The Sun.
London, England, 1858-04-10 00:00:00

TELEGRAPH BETWEEN MALTA AND

ALEXANDRIA.

(Front the Times.)

The English Government is about, if we are
correctly informed, to enter into a contract with
Austria, by which Austria is to bind herself to con-
struct a telegraphic line from Malta to Alexandria.
The line is so directly for the benefit of England
that she is willing to pay something handsome to
get it done, and so little directly for the benefit of
Austria, that she will not make it unless she is
handsomely paid for it. When the Austrian Go-
vernment have seen their advantage in the construc•
tion of public works they have not been slow to con-
struct them themselves, as witness their railways, a
great portion of which have been directly constructed
by the Government. England wants an agency to
lay down a telegraphic line lot her, and, instead of
going to the persons, very well known and per-
fectly trustworthy, whose business it is to do such
thing 4, she betakes herself to another Sovereign
Power, and makes that a matter of negotiation
which ought to be one of merely mercantile con-
tract. If we go no further than this the proceed-
ing is highly objectionable. Governments must
contract for what they want like other people, but
they will do wisely to make their contracts, when-
ever it is possible, with persons who recognise a
jurisdiction to which both contracting parties pay
obedience. If the English Treasury agrees with '
An English company to perform any work for them,
there is in case of non-performance, misconstruc-
tion, or evasion of the contract, a remedy open in
the courts of law, and a tribunal capable of enforc-
ing its judgments in a methodical and orderly
manner. But when one first-rate Power enters
into a contract, as the lawyers say, to find work,
labour, and materials for another first-rate Power,
supposing the same failure in the contract, a con-
tingency from which Governments are no more
exempt than individuals, where is the remedy of
the party believing itself injured ? The remedy is
a long and fruitless diplomatic correspondence, a
blue-book of unfathomable profundity and unread-
able dimensions ; and, if this course should not
being satisfaction, an appeal to the last reason of
kings—a decision as to the merits of wire or gutta
percha by the voice of the cannon or the flash of
the sword. Such arrangements are too much in
advance of our time, and should be put off till the
days when Mr. Cabden shall have established his
Courts of Arbitration, and an Amphictyonic Coun-
cil shall render the same justice to States as the
Court of Queen's Bench does to individuals.
But, waiving this difficulty, we have a right to
ask why, if we are to select an agent, and that
agent is to be a severeign and independe et Power,
our choice is to fall on Austria? The laying of
an electric telegraph for a distance of some twelve
hundred miles seems a task better suited to an
island like our own than to a great Continental
State possessing only two or three ports in
the Adriatic Gulf. When Austria has agreed to
make us the line where will she go for the materials?
Nobody can doubt for a moment that she will go to
England. From English engineers she will derive
her plans, from English manufac'urers she will
order the wire ; in all probability, from English
electricians she will obtain the machinery—nay, we
have very little doubt that to English shipping will
be entrusted the duty of laying down the wire that
is to unite Malta with Alexandria. We stat 3 this
opinion for the simple reason that the requisite
skill, the requisite gear, cable, and tonnage, can
notoriously be obtained cheaper and better in this
country than elsewhere, so that the transaction
comes to this—that we are about to employ a foreign
country to construct for us that which, after all, we
shall be obliged to construct for ourselves. Those
who have learnt that two sides of a triangle are
greater than the third may possibly think that it
would be a shorter, cheaper, more direct, and more
businesslike process, for the English Government
to issue its orders direct to the English manufac-
turer instead of negotiating with the Austrian Go-
vernment to issue the self-same °rile's. We di not
under,tand why the pa.sage from Downing-street
to the City is in this particular instance con,idered
to lie through Vienna.
We showed on a former occasion that in order to
obtain this very inconvenient and circui.ous result
the English Government was putting out. of its
hands the control which i.toEtight to e.xerctse over.
its communications with the tst?and we showed
also that it was upon the English Government,
which guaranteed the inwtehriecsht,foaunicldnotht upon the
Austrian Government,
that the ultimate risk of the tramnus.liiornweveeotsiuld:miflaeilYsle!
We are not straining matters
that the very money which the Austrian Govern-
ment is to advance will probably be borrowed, on
the faith of our own guarantee, from the capi-
talists of the city of London, and we offer thie
opinion mainly on the ground that the Austrian
Exchequer is not supposed to be overflowing, and
that on good English security money can b 3
borrowed more cheaply in London than in Vienna.

Even this is not all. The laying down a cable
from Malta to Alexandria is, after all, a hazardous
business in the present state of our knowledge and
experience with regard to submarine telegraphs.
Nothing on the same scale has yet succeeded; with
the exception of the attempt of the Atlantic tele-
graph, nothing on the same scale has been attempt ed.
The contractors will not like the risk of laying
down a cable of such great value and such conside-
rable length to fall exclusively on themselves. It
is just one of those cases where the gain is incom-
mensurately small compared with the possible loss,
and where, therefore, the principle of insurance is
sure to be applied. The contractors will insure
themselves against the possible loss which mby ac-
crue from any accident in laying down the cable,
and for the insurance also they are certain to look
to English underwriters. This makes the matter
complete, and leaves, we apprehend, nothing to be
desired and nothing to be added in the way of folly
and absurdity.
We are about to induce the Austrian Govern-
ment, by some pecuniary subvention or guarantee,
to undertake the construction of a telegraphic line
from Malta to Alexandria. That line will be laid
out by English engineers. Its cable will be made
by English manufacturers, coiled up on board an
English steam-vessel, paid out by English gear,
connected with electric machines made by English
manufacturers, paid for by English capital, and
insured by English underwriters. We are ashamed
to employ ourselves di ectly, and so subsidise Aus-
tria to do it for us. We pay her for the use of her
name ; we aro unwilling, seemingly, to appear in
the business ; we fear that we have too much in-
fluence in Egypt, and are afraid of adding to it to
the extent which the control of the telegraphic line
might effect. Having in this country no experience
of business, we are obliged to go to a German Power
to be our managing director in a marine enterprise.
And for what is all this trouble and "circumlocu-
tion 1" Simply, as it seems tons, to deprive us as faras
we can, of the advantages which we secured by the
possession of Malta and Corfu, and of the power
of controlling and regulating as seems to us best
our intercourse with our immense empire in the
East. Not having capital enough to conduct our
own busines, we are forced to go into partnership,
and the terms of the partnership are, that England
is to find the terminus, the capital, the plant, and
skill, while Austria contributes her name, and re-
ceives in return all the management and all the
profits. We wish to know what is the considera-
tion England is to receive for all this, and how it
can be that a contract of this nature, which never
could be proposed in the business of individuals,
can be gravely entertained by the rulers and gover
nors of States and Empires.

CENTRAL CRIMINAL COURT.-April 9.

TRUE BILLS AGAINST SIMON BERNARD.

Shortly before four o'clock the Grand Jury re-
turned into Court, and the Foreman announced
that they had found true bills against Simon
Bernard for the capital offence.