Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-09-01 00:00:00

TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION WITH INDIA.

One of the last questions answered by Lord Palmer_
stop on the day Parliament was prorogued must prove
satisfactory to the nation and consolatory to those whose
pulse beats high with hope or fear when the scanty news
of a " Telegraph from Alexandria" brings mourning to
many, horror to all.
The proposed telegraph to India, via the Eiaphrates, is
abandoned, because the Porte refuses to sanction its con-
struction; and the telegraph via the Red Sea has the sole
support of her Majesty's Government. It is two years
since the latter project was favourably received at the
India House and " barked" by the Foreign ()lice; and
one year since the former was born near the Treaeury
and nurtured,;by it. Common sense is after all too common
a gift to bow for ever before unscrupulous attacks, nu-
just insinuations, and support based upon want of prin-
ciple.
Government have been beaten upon a question which
is vital to our Indian empire—viz., the existence or non-
existence of a telegraph to India. They have to thank
the Treasury for this defeat ; and let it be a warning for
the future, as well as an atonement due to the English
people for the past.
The Indian telegraph via the Red Sea is to be made ;
but we want it made at once. The 2,000 miles of cable •
on board of the Niagara and Agarnlmnon can be laid
between Suez and Aden before the end of the year. The
9:)0 'miles of cable now making for connecting Cagliari
with Malta and Corfu can be purchased to connect Con-
stantinople and Alexandria before the end of October.
We have thus the power of forestalling India news by 7
days in October, and 14 days in January. All the ne-
cessary privileges have been granted by the Sagan. the
means and material are at hand, but the Board of Con-
trol and the Treasury are guided by timid counsels.
Precedent rules the one ; we hope that nothing worse
rules the other.

We are told that telegraphs are, after all, of greater
commercial than political imoortance, that news so
derived is too scanty, and insufficient to act upon; that
forestalling the regular despatches creates confusion; and
that regularity is the first reuirement of a good adminis-
tration of public affairs. These are not our woods, they
come from the head of a public department. We have but
one question to put to such a sc .ptie. Is the price of
cotton more important than the fate of India ? If not,
accelerate your means of ruling India, and let cotton take
care of itself for the moment. If cotton growers in
Carolina and cotton lords in Manchester can afford to
risk £350,000 in trying an experiment by laying 2,500
miles of rope across the Atlantic, English material inte-
rests, not to speak of the feelings towards husbands, sons,
&netters, and fellow-creatures can afford to spend
£300,000 to bring themselves 14 days nearer to each other.
We cannot believe that even the circumlocation office dares
tell the English people at this juncture, that because
twelve months hence a telegraph to India may be made
some £300,000 cheaper than by bu)in4 the Atlantic cable
at once, they must therefore wait twelve months for the
boon. And yet we are assured on the highest authority
that such is the case. If it is so, there is but one way of
meeting such a spirit of obstruction now that Parliament
is prorogued. Public meetinzs mast be held ; there the
truth will be known, and we doubt not that the individual
energy, supported by the press, which has after incessant
efforts obtained from Lord Palmerston a tardy assent to
support a possible line of telegraph to India. will soon
persuade him that further delay is dangarous, and that
the country will willingly risk £30,000 to gratify their
yearnings—or call it only curiosity—to know what
,is
doing in the East.
It is really preposterous to think that hundreds of
thousands a-year are pail for postal service by steamers
to no •ommodate merchants in their business, and that a
few thousand pounds are refusel to allay the anguish of
thousands tortured by suspense, and to give the means of
rapid and energetic measures to relieve our countrymen
from the horrors of an uncivilised civil war, and save our
honour.

Apathy and self-conceit in our rulers lost thousands of
lives and millions sterling before the walls of Sebastopol.
We wore then fighting for a friend—we are now fighi ing
for ourselves, and fighting iu a country where opinion has
ruled more than three, where moral weight was weightier
than heavy metal; it is our bounden duty, therefore, to
use every means and appliance which can help to form
the judgment and expediate the action. Let us take a
lesson from the past, even though heads of departments
are above doing so. And in urging this question of
immediate telegraphic communication with India we
must not fail to remember that had the East India Com
pang been allowed to give " the liberal support'' they had
promised in June, 1855, we should have been in instan-
taneous communication with Calcutta long before any
revolt took place. The East India Company are now again
urging the Board of Control to permit them to give
such assistance to private enterprise as shall enable tele.
graphic communication as far as Aden to be opened
during this year. The Treasury steps in with a prece_
dent :—the English Government have given certain condi-
tional guarantees to the Atlantic Telegraph Company and
to a Mediterranean Telegraph Company, that is the limit
to which the East India Company may go, so that
private enterprise, having financial encouragement below
the present value of money in the market, roust move
cautiously and step by step, watching its opportunity to
pin down shareholders by a call, and 12 months hence
with the capital all subscribed, and the cable ready for
shipment, India may perhaps have gone 'from us, or at
any rate the crisis will be past, and the utility of science
of small avail.

In the appendix to pipers relative to the mutinies in
the East Indies presented a few weeks since to both
Houses of Parliament there are over one hundred
pages of telegraphic despatches, and we recommend
them to special attention, beeause they contain
facts intelligibly put, not short of words so as
to render them obscure, nor overloaded with comments so
as to make it difficult to find them. There is a sort of
hallucination that a telegraphic message must be so
laconic as to lose the point—an enigma to be solved on
the receipt of letters. The news of the fall of Cawnpore
and the loss of the Transit, which came to us from Suez,
was a week's puzzle. The steamer that conveyed the
message from Alexandria to Cagliair cost the country
probably £5OO for that trip, and yet the country's agent
in Suez, by trying to save a few shillings, made his
information almost valueless.

The Telegraphic Despatches in the Blue Book before
us are clear and unmistakeable. Every verb and
participle is ?given, and while the language is curt the
sense is carefully conveyed. This evidence of the utility
of the telegraph during a crisis in the best reproof we can
give to those with whom routine habits overweigh every
other consideration.

HER MAJESTY IN SCOTLAND.