of a country so undeveloped and so deadly to the white man is necessarily of a limited character. So, in spite of these high rates, the dividend on the ordinary stock of the West African cable companies averaged only 2½ per cent for the last five years of the nineteenth century.[1]
Here, too, foreign competition has shown its strength. France, anxious, like ourselves, for an independent connection with her Colonies, has laid a cable direct from Brest to Dakar, whence a cable runs to Conakry. From this point there is internal communication by land-line to her other West African possessions. This is not all. France has planned a line of cables viâ Marseilles, Oran, Tangier, Cadiz, and Teneriffe to Dakar and St, Louis. The section from Cadiz to Teneriffe, however, is Spanish.
Nevertheless, though the line to South Africa had thus been duplicated in 1889, even this position, as time passed, began to appear inadequate to the organizers of British cable enterprise. Should they duplicate the existing East Coast or West Coast route? In either event, at any rate, the cable, however expensive, would run into existing stations, and could be served and repaired by the existing ships. But, after mature deliberation, strategical conquered commercial considerations, the needs of the public, however costly, outweighed private interests, and they resolved to undertake the vast expenses of a new route. In 1899-1901 they laid a fine direct from England viâ Madeira, St. Vincent, Ascension, and St. Helena to the Cape in time to meet the requirements of the South African War. I well remember when in Ascension and St. Helena, shortly before that date, the enthusiasm with which the inhabitants of those remote outposts received the news that they were to have a cable. This line was nearly 7,000 nautical miles in length, and cost £1,400,000, or about £200 a mile. For a small subsidy a cable was laid to Sierra Leone from Ascension, thus
- ↑ Appendix G to Report of Cable Committee, 1902.
