F.—No. 4,

12

RETORT OE THE SUBMARINE

Article 13.—A1l stations to be established in N. I. by the concessionaire for working and maintaining the lines referred to in Article 4, when completed, shall be approved by the Governor-General of N. L, and at all times accessible to N. I. telegraph functionaries. Article 14. —This concession is provisional, and subject to the approval of the Imperial Legislature of the Netherlands. The approval not being obtained, the present provisional agreement to be of no effect or value.

Enclosure No. 4. Memorandum, explanatory of the conditions of the Provisional Concession for laying Submarine Cables in Netherlands-India, applied for by Petition to His Excellency tho Governor-General, dated sth April, 1869. The undersigned having for some years taken a lively interest in tho progress of telegraphy, and specially with the view of ultimately providing Europe, India, Australia, and China with the means of instantaneous communication, became, in 1862, a member of the direction of the Anglo-Australian and China Telegraph Company, formed at that time in London for the purpose of obtaining the capital necessary for effecting extensions of the European and Indian telegraph systems, terminating in Eangoon (Burmah), by submarine cables or otherwise, thence via Penang to Singapore—and further, for carrying out simultaneously the provisions of a provisional concession granted by the Government of the Netherlands to Mr. F. Gisborne, for laying, in connection therewith, and with the existing system of telegraphs in Java, a submarine cable between Singapore and Batavia. Owing to want of confidence, at the time, in the endurance of submarine telegraph cables, this Company failed to obtain the capital required for either undertaking, and became virtually defunct, when the provisional concession from the Netherlands Government also lapsed, never having been acted upon. On his subsequent return to India, at the end of 1865, it became apparent to the undersigned that, to render practicable the construction of land lines of telegraph in the Malay Peninsula, it was necessary to obtain not only the co-operation of the British Indian Government, in so far as those lines had to pass through British territory, but also to obtain the sanction and protection of the King of Siam, the Bajah of Ishore, and the other independent or tributary princes through whose dominions it was proposed to carry those lines. For this purpose he united himself with a few r friends at Singapore and Batavia, forming a Company under the title of the Eastern Asia Telegraph Company, by which the necessary concessions were ultimately obtained, and have now been made over to tho Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company of London, which has undertaken to carry tho same into effect without loss of time, and further to extend them to Saigon under a special agreement with and subsidy from the French Government, whence a submarine cable is proposed to be laid to Hongkong, in China. During a visit to Australia, in 1866, the undersigned had further the opportunity of becoming acquainted with the system of telegraphs existing in these Colonies, and with the extensions projected or in course of construction. He was also at the same time enabled to ascertain the views and intentions of the several Colonial Governments regarding a telegraphic communication with Europe when the proper time should arrive for bringing the project forward in a practical shape. In consequence of the triumphant success with which a submarine cable was ultimately laid between England and the United States in 1867, the public confidence was fully restored, and the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company of London, before named, to whose persevering enterprise and energy the success of this important international work is mainly clue, has since undertaken tho following works of the same kind, some of which are already executed, others in course of construction: — 1. For the Anglo-Mediterranean Telegraph Company, a second submarine cable between Malta and Alexandria, now in operation. 2. For. the French Transatlantic Telegraph Company, a cable, 3,600 English miles long, to be laid within the next three or four months, between Brest, in France, and New York. 3. For the Victorian and Tasmanian Government, a cable shipped and now on tho way, if not arrived, to be laid between those two Colonies, for which a guarantee of 7 per cent, has been given, extending over thirty years. 4. For the British Indian Submarine Telegraph Company, a cable, also 3,600 miles long, to be laid between Suez and Bombay, by the end of the current year. It is only necessary to refer to the magnitude of these works, executed within the short period of two years, and of the capital involved, amounting to more than thirty millions of guilders, to show the ability of the Company above-named to undertake and to execute successfully the works of minor magnitude forming the subject of the concession now asked for ; and the undersigned begs respectfully to state that he would not have been bold enough to apply for the concession in question but for the assurance of the co-operation of this Company in carrying it out, as communicated to him by private letter from its managing director, Captain Sherard Osborne, E.N., dated 21st January last, and from which letter the following extracts will suffice: — " Now, of the ultimate extension of telegraphy, submarine or otherwise, to Java and Australia, there is no longer any doubt in this country, and I feel confident that by the fall of the year 1870 we shall not only have put Bombay in direct communication with England via Suez, but also have carried a line from Calcutta to Singapore and Saigon. We are at present hard at work completing what must be the first section of this line, namely, a direct communication between this country and India via the Eed Sea, and we hope, in the course of a few weeks, to have raised the necessary capital for this undertaking. (Tho whole capital has since been subscribed for.) That done, to connect India with Java, and Java with Australia, becomes an easy task. Mr. Patorson's concessions (those referred to above as obtained by the Eastern Asia Telegraph Company) are now being licked into shape by the lawyers, and I am very busy collecting data to satisfy us whether it will be better to go down to Singa-