'it has never proved a really effective route.'[1] It is the dream, or perhaps more than the dream, of Germany to make it effective. But let us pass to the really operative routes.
The first really operative route to India is a cable running from Lowestoft to Germany; a land-line across Germany to Russia, and across Russia to Teheran in Persia; and thence a land-line to the sea, and a cable to Karachi. This route was opened in 1869. Though managed as far as Teheran by an English company, the Indo-European Telegraph Company, and from Teheran to Karachi by the Indian Government Department, it is owned in its German section by Germany. The Russian section is controlled by Russia. Thus, of the two direct land-line routes to India, the first is ineffective, and the second, though well managed, is at the mercy in time of war of two powerful rival Governments.
Clearly, the only solution of this problem was for British enterprise to construct a line of submarine cables to India. Private citizens proved enterprising enough to attempt the task. It was accomplished in 1870. The first cablegrams were transmitted to India in June of that year. But no sooner had the route been established than a serious difficulty arose. How could the cable compete with the land-line? The land-line is 4,800 miles long.[2] The route by cable through the Atlantic, Mediterranean, Red Sea, and Indian Ocean is 6,700 miles long. To build the land-line costs about £680,000 with new poles,[3] or, assuming poles to exist already for half the way, £435,000—that is, £100 per statute mile. Against this, to lay a single line of cable by the sea route mentioned would cost, with
