the commercial situation is not The West Indian Islands, stretching like a twisted cord from the point of Florida to the mouth of the Orinoco, are owned by several nations. But their resources, with the exception of those of Cuba, are so limited that one set of cables under one control would amply suffice for them, uniting them to each other and to the North and South American continents. Instead, there are four companies, or six, if the two companies working the Halifax-Bermuda-Jamaica line be included.
The only line, however, which needs our attention is that duplicate sequence of cables, given on the accompanying map, owned by the West India and Panama Company, and running from Jamaica right through our British Islands to Demerara on the South American continent. It is a British company, and unites all our possessions with Jamaica through the medium of Porto Rico, owned by the United States, and of a pair of small Danish islands. It also touches at the French islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique. A few words must be devoted to its manifold misfortunes. It is the Job of cable companies.
To begin with, Cuba provides the bulk of the West Indian traffic, but Cuba is now a republic under the dominion of the United States, so that the West India and Panama Company has never benefited from the Cuban traffic, because the natural outlet for that traffic is through Florida. Next, there is French competition. A line of French cables, largely subsidized by the State, unites New York to San Domingo, and from San Domingo radiates on all sides, south, east, and west to Venezuela, Cuba, and the French possessions of Martinique and Guadeloupe. Such, to begin with, is the serious competition with which the West India and Panama Company has had to contend since it linked up our islands in 1871.
But these evils from outside sources are as nothing compared with the domestic evils from within. The cables from Trinidad to Demerara are constantly de-
