The morning call., 1893-11-10
OCEAN CABLES.

While the Canadian Government is en-
deavoring to raise money in London to lay
a submarine cable from Victoria. b. g., to
Australia the Government of Queensland
has signed a contract with French COM
pany which proposes to lay cable from
Brisbane to Noumea, New Caledonia. and
thence TO FIJI. Honolulu and British Co.
lumbia. The British Government protests
on the ground that this cable will pass
through French territory, and cannot.
therefore. be used by the English in the
case of war. To this the Queensland au-
thorities reply that they are not going to
war.
The incident suggests the expediency
OF reviving the attempt to reach an inter-
national understanding in regard to sub
marine cables. At the present time the
world is girdled with cables. but hardly
any of them have both termini under the
same national flag. When the first trans
Atlantic cable was laid Americans objected
that both ends Of it were under British
control, and that this would give England
a marked advantage over the United
States in case of war. France took the
same view and agreed with Italy and Por
tugal to respect the neutrality of the cable
in the event of war. The United States
endeayored to secure a general assent of
the nations TO this policy, but the effort
was unsuccessful.
In 1882 an international congress, held
at Paris, attempted to bind the nations to
covenant stiprlating that cables should be
respected in time of war, but the great
powers refused. Two years later such
A1A . ho nj
tiaries of twenty-slx states. and it is sup
posed TO be in force to-day. But it is
vague, and no one can tell exactly what
the powers are bound to do and what they
are bound TO refrain from doing. 1t was
poin ted out in the debates that the power
to make treaty involves the power to re-
siliate it, and that no matter how castiron
an agreement TO respect ocean cables
might be any power which chose might de-
clare in the event of war that it would no
longer be bound by 1t.
A further complication arises from the
fact that while the termni of many ocean
cables are in two different Jurisdictions,
the ownership of the cable is sometimes in
a third. For instance, the cables which
run up and Down the coasts OF South
America are partly English and partly
French, and one end of one Of them is at
Colon. while the other end is at Valparaiso.
The cable which runs down the coast of
China and connects Tientsin with Hong
Kong is Danish. The cables from New
York to Europe are partly owned in Eng
land, partly in France and partly in this
country; the English cables are the only
ones which have both termini under the
a.. - go =
time of peace they are consolidated under
pooling arrangement; but of course this
would he terminated by declaration of
war.
War is assumed to cancel all treaties
and suspend all laws. When two hostile
armies take the field. the first step taken
by the generals is to cut all wires except
those which connect them with their base.
The same policy would compel the sever
ing of cable communication. If war broke
out between the United States and Eng
land, the British Government would in
tercept all American messages arriving in
the United Kingdom. and we would has
ten to send out vessels to dredge up the
cables which connect England with Can
ada. To do otherwise would strike a
soldier as a rank violation of sound STRAIT
egg. The first principle of tactics is to
keep your enemy in the dark about your
movements. 1t might be possible by in
ternational agreement to neutralze the
cables by agreeing that in time of war they
should only be used for the transmission
OF commercial or family intelligence; but
such an understanding would be defeated
by the suspicion that military news was
being conveyed by means of cipher