The Hawaiian gazette., 1902-11-11
GRITTY
OVER THE
CABLE
Bureaucrats Jump
To Attack
II.

(By Telegraph to the y. Y. TribuneD
WASHINGTON. October 13.-Army
and Navy officers attach deep signif-
cance to the special dispatch from Ho-
nolulu In the Tribune today announc-
ing an agreement between the British
Colonial Cable Association and the Pa
cific Commercial Gable Company to es-
tablsh a line between Tanning Island
and Honolulu. They regard such an
agreement as discourteous to the
United States government and as men
acing American interests, not only in
Hawaii, the Philippines and China, but
wherever 1t is essential that this coun-
try should enjoy telegraphic commun-
ication in the commercial and military
theatre of the Pacific. 1t strengthens
the opinion they have expressed for
the last four years, that a government
line across the Pacific would be the
only means of insuring constant com
munication with Manila or other
American ports, except through the de-
vious, expensive, and easily interrupted
European channels now in operation.
This announcement, they think, fully
confirms the conviction they have so
often expressed that the Gable Trust
has never seriously entertained the
proposition to build Pacific Gable on
which the United States could rely in
an international emergency, and that
its recent representations to the con-
trary before committees of Congress
were designed solely to deter the gov
ernment from building its own line.
The generous terms offered by Presi-
dent Roosevelt to the Pacific CONNER
cial Cable Company through Attorney
General Knox nearly two months ago
have been studiously and insolently
ignored, army and navy officials say.
by the controlling officials of that COM
pany Nevertheless, reports are of
frequent occurrence in the public press
that the company is going rapidly
ahead to lay its line from San Francisco
to Honolulu without seeking permission
to land on American territory or pay
ing any attention to the guarantees de-
manded by the executive as prerequi
site to any and all operations. With
out any legal status in Hawaii, and in
defiance of the President of the United
States, the company now arranges with
the British government to land the mil
itary cable there, an undertaking
which is declared by officers to be the
height of impertinence, especially in
view OF the following hitherto unwrit-
ten historical incident:
A PROPOSITION REJECTED.
In 1898, when Great Britain was do
ing all in her power to encourage the
construction of the Canadian Austral-
ian cable, connecting all important Pa
cific Ocean possessions and strategic
bases, and when the attitude of the
American administration toward Ha-
wall was peculiar enough to be mis-
understood, the State Department was
sounded by the British minister as 20
whether the United States would object
to the acquisition by Great Britain of
one or the minor islands of the Ha-
waiian group, purely for use as a cable
relay station and not for naval pur-
poses. 1t was represented that the
facility of operating a submarine cable
was as the square of its length. and
that the distance from Vancouver to
the nearest British point, Tanning
Island, was $500 knots a much longer
span than any cable in existence Or
proposed, and that the 600 miles saved
by way OF Hawaii would remove the
greatest obstacle to the consummation
OF the project The Secretary of State
replied emphatically, in terms which
left no opening for argument, that the
proposition could not be entertained
for an instant. Several years ago the
subject was again cautiously broached,
and was met with a more emphatic re-
buff
Now under the close operating agree
ment which binds all the cable com
panies there would be little or nothing
to prevent the British colonial military
cable receiving all the advantages OF
practical concession hitherto refused
II 1t were permitted to reach Hawaii
through the collusion of a so-called
American company which admitted be-
Tore Congress that il is a party 20
agreements with the great British
cable monopoly, the Eastern EXten-
sion, which prevent 1t from accepting
the Presidents stipulation that the
cable to Manila shall be extended to
the Chinese coast
DANGERS IN THE AGREEMENT.
The strategic question involved by
the landing of the British imperial
and colonial cable in Hawaii, the mil.
itary key TO the Pacific, is unimport
ant, however, in the opinion of tn,
army officers, compared with the gray,
menace to the completion OF the grea
cable across the Pacific to Guam an,
Luzon In the immediate future. Tn,
line from San Francisco to Honolulu
especially with connection TO Fill
New Zealand, and Australia, woul
quickly prove commercially remunera
tive. and there Is every likelihood tina
Its promoters, unbound by any sue
guarantee as President Roosevelt ha
sought 20 exact from them, would dc
cline TO lay and operate the Ion
stretch across the Pacific, which woul
admittedly have 10 create and handl
enormous business besides governor
messages 10 pay dividends. Tn
agreement announced In the Trlbun
would leave Guam and Luzon indeflr
it1ly at The mercy OF the Eastern DE-,
tension Company, not only as 10 d,
lays and rates In ordinary times. bu
~ occurred before the protocol OF Is!