New Zealand Mail. PUBLISHED WEEKLY. SATURDAY, JANUARY 22, 1376. THE CABLE DIFFICULTY.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 227, 22 January 1876, Page 12

New Zealand Mail. PUBLISHED WEEKLY. SATURDAY, JANUARY 22, 1376. THE CABLE DIFFICULTY.

♦ The Americans use an expression, whenever they have had enough of a thing, emblematic but expressive. They say “This has gone far enough.” We are tempted to use this expression in regard to the operations for repairing the broken telegraph cable, which, until some weeks ago, maintained communication between the North and South Islands. From the first, we had very little faith in the ultimate success of those operations, but we did not like to say so. A number of very excellent gentlemen seemed so taken np by the importance which grappling for the cable would lend them, and seemed to take so innocent an enjoyment in the task, that we really had not the heart to damp their spirits, even though their amusement was to take place at the public expense. But we would now in the name of the public put it to them whether they have not played at picking up cables quite enough. In order to render the position clearer, it may he well to put to them the cost of their little game. Before the Luna was ready for service the fixing of the necessary fittings had cost £4OO. She has had a large number of extra hands employed for some time at a cost that cannot have fallen short of another £IOO. The Egmont has for some days been chartered at the price of £25 a day, and the Tui has been running for many weeks at a similar cost. And for all this we have the consolation that, whereas the cable was originally broken in one spot, it is now broken at least in two, and it may be in a great many ; and we also know that, instead of lying in some sort of direction across the Strait, it is now disposed about in bits, partly in Worser’s Bay and partly the Lord knows where. There are also a few expensive grapnels and some new rope at the bottom of Cook’s Strait. Now, had the Luna been put on from the first to convey telegraphic messages from Picton to Wellington twice a day, had the services of the Tui never been called into requisition, and had we waited patiently until two cables could he laid in a proper manner across the Strait, we should have been spared a great deal of expense, and Dr. Lemon and the telegraph people would have simply had to forego the pleasure of showing what wonderful fellows they were. For, as a matter of fact, what is wanted is not the repair of the present cable, but the laying of a couple of others a good deal to the north of it, where they would rest from shore to shore on a sandy bottom. The line of the present cable is altogether wrong. It is in a large part intersected by rocks, and there is tolerable evidence that it is open to galvanic action, certain to be fatal to the continuity of a cable. There is already a new cable ordered from Home, and there will be enough to spare from the heavy shore ends of the Australian cable to provide us with a second, which, we doubt not, would be readily placed at our disposal at a comparatively small cost. These, too, should be laid considerably to the north of the old one, where soundings have shown that they would be exposed to none of the dangers that have disposed of the old cable. What we plainly would advise now is, therefore, that all this cable grappling should be put a stop to, and the Luna employed to run twice a day between the Islands. It is true that this advice would have come better before so much expense had been incurred, but as we have already said, we really could not find it in our hearts to damp the scientific enthusiasm which was awakened by the prospect of picking up a cable. However, this has now gone quite far enough, and has cost quite enough money, and we must therefore seriously recommend that it be put a stop to, and a little patience exercised until proper telegraphic communication between the Islands be established in the manner we have suggested.