the Congo on the West Coast, We got over it on the Rovima River by running the cable in-slare very considerably; but in the Congo we have expended 150 miles in taking the calle 60 miles it to sea farther than it was originally laid. I hope we have got over that. On the Rovuma River it used to break every year off there just about the same time about April or May,

Mr. Murray.

1923. Have you any thing to

ay, Lord Tweeddale, from the point of view of your com- pany, on the policy of laying this cable ! -- Marquess of Tweeddate, Whave nothing to add to what was represented by my prelocessor in office, namely, that we consider that it would be unfair to us, having established this officient system by private enterprise; it would be unfair on the part of the Government to undertake an opposition either itself or through another company. We also think that it would be unreasonable to reduce the tariff su low as 3s, thereby inflicting upon us a very large loss of income, amounting 10, in dividends, something like 4 or 5 per cent.: but we should not object in any way to the establishment of communication acres the Pacific if a reasonable arrangement were to be made with us, but what we should venture to suggest would be a line laid between Australia and Canada, but not necessarily on all British soil.

1921. You would suggest a line touching at Honolulu ?-- Well, if we could get that way. Yes; exactly, Something of that sort. by Honolulu, and so on to Australia.

1923, Why do you prefer that to the all- British route? We prefer it because it is more suitable for cable purposes. Mr. Hesse. And there would be traffic ; traffic would be developed.

1926. Have you any idea whether you could get landing rights there?—‹ Marquess of Tweed- dale.) No.

1927. You think you could not?-Well, I will I think that a answer it, perhaps, in this way, company are more likely to get them than a Government, and it is possible that we might obtain landing rights. At present we have no such rights.

1928. Would your objection on the ground of policy be removed at all if the existing rates of the Eastern Company were adopted ?—Of our company, the Extension Company?

[Continued.

Mr. Murray-continued. 1929. The Extension Company.-You mean in case of a Government line.

1930. Yes? Well, of course, that would miti- gate it. Mr. Hease) There would still be compe- tition, although in a lesser form. (Marquess of Tweeddale. It would mitigate it. I have here an extract from the statement made by Mr. Raikes when Postmaster-General,

Perhaps 1 may be permitted to read it, because it states our east pretty clearly. He stated at the Colonial Conference in 1887: But I think the Conference

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will feel that, while fully appreciating the im- portance of this, and largely sympathising with what I believe to be the most beneficial change of any of the changes which can come out of this Conference, it would be a matter of extreme difficulty, I think without precedent, for the English Government itself to become interested in such a scheme in such a way as to constitute itself a competitor with existing commercial enterprise carried on by citizens of the British Empire. There would be

a very serious **question raised, and it would be possibly ex- temled to other forms of British enterprise, for instance, railways." Then, again, Mr. Fawcett in connection with the West India and Panama Company, in a letter addressed to the Secretary of the Treasury, stated ; — Undoubtedly the Company have had great difficulties to contend with, but Mr. Fawcett believes that the present board are striving to put their property a sound basis, and notwithstanding the opinion expressed by the Conference that the Company have failed to "meet the requirements of the West Indian Colonies, he fears that there would be just cause **for complaint against Her Majesty's Govern- *ment if it were now to subsidize a rival com

pany." I think these two extracts state our view regarding the policy as well as anything that I can say. But I do not think I have stated clearly enough that we should be quite ready to negotiate for the laying of a Pacific cable on our own account, if we could seleet our own landing places, and the question of the tariff was placeil

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on a reasonable basis.

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1931. You would not undertake to do that on the route proposed. I understand; the all- British route-No, not if one of the sections is to Fanning Island; the first section.

1932. That would be fatal?-We could only undertake to do it for Government ecount. We could use our best endeavours to maintain it, and charge the Government the actual cost of maintenance.

1933. But as a commercial undertaking, you would not look on it with favour if it was to You adopt that route !-The risk is too great. see it is much deeper than the Atlantic, and the Atlantic is bad enough.

1934. Do you think the depth is an important element in the case?-Oh, most important, owing to the very question which has been dis- cussed as to the breaking strain of the cable. If you have a strong cable it must be extremely difficult to raise it from a great depth, and if you have a small core it is almost impossible to

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