Arizona republican., 1908-06-05
FIFTY YEARS FOR CABLES
 S2OO, 100000 IN THEM
Enormous Investment Now in Deep Sea Ganglia of Wires That Annihi- late Distances Between Nations.

New I OTk, May Ol.-soptCldl COlIcS- pondence of The Republican.-Inter- national business this year will cele- brate the fiftieth anniversary of the laying of the first trans Atlantic cable. That cable soon broke. but it was the beginning of the worlds present day ganglia of deep-sea cables in which over $20O.0O0 900 is invested. It was in 1858 that the first cable, 20OO miles long, was laid across the Atlantic, from two to three miles deep. Seven years later the second one. which n-as a success, went down in the still, dark depths of the oce4RFs 4f It .. Within the brief Span of the fifty 'vearA tie world has built more than 3e0.ObO5 miles gof sub marine iicables, sqIiGent4 t9 .sifdlel the globe eight ItitneS ji,esiiles theiS2OO, OOGOGes sinvest- a5fent in cables there is affleat of AZ cable steamers, kept in c0nstant ser vice. And. besides the cables already in operation, several others are in va rious stages of construction Every ef- Bort is being made to anliliilate the ,distance between different parts of the world and unite. by cables or by wire less, countries separated by vast bod ies of water. The results in the busi- ness world are huge.
 The cable service of most direct i'm pertanceeto thesgeneral public is that ofs transmitting the reports of crops and general commercial conditions of widely Separated nations. This ser vice is intimately tied up with a most interesting compilation of these re- ports, a system which enables the ex- porter in New York and Seattle, and the dealers in Chicago to govern their business by worldwide conditions.
 There are numberless difficulties in illiterate countries in gathering the facts for these crops cables. Take the crop news of India and Russia for instance. India exported in 1907, 2S,824,000 bushels of wheat per year Russia, II, ,92S, 500. In both these coun- tries the task of collecting news rela- tive to the crops, prospects,, and es- pecially about the social and economic conditions of the people, is extremely difficult as the agriculturists are ut terly illiterate. In Hindostan, for in- stance, only ten per cent of the men are able to read and write; 95 per CEIl Ol East lllAlldllS dlt ard not more than or per cent of them can sign their own names. The men who gather crop facts there have multitudes of problems and difficult ties. Similarly in Russia, out of a population of 144,194,000 only 26.55S,- 900 are able to read and write, In the Republic of Argentina, now one of the largest grain producing countries in the world, 41 per cent of the people are utterly illiterate. Yet some people do wiring from such people reliable crop facts, which come under ocean every day.
 The gatherer of statistics in Orien- tai countries is received at the villages with hospitality. In India, he goes to the farmer in the field. making it point to catch him eating his mid-d day meal so that he will have the chance of finding him at leisure. He is cer- tain to be asked to join the Hindoo in his meal. He breaks the wheat or corn bread with his hand, sops up a little gravy, and drinks sips of butter milk with each bit of bread. While