CABLE SERVICES.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 48, Issue 80, 14 January 1928, Page 5

CABLE SERVICES.

COMPETITION BY WIRELESS. VIEWPOINT OF AN EXPERT. (Per Press Association—Copyright.) (Received This Day, 8.25 a.m.) LONDON, January 13. Sir Charles Bright (consulting engineer), who has been engaged on a number of cable-laying expeditions and who reported to the Colonial Office on the Pacific cable .scheme in 1897, in an article in the "Evening Standard" likens the cable scare of beam wireless competition to'that of gas shareholders when electric supply was initiated. He points' out that the Governments in the early days heavily subsidised cable companies. For instance, Australia paid the Eastern Extension Company £32,400 a year from 1879 to 1899. Surely it was partly with an eye to future eompetitjgn that the cable companies had built up large reserves. Experience had shown that cable company amalgamations and working agreements have not been advantageous to the public, tending to keep up the rates. What was needed, especially' from the intra-Imperial trade standpoint, was more British cables, offering alternative routes, and more wireless stations actually competing with cables. Thus we should secure a reduction in rates, long needed in the interests of the public, and a more effective Press service between the Mother Country and the Dominions.