OCR Text |
Show NINE HUNDRED MILES OF CABLE TO BE ABANDONED St. Johns. N. F.. March 3. Sir noDert Bond, premier of New Found-lmd. Found-lmd. announces that his government has agreed upon a contract with tho Commercial Cable company by which tho latter will extond one of Its cables Into New Foundland and thence direct to New York City. Clarence TI. Mackay. president of the Commercial Cable company and or the Mackay companies, upon being shown the above telegram, said: "The report Is correcL we havo agreed to cut one of our five trans-Atlantic trans-Atlantic cables at a point In the Atlantic At-lantic known as the Flemish Cap. which Is about three hundred miles east of New Foundland. and there attach at-tach to the European end of the cable an entirely new cable which will extend ex-tend from the Flemish Cap Into and thence from St. John to New York City. That Is tho Ideal rout ror a cablo between Europo and America, because It divides Into two sections more equally than at any othwr route, the entire distance from Ireland to New York. This will enable us to operate tho cable direct between New York City and Ireland with much greater accuracy and speed, the speed alone being increased over 35 per cenL We then havo the only cable In the Atlantic running from Europe to New Foundland and thence direct to Now York. "We probably would have laid our cables that route In tho beginning if tho Anglo-American Cable company had not had exclusive landing rights in New Foundland. Those rights, which existed for 50 years, have expired ex-pired and so we are now making this change, it means the purchase and laying of seventeen hundred miles or new cable. After it is finished, we Bhay then have lying unused at the bottom of the sen. about nine hundred miles of cable running from the Flemish Flem-ish Cap direct to Canso, Canada, that belnj; that portion of the cable now In use and which will be put out of use by this now plan. Our new cable ship will pick up as much as It can or this nine hundred miles of cable' and it will then be resheathed and will be available for uso elsewhere. "For two years we have been studying study-ing the question and carefully considering consid-ering the change from every point ot view. It involves a large expenditure of money but we shall expend it. The Commercial Cable company is the premier company of the Atlantic ocean and we propose to keep it so. We shall spare no expense to give the fastest service that submarine cables are cap-uble cap-uble of, with all tho advantages ot direct routes. "Never before In the history' ot cables has nine hundred miles or regularly reg-ularly working cable been picked up from the bottom of the sea and the route changed simply for the sake ot accelerating tho speed and increasing tho continuity and reliability or tho cervice." |