THE NORMANTOWN AND NEW ZEALAND CABLES.

Evening Star, Issue 3539, 26 June 1874, Page 2

THE NORMANTOWN AND NEW ZEALAND CABLES.

In moving the N.S. Wales Legislative Assembly into Committee, on May 27, to con. aider the subject of Australian and New Zealand telegraphic cables, Mr Parkes informed the Assembly that the three Govern, ments of N. S. Wales, New Zealand, and Queensland jointly guaranteed five per cent, per annum upon a capital oi one million! which it was estimated would be the cost of iaymg a cable from Normantown to Singapore, and another from some point on the coast of New South Wales to a pmnt on the coast of New Zealand. Whit those points sba * will probably be detcrmiued when •'i.M.b. Challenger completes the line of soundings which she is now running beand Wellin e ton - It is esti. mated that the expenses of working the lines will amount to L 12.000 per annum, and that sum is to be set aside from the first earnmgs; all the receipts over that amount to go towards the guarantee. The experience ot the Port Darwin cable goes to show that t Tio nnn° hj lar « er revenue than a sum u xl l2 v', ooo represents will be earned by the Normantown fine, and it is arranged that if the profits exceed ten per cent., the surplus is to be used for the reduction of the rate of charges, so as to make the use of the telegraph more easy. The rates of charge ' trom the beginning have been so fixed that a message from Australia to England, which at present costs L 5, will be forwarded by the new line for L2, so that the public will at once derive an enormous benefit from the competition of the two lines. Four weeks in each year are to be allowed to the owners of the line for the necessary repairs to keep it in proper working order. The subsidy is only to be assured while it is in such order. If the northern cable at any time fails, and the Mew Zealand cable alone is at work nn« third only of the guarantee will £ <£ able to the Colonies ; if the Singapore Ime is at work, and that in New' Zealand is sdent, the guarantee is to be . two. thirds. If both lines cease to work then the liabilities of the guarantor also cease. For a message of twenty words from Mew Zealand to Australia tHe charge 6XCeed 158 ; the char S e for the land is ™t f tn b meßßa £ e BUah M that:referred-to b ® more tban 7b > wllile the QueensH \fl V6 lT ent 18 t0 maintain the overt land ime at her own expense; and between Mormantown and Singapore the oost of a twenty-word message is not to he more than

40s, for the first two years, nor more than 35s afterwards. All the details are to fee arranged in London between the representatives of the three Governments directly interested. That the guarantee will prove only a nominal affair, Mr Parkea has ascertained on what appears to be good data. The Inspector of the Telegraph Department of New South Wales es'inflates that twenty-five messages will pass daily between New Zealand and Australia, the receipts from which will be equal to he sum allowed for the entire expense of working the double line.||He estimates, further, that single-' rate messages will go between Normantown and Singapore to the value of L 24,000 per annum. The amount of the guarantee is thus at once reduced from I 50,000 to less than one-half that sum. The increase of business which is certain to come about with the growth of the Colonies in prosperity—and the commercial importanre ef Queensland is now growing only less rapidly than that of New Zealand—will speedily reduce the guarantee to nothing, or at most a nominal sum . , The cables are understood to he ready—if, indeed, the Queensland and Singapore line is not already at eea ; and we may thus indulge the anticipation that early in 1875, if not sooner, Wellington will ba in direct telegraphic communication with London.— ‘ N. Z. Times.’