for a cable 8,000 miles long.[1] This works out at £8 15s. per mile. That is a somewhat high figure, since it makes provision for two ships, when perhaps only one may be sufficient. Perhaps £6 per nautical mile is a safe figure.[2] Of course, all such figures are somewhat speculative. I give them merely as warning to those who forget what a vast expense is incurred in laying and maintaining cables, and what enormous risks have to be run by private persons who embark on that business.
The reason for the singular multiplication of sixteen cables in the North Atlantic is mainly, of course, the profit to be obtained by conveying the immense volume of commercial messages passing between the United States and the European world. This accounts entirely for the five British and the seven American cables. Of the remaining four cables, two are French and two are German. The reason for the laying of these four latter cables has been rather political than commercial. In other words, the Governments of France and Germany have heavily subsidized these cables, in order to provide that their communications with the United States shall be independent of any landing-place within the British Empire.
The point, then, which merits attention here is that of the sixteen North Atlantic cables only five are British, and that these British cables have to encounter a severe competition from American, French, and German enterprise, aided in the two latter instances by the funds of the State.
The next important point is as regards the landing-places of these sixteen cables. No less than twelve of them start in Great Britain and land on the shores of Newfoundland or Canada. Of these twelve, all go
