Messrs. Russell & Co to Russell Young, October 12, 1882

Messrs. Russell & Co. to Mr. Young.

Sir: We are requested to ask the favor of your exerting your influence with the Tsung-li yamên to obtain for an association of merchants here permission to lay a submarine telegraph cable between Shanghai and the ports of Amoy, Foo-Chow and Swatow, and terminating at Hong-Kong.

If this permission be granted it is the intention of those who are interesting themselves in the project to invite the co-operation of Chinese merchants and others here, and at the different stations on the proposed line.

The telegraphic service on the coast of China and between this port and Hong-Kong has long been unsatisfactory. The one existing cable has been subject to interruptions in its working for several years past, but during the last few months these interruptions have been so frequent and so prolonged that the necessity for a new and independent line forces itself still more and more upon communities at the ports named.

There is good reason to believe that if permission to land the cable at those of the open ports on the coast which we have indicated is obtained from the imperial Government, the capital required will be subscribed among this, the foreign and Chinese communities.

The undertaking is purely of a commercial character, and originates among merchants who find great inconvenience and loss arise from the many interruptions which occur on the present line, and who desire also to have the advantage of a more extended system of inter-port communication.

If permission be granted to land cables at certain points on the coast near to the ports we have mentioned, the company will, if further permitted, construct land lines connecting these with their offices. In doing so every care will be taken to carry out the necessary works with the approbation of the local officials and with due regard to the rights of the people.

We beg to mention that letters of a similar tenor to this have been addressed by Messrs. Alfred Dent & Co. to the British chargé d’affaires, by Messrs. Siemssen & Co., to the minister for the German Empire, and by Messrs. Ulysse Pila & Co., to the minister for France at Peking, and we trust that you maybe able to co-operate with their excellencies in obtaining the desired permission.

We have, &c.,