into the waters of the Pacific. Here British private enterprise, now so sorely bestead by the competition of its own Government cable, has had to cope also with the strenuous rivalry and national ambitions of Holland, Germany, France, and America.
In the Dutch Indies Holland possesses one of the finest empires in the world. It was acquired by the Dutch early in the seventeenth century, when they evicted us wholly from that vast region, inflicting a blow from which we have never recovered in the Far East. Since that date they have always looked suspiciously on England, and opposed her progress in those waters. It was this deep-seated feeling, stimulated by the Boer War in South Africa, and skilfully fomented by Germany, which has induced Holland to obtain cable connection with her Indies viâ America and the Pacific, in assertion of her independence of the British cables viâ India.
In accordance with this design the Dutch have laid cables from Java to Banjermassin, in Borneo. Borneo is traversed by land-lines, and thence another cable runs to Kwandang and Menado, in the north of the Celebes. Up to Menado these cables are wholly Dutch. At Menado, however, Holland has combined with Germany to lay cables to Yap, and thence to Guam, where a junction is effected with an American cable, to be mentioned later, which runs to San Francisco. Thus the much-desired independence of Holland has been effected, but only by exchanging the control of one nation for the control of two. These two, however, were, in her view, her friends.
From Yap, again, a German-Dutch cable, so-called, but purely devoted to German interests, runs to Shanghai. Thence a German cable, laid in 1900, goes to Kiau-Chau, the headquarters of the German Empire in Shantung. Thus Germany, too, has accomplished her desire of obtaining cable connection with the Far East independently of British cables.
The reason for this considerable success of Germany
