The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1899-09-12
AS A PEACEMAKeR
So Sir Sanford Fleming
Views the Cable.
w II Expand Trade Betw sen Canada
and Australia And Bring Week
Iy Lines of Steamers.

Sir Sandford Fleming, being so close
ly identified with the Pacific cable
scheme, was naturally interviewed
when in London recently. To a Daily
Chronicle reporter Sir Sandford point
ed out that Canadians attach the high
est Importance to it as another bond
of empire. 1t might be expected TO
expand trade between Canada and Aus
tralia, not at present very extensive.
That, however, was quite overshad-
owed by the value it would have in
the Imperial sense. Sir Sandford has
given years of study to this question of
an all-BritiSh cable, and his ideas
thereon quite girdle the globe
Granted the present scheme he
remarked, land you will reach Austria
liza without having a foot of your wire
on foreign territory. Why not have
London by Western Australia, Cocos
Island, Mauritius, and South Africa ?
At CocOs Island you could establish
branch lines to Singapore and Colon
DO, so joining up with the whole of
Asia and India. From Cape Town go
to ST. Helena, Ascension Island, Bar
BADGES and Bermuda, where you are
in near relation to the present Atlantic
cables. Measuring the cable as you
put it into the sea at Vancouver, you
would need $4,000 knots of it to reach
Bermuda. The expense would be be-
tween 95,0O0,0O0 and 6 100000 and
just think what you would have for
the money
Sir Sanford hardly needed to ex-
plain that he struck across the Allan
tic from Cape Town in order to avoid
the shallow waters of North Africa and
the shores of Europe. I'm the event
of war; he laid it down, 1.-The cables
would be most likely to be cut near
Europe. A homecoming cable, accord
ing to my plan, would be in deep wa
ter all the time, and therefore difficult
to cut. Once at Bermuda or Halifax
you would have number of cables to
take messages on to England. They
would not all be cut at once, and it
might be that the getting through of
a single dispatch, after war had brok-
en- out, would be worth more than the
whole of the cost of the suggested ca
BILE" These views have already been
submitted to the Colonial Office, and
Sir Sanford thinks the scheme at
present in hand a basis toward a COM
plete. all-British girdle of the globe.
You would he observed, "be able
having a circular line, to communicate
by two ways with any part of the En-
pire. If one road failed, the other
would be there, so making us very Sc
cure. Apart from anything else, | look
forward to the electric cable becoming
the great means of communication be-
tween the various quarters of the
world. | can see, in the dim distance,
the day when a newspaper will be able
to publish intelligence concerning the
most distant parts, as fully and as
promptly as if it related to its own
city. We do not yet fully realize the
value of electricity as a means Of COM
over long distances. You
telephone from the Strand to Piccadil-
Iy, but you could accomplish your pur-
pose by sending messenger. Not so
when thousands of miles intervene;
then the supreme value of the electric
telegraph is apparent. The expense
lies in constructing a line, and that
once done all is simple. Here 1t Is:
use it to the utmost; keep it going ev-
cry minute of the twentyfOur hours.
If you can send telegram for siXpence
in England, why should it so quickly
cost you six shillings if you go outside
England? The next great advance OF
the world will probably be in respect
of quick and cheap communication be-
tween all DartS of it
Sir Sandford Fleming looks forward
to seeing weekly lines of steamers
leave Vancouver for Australia and Ash
attic ports He conceives them as con-
Meeting with the terminus Of the Sibe-
rian Railway, so forming a continuous
trunk artery about the world. 1t is
fine conception, all the more that it
will mean the possibility of going
round the globe in less than half the
eighty days which Jules Verne, in his
daring narrative, allowed for the trip.
And the supreme fruit Of all this
linking of the British Empire by wire
and steam, this squeezing ofsthe world
generally into small space?
1T will make for peace, was Sir
Sandford Fleming's deliverance, by
bringing nations more and more init
mately together"
A worlds peacemaker-that was the
last word, and let it be here.