P.—No. 4.

EEEOET OE THE SUBMARINE

4

APPENDIX. I.—LINE VIA GIBRALTAR AND CAPE OP GOOD HOPE. No. 1. Sic, — Downing Street, 27th January, 1868. I have the honor to transmit to you for your information the enclosed copies of a correspondence with the Governor of the Cape of Good Hope, arising out of a resolution of the House of Assembly of that Colony, suggesting the advantages that would attend the establishment of telegraphic communication with the Australian Colonies by way of Gibraltar, Sierra Leone, St. Helena, and the Cape of Good Hope. I have, &c, Buckingham and Chandos. The Officer Administering the Government of New Zealand.

Enclosures. My Loed Duke, — Government House, Cape Town, 15th July, 1867. At the request of the House of Assembly of this Colony, I beg leave to submit for your Grace's consideration a resolution drawing the attention of Her Majesty's Government to the expediency of establishing telegraphic communication between Great Britain and the Australian Colonies' by way of Gibraltar, St. Helena, and the Cape of Good Hope. I have, &c, His Grace the Duke of Buckingham and Chandos. P. E. WoDEnousE.

Eesolved, That tho necessity for telegraphic communication between England and the Australian Colonies having been admitted, and the route suggested being via India, Eangoon, Singapore, and across the several straits between, to the Bay of Carpentaria, in the North of New Holland, and thence by land line via Morcton Bay to Sydney and Melbourne : it is the opinion of this House that His Excellency the Governor be requested, by respectful address, to draw the attention of the Home Government, and the Colonial Governments interested, to the manifold superiority of the oceanic route by way of Gibraltar, Sierra Leone, St. Helena, the Cape of Good Hope, the Island of St. Paul, thence to Melbourne, Sydney, and New Zealand, in order to ascertain whether, by concerted action with the Home Government and the several Colonies alluded to, it may not be possible to carry out such a work, which would be of incalculable advantage to the British Government, especially in the event of a war, to all interest concerned, and at the same time be re-asserting the important geographical position of the Cape of Good Hope.

Sir, — Downing Street, 4th September, 1867. I am directed by the Duke of Buckingham and Chandos to transmit to you, for the consideration of the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, a copy of a despatch from the Governor of the Cape ■of Good Hope, forwarding a resolution passed by the House of Assembly drawing the attention of Her Majesty's Government to the expediency of establishing telegraphic communication between Great Britain and the Australian Colonies, by way of Gibraltar, St. Helena, and the Cape of Good Hope. I am to request that you will move their Lordships to inform His Grace whether the project of any Company for establishing telegraphic communication by the route here proposed by the Assembly has been before their Lordships, and what answer they would consider advisable to this representation from the Assembly. I have, &c, G. A. Hamilton, Esq. T. F. Elliot.

Sic, — Treasury Chambers, 13th September, 1867. I am commanded by the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury to request that j^ou will state to the Duke of Buckingham, in reply to Mr. Elliot's letter of the 4th instant, enclosing a copy of a resolution passed by the House of Assembly at the Cape of Good Hope, as to the expediency of establishing telegraphic communication between Great Britain and the Australian colonies by way of Gibraltar, St. Helena, and the Cape of Good Hope, that the only proposal my Lords have had before them for the establishment of telegraphic communication with the Cape of Good Hope was one brought under their notice by a Mr. Overend, in the year 1862, which they did not think it advisable to entertain. With regard to the resolution passed by the House of Assembly at the Cape, drawing the attention of Her Majesty's Government to the expediency of establishing telegraphic communication with Australia via the Cape, &c, I am desired to state that my Lords would not consider themselves justified in proposing to Parliament to incur the very considerable expenditure which the carrying out of so great a project as that submitted would involve; nor, looking to the principles laid down in their minute of the 10th January last, on the subject of the extension of telegraphic communication in the East (copy of which was laid before Parliament), would they be prepared to guarantee the interest on any capital which might be raised by any Company or Companies for the purpose in question. I have, &c, Sir F. Eogers, Bart. G. A. Hamilton.