The Empire and the Century/The Nerves of Empire > 자유게시판

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There were two main reasons for these high rates. The reasons for that opinion apparently were that private companies do business 'more efficiently' than Governments (paragraph 98); and also that in the innumerable dealings with foreign nations, private British citizens being relatively unhampered by negotiations other than those of their own business, and being of necessity experts, are decidedly more effective than ambassadors and plenipotentiaries. I remember, when visiting those stations, in the profoundest depths of the Pacific, feeling that here was the utmost boundary and frontier, the ultima Thule, of British private enterprise. It was this deep-seated feeling, stimulated by the Boer War in South Africa, and skilfully fomented by Germany, which has induced Holland to obtain cable connection with her Indies viâ America and the Pacific, in assertion of her independence of the British cables viâ India. Next, the cables will probably perish altogether in thirty years. By the year 1886 these Colonies were joined up to each other, and the whole united by cable to St. Vincent But to us this was unsatisfactory on two grounds: this system was mainly controlled by France and Portugal; and, next, it was so arranged that our Colony of Sierra Leone, for instance, could only communicate with the outside world through Conakry, what is control cable a French possession.

Cable communication with the new American Empire was indispensable. Dividing up the Japanese imports and exports into Asiatic, European, and American, the Asiatic come easily first, while the American and European about balance each other. In 1870, while India was being joined up to Britain, a single line of cables was laid from Madras to Penang and Singapore, and thence to Batavia, in Java. But Americans, Dutch, Germans, Russians, and French all want their own cables and telegraphs. In that year a cable was laid from Singapore to Cape St. James, near Saigon, in French Indo-China, and thence carried to our possession of Hong Kong. Finally, from Loanda, in the same year (1889), a line of cable was laid viâ the Portuguese possessions to Cape Town itself. In 1871 a cable was laid from Banjoewangie, in Java, to Port Darwin, on the north coast of Australia, completing the connection. In the year 1900 the Chinese Government became anxious to possess a line of cables from Taku, the port of Pekin, to Chefoo, and thence to Shanghai.

He added that 'it is useless, and would be wrong, for us to wait in the hope that such communication should be established by private enterprise, and it would be right for the country to take some share in the burden of establishing it upon itself.' A line of cables was accordingly laid in 1879 from Aden down the East Coast of Africa to Natal, touching on the way at Portuguese stations. British private enterprise; and a Government Committee, composed of four Colonials and only two Englishmen, declared that, 'actuated by extreme caution,' they hoped to abstract upwards of one-half of the entire Australasian traffic from those British citizens who, during thirty years, had risked over £8,000,000 of British capital in obtaining it. I find that the gold exchange of the silver Haikwan tael fell steadily, with the exception of five short upward fluctuations, from 6s. 6d. in 1870 to 3s. 83d. in 1894. In the next ten years, up to date, it has fluctuated violently, but, on the whole, in a downward direction, attaining its minimum of 2s. 4¾d. in March, 1903. If silver, the wholesale currency, thus varies in relation to gold, so copper, the currency of the people, varies in relation to silver.

New Zealand was connected to the mainland by cable in 1876 under a ten years' subsidy. By the words 'Far East' I mean ten political aggregates: the Malay Peninsula, the Dutch Indies, Siam, North Borneo, Indo-China, China, Korea, the Philippines, Japan, and the Pacific Islands. This important fact should go far to modify criticisms as to the nature of rates. 3 SEC. 3. REGULATION OF RATES. 13 SEC. 13. SALES OF CABLE SYSTEMS. It is the Job of cable companies. Last new rival of all, Japan intends, naturally enough, to seek an independent connection in the direction of America, She has already her own cables to Formosa, and thence to Foochow, She is laying a cable to connect herself with Bonin, and thus with America. It is impossible to explain the cable position in that vast region without a few words upon the factors governing its trade and politics, for trade feeds and politics regulate the number and nationality of the cables. That conclusion is that, whereas formerly British cable enterprise had to contend with few rivals, now it is actively assailed, and will undoubtedly be still more actively assailed in the future, by a host of able and ambitious competitors.