Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1899-11-06
A FINE EXAMPLE,
Of the Ease Which the Government
Operates TelegraphS.
WE ARE NOW OPERATING $500
MILES OF LINE IN CUBA, AND A
CABLE TO PORTO RICO is REC
OMMENDED, AND ALSO ONE
ACROSS THE PACIFIC-WIRE-
LESS TELEGRAPHY CONSID-
SIDERED.
WASHINGTON, November 5.-The

WASHINGTON, November 5.-The
extent to which the government is con-
structing and operating cable and tele-
graph lines as result of recent terri
torial acquisitions and controls is
brought out in the report of Gen.
Greedy, chief signal officer. This shows
that the telegraph system of Cuba, for
merly owned and operated by Spain,
has been taken over and developed by
the signal corps, and that at the close
of the fiscal year, $500 miles of lines
were in operation, of which 600 miles
were absolutely new lines, and the re-
mainder largely reconstructed.
Gen. Greedy discusses the question of
Cuban cable and telephone concessions,
showing the legal and diplomatic diff
culties surrounding them, as well as the
practical difficulties under which the
military cable lines are kept in opera
ton. He recommends the laying of
deep sea cable between Porto Rico
and Cuba, which would cost about
S600,000. By this means all commune
cations between Porto Rico and the
United States would pass over strictly
American lines.
In the Philippines, Gen. Greedy shows
that the efforts Of the United States to
lay cables for military operations was
antagonized by the private companies
owning lines there. Gen. Greedy says
there are certain provisions of the
Spanish cable ions which plainly
cannot be acceded to by the United
States, especially the absolute cable
rights for an indefinite period, not only
in the Philippines, but in all Spanish
possessions in the Pacific. He says
1t is only matter of time when Luzon
will be connected with Formosa by an
international cable, thus giving an out
let to Japan and China.
AS to Pacific cable, the report says
in part:
United States and its Pacific. colonies, it is
essential to span the Pacific by a subma-
rine cable, as recommended by the Pres
ident to Congress in his special message
of February 10, 1899. The great value of
such cable is not alone for military pur-
poses, but more especially for the fostering
OF industrial interests in the new colonies
and in order to facilitate commercial OPP
erations."
Gen. Greedy suggests that an interna-
tional cable conference should consider the
whole subject of the rights of cable prop
erty in time of war;
Wireless telegraphy receives considera BILE
attention. Gen. Greedy says that as
means of connecting the islands of the
West Indias Hawaii, nd the Philippines,
which are in the range y its action, wire
less biography should prove of value The
signal corps experiments have shown that
Its officers and men are able to furnish
practicable system of wireless telegraphy.
The signal corps has already operated it's
own system successfully between Fire Isl
and and Fire Island Lightship, a distance
of about IL miles. Gen. Greedy says there
is no reasonable doubt that in the imme-
date future wireless telegraphy will re-
place. with equal advantage to commerce
and the army, the military cables neces-
sary to connect harbor Notifications