21
No. 10.
THE PACIFIC CABLE COMMITTEE to the CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY CO.
DRAR SIR,
[Answered by No. 18.]
Downing Street, January 16, 1900. TAM instructed by the Pacific Cable Committee to enquire whether, in the even of the proposed cable between Canada and Australia being laid, your Company could formally undertake to forward all unrouted telegrams, received by it at Montreal from the Pacific cable, to Sydney or Halifax, for transmission to Europe by the cables of the British Companies?
I should be obliged if you would kindly answer this question.
255.
Contingencics and sundries
30,000
1,681,047
• Additional to Committee's length.
There is a point in the Pacific Committee's Report which we would touch upon, that is the cost of maintenance. It has been stated in this Report that £30,000 per annum would be the cost of cable expended in repairs commencing at the first year.
We cannot help thinking that this charge on the revenue, unless it represents a form of reserve, is quite unnecessary. The portion of the cable that first shows signs of decay in its sheathing wires is that between the shore and the 1,000 fathoms line, and the life of this portion may be safely taken at 10 years; the life of the deep-water portion is indefinite, but it laid on good ground, and avoiding hills, no repair should certainly be expected in less than 20 years; there are probably, therefore, in the first ten years" only mechanical injuries, such as damage from anchors, to be anticipated, and the cost of repairing these would be
very little.
The maintenance of the two repairing ships is given in the Report at £40,000 a year, and this agrees with our own evidence on the subject. The average cost for the last five years of a repairing ship of 2,000 tons that has been in constant employment on cable repairs is £21,268, but as for some time few, if any, repairs are likely to be required on your system, the cost of your ships would be somewhat less.
In arriving at our estimated results of cost we have had no definite information as regards the landing places in New Zealand and Queensland. There is no chart showing the Norfolk Island Bank on a scale sufficiently large to estimate the length of the different types required at this place, and throughout the whole system a large number of soundings will be required before the best route for the cable can be decided on.
No. 9.
We are, &c.,
CLARK, FORDE & TAYLOR.
THE PACIFIC CABLE COMMITTEE to the ANGLO-AMERICAN CABLE CO. and the DIRECT UNITED STATES CABLE CO.
عمر
No. 11.
I am,
&c.,
W. H. MERCER.
THE PACIFIC CABLE COMMITTEE to the COMMERCIAL CABLE CO. [Answered by N», 14.]
DEAR SIR,
Downing Street, January 16. 1900.
I AM instructed by the Pacific Cable Committee to enquire whether, and, if so, in what sense, the Commercial Cable Company is considered to be a British Company ?
I should be obliged if you would kindly answer this question.
No. 12.
I am, &c..
W. H. MERCER.
MR. DE WARDT to MR. MERCER.
DEAR MR. MERCER,
Post Office, January 17, 1900. MR. LAMB, who is now engaged on a Committee, bas asked me to send you the enclosed papers in answer to your enquiry about the new French Transatlantic Cable.
We have no official information as to the specifications of the cable, but there is reason to believe that the length, and the weight of copper and gutta-percha given in the enclosed extract from the "Electrician," are approximately correct. We are not quite so certain about the speed of working (90 letters a minute simplex) mentioned in the extract. We know that the construction of the cable was faulty, and from what we have heard, the speed of working is considerably less than 90 letters a minute. We are endeavouring, however, to ascertain as far as possible what the actual working experience has been, and also to obtain the exact specifications. As soon as Mr. Lamb receives them he will send them to you.
On pages 210, 211 and 212 of the enclosed copy of the “Journal Télégraphique," you will find the terms of the Convention relating to the subsidy paid by the French Government.
Yours very truly,
J. I. DE WARDT.
4
[Answered by No. 15.]
DEAR SIR,
Downing Street, January 16, 1900.
I AM instructed by the Pacific Cable Committee to enquire whether, in the event of the proposed cable between Canada and Australia being laid, your Company would be able to enter into a formal agreement that all unrouted telegrams sent from this side by your cables for the Pacific cable should be forwarded from the stations on the Atlantic Coast by lines lying throughout on British territory, and that all the employés of any foreign company, through whose lands the messages so forwarded would pass, should be British subjects?
I should be obliged if you would kindly answer this question.
I am, &c.,
W. H. MERCER.
Enclosure in No. 12.
Extract from "THE ELECTRICIAN " of 19th August, 1898.
THE NEW FRENCH ATLANTIC CABLE.
The French cable ship. "François Arago," has completed the new Brest-Cape Cod (Massachusetts) cable. The cable was formally opened on the 17th instant. in the presence of the Acting Secretary of State of the United States and Monsieur Cambon, and the officials of the French Embassy at Washington, when friendly greetings and congratulatory messages were exchanged between President McKinley, at Washington, and President Faure. The cable is owned by the Compagnie Française des Cables Télégraphiques, and is the longest submarine line yet laid, being 3,200 nautical miles in length. It is also remarkable on having a heavier core than any other section-the copper weighing 661 lbs. and the gutta-percha 400 lbs. per nautical mile. The next
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
C.O.885
7
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- | COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH—-NOT TO
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
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