The Feilding Star. TUESDAY, JULY 3, 1888. English Cables

Feilding Star, Volume IX, Issue 143, 3 July 1888, Page 2

The Feilding Star. TUESDAY, JULY 3, 1888. English Cables

i On Saturday last we were informed by | the telegraphist here that couimunicai tion with Europe had been stopped, owing to the sudden breakage of the cables between Fort Darwin and Java. It is supposed this has been caused by recont volcanic disturbances extending over a wide circle, as one cable is reported to have broken 100 miles east of Java, and the other 500 milea west of Port Darwin. As it now stands we cannot expect European news until the cables are repaired, a work which will take some two or three weeks to accomplish. There is a bare chance that the Eastern Extension Company may be able to lay on steamers to run between Banjoewongi and Port Darwin with European messages, but it is only a chance. The distance between these points is about 970 mile, or three days voyage for a smart steamer. It would seem that when the news of the stoppage reached Melbourne the good people got up a war scare on a great scale. They were so much alarmed that they telegraphed to Admiral Fairfax, of H.M.S. Nelson, then at anchor at Brisbane, asking him for information on the subject with childish simplicity, for how was he to know any better than the telegraph officials what had caused the fracture ? A moment's thought should have assured them that in the face of the amicable relations existing between the Emperors of Russia and Germany at last advices, dated the day before, the idea of Russia initiating a war by cutting the ocean cables was utterly absurd. Besides, Lord Charles Behesford has stated this ( contingency is already provided against, and that even if an enemy to | England did cut the wires no possible harm could ensue to her colonies on this side of the Line from an attack by foreign warships.