Foochow, seeing the place where our cable, when first laid, had to be worked from a hulk in the river, owing to the refusal of the Chinese officials to provide a landing-place for so mysterious an intruder. In the same year, 1884, some cable-laying of minor interest was done by us for Portugal at Macao, and for France—Tonquin to Saigon.
Ten years again passed away, and meantime it had begun to be felt that Hong Kong was only imperfectly united to Singapore by a single line of cable, touching at the French possession of Saigon; so in 1894 a line was laid from Singapore to the British island of Labuan, off North Borneo, and thence to Hong Kong, providing a splendid all-British route.
So much for the main British cables on the actual coast of China. But this account does not quite exhaust the matter. In the year 1900 the Chinese Government became anxious to possess a line of cables from Taku, the port of Pekin, to Chefoo, and thence to Shanghai. The root of their anxiety was that foreign nations would lay those cables if they did not undertake it themselves. British interests coincided at this point with the interests of China, so we laid those cables on behalf of the Chinese Government This was not an insignificant service. The Chefoo-Taku section was duplicated next year. Hardly had this been done in 1900 than Chefoo became a most important centre, significantly enough, of foreign activities. Russia procured a cable from Chefoo to Port Arthur, and Germany a cable from Chefoo to Kiau-Chau, and thence to Shanghai. Britain herself arranged for a cable under subsidy from Wei-Hai-Wei to Chefoo. So far I have dealt with the great struggle which has been in process since 1870 for predominance on the coast of China and possession of the China traffic. Great Britain has not been beaten, though, of course, an overwhelming victory was impossible without more State support than that afforded by the British Government. But let us now step from the coast eastward
