(The Banffshire Journal. July 31, 1866)
The event of the the week is probably the completion of the Atlantic telegraph. Remembering the jubilation and the subsequent disappointment of 1858, exultation would be misplaced. There is no doubt however, that the wire has been safely laid, and that many messages between Newfoundland and the Irish coast have already been exchanged.
It is matter for gratulation that the two termini of the great undertaking both rest on British ground. The whole design and execution are due to British skill and enterprise, and mainly British capital. The fact, however, that the western extremity of the wire finds its lodgement in a British colony, is of great consequence in the view of possible unpleasant relations springing up—as we must occasionally expect them to spring up—between this country and the United States. In such an event, how awkward for our Government to send a message per Atlantic wire, which they must fear would be open to the inspection of the very Government against which it might be directed.
Though executed by British subjects and by British ships, and located in a sense in British soil, the human race will reap the benefit of the undertaking. The wire, indeed, in this sense, belongs not to us, but to the world. The Atlantic Ocean is the great barrier separating most widely the great continents of the globe. Twenty days was the shortest period within which a Liverpool merchant might hope to obtain a reply from a correspondent in New York. Now all will be changed. At present, even while the communication between Newfoundland and the United States telegraphic system is yet imperfect, the delivery is only a matter of a few hours. By next week, it will probably only be as many minutes.
The benefit is of course not confined to messages from these isles to America. The whole Continent of Europe is now pervaded by the telegraphic wires ; and by and by it will be extended throughout the whole civilised portions of Asia, and thence to the islands of Australasia. There is no obstacle anywhere so great as has just been overcome in laying of the Atlantic cable. The line just completed, to be followed by other wires over the same ground, will thus in fact bind the populations of the earth more closely together ; and it may in a sense be said that it is the “one touch of Art that makes the whole world kin”.
