MR. VIVIANasked the President of the Board of Trade, Whether there is any immediate prospect of the Trinity Board taking into their favourable consideration the question of establishing communication between out-lying lighthouses and the shore by means of electric cables, which was first brought under their notice in 1875?
§ MR. CHAMBERLAINI have made inquiries, and I find that this subject has received for a long while the careful attention both of the authorities of the Trinity Board and the Board of Trade. For myself, I am not quite certain that the result to be attained by such a communication as proposed would justify the very large expenditure which would be incurred; but, at the same time, we have been anxious that the experiment should be made; and, accordingly, as I learned some time ago that the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company were willing to try the experiment for 12 months, at their own risk and cost, I sanctioned the experiment, with the proviso that, if it were successful, the Trinity House were to purchase the cables and apparatus for the sum of £3,730; but I thought it necessary that the determination of the question, whether the experiments were successful or not, should be left to Sir James Douglas, the engineer of the Trinity House Corporation, and I find that the Telegraph Company have objected to that condition, so that for the moment the negotiations have been suspended. I hope, however, it will still 1260 be practicable to make some arrangement by which the experiment will be tried.