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The political unity of India, more consolidated, and extending farther than it ever did under the Great Moguls, was the first condition of its regeneration. That unity, imposed by the British sword, will now be strengthened and perpetuated by the electric telegraph.
- Karl Marx, 18531
When in Singapore my heart has often ached when I have fallen across clearings for pepper, gambier, and the like, to see with what recklessness mighty monarchs of the forest are cut, or as a rule, burnt down in all directions, the unused rotting on the ground. Thus a fair spot costing nature centuries to fill with her handiwork looks like a charnel house.
- James Collins, 1878 2
The nineteenth century saw the creation of the largest empires the world has ever seen, and the first on a global scale. Between them, a handful of European powers-joined later by the United States and Japan-carved up much of the globe into direct colonies and spheres of influence. The carve-up was accomplished by the sword-or the threat of it-but as Marx realized, it was consolidated by other means. If, as the old adage insists, "necessity is the mother of invention," then the administration and economic exploitation of such sprawling domains begged the creation of new communications technology to bind them efficiently together. It could take over six months by ship for messages to reach the imperial capital from the colonies. The problem was solved by the invention of the electric telegraph, which could put the least significant British, Belgian, German, or French colonial outpost into almost instantaneous contact with Whitehall, the rue de Brederode, the Reichskolonialamt, or the Quai d'Orsay. The creation of the telegraph network-later superseded by the wireless-was a huge industrial undertaking and involved the manufacture and installation of hundreds of thousands of miles of cable, much of it laid across the deep ocean beds. The key to the success of the new system was a natural plastic, gutta-percha (almost forgotten today), which proved indispensable as insulation for the submarine cables. However, as this article will show, the "gum" was obtained by profligate, inefficient, and ultimately unsustainable methods of extraction, which killed the trees in the process. The imperial authorities and the telegraph companies gave little thought to...