PENNY-A-WORD CABLEGRAMS —WHY NOT ?

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 141, 13 June 1908, Page 16

PENNY-A-WORD CABLEGRAMS —WHY NOT ?

"Imperial Penny Telegrams" is Mr. Henniker Heaton's latest scheme, an outline of which will appear in the May number of the "Financial Reviews of Reviews." It is a scheme for penny-a-word telegrams throughout Europe, and a cheaper cable service with the colonies. It is ten years since Mr. Henniker Heaton succeeded in carrying his Imperial penny postage scheme, and he has been a life-long champion of postal reform. He proposes now to devote the remaining years of his life to doing for the telegraphic service what he has done for the postal, and he is full of confidence that he will live to see a "penny telegram service" in full operation for the entire Empire. He points out that it takes from two to twelve or thirteen weeks to exchange letters with a colonial correspondent, and he believes tiiat in order to avoid such a loss of time, tens of thousands of people would be willing to spend a moderate sum in telegraphing social or family matters. Many traders, he main-

tains, would even telegraph circulars of special goods or inventions, which could be put in type and printed in the colony -or State, selected, and orders for goods would pour in by telegraph -within 24 hours But he lays special stress on the fact that vast numbers of private and social messages would be transmitted by cable. Outside St. Martin's-le-Grand, he says, the necessity for the reform of our telegraph system, is ad*mrtfced on all hands. The high and indefeasible telegrapTi rates demand immediate attention. They have been denounced by infuriated correspondents in India, China, Australia, and the Cape. The root of the evil, he maintains, is to be found in the fact that the British Post Office, as now administered, is not an Imperial, but a parochial organisation. He doubts if a single official has ever had a commercial training, and if even one of the dictators ruling there ■has ever travelled to a British colony. For forty years he has seen from a quarter of a million to three hundred thousand of our son 3 and daughters leave their native land every year, never to return, but no effort has been made to cheapen and encourage communication between them and tfie old folks at Home. F.or a-quarter of a century he has watched the growth of an immense cable monopoly, with enormously high charges to our colonies and dependencies, yet not one word has been spoken by a British Postmaster-General in favour of reducing the high cable rates. Nevertheless, those of the telegraph reform party aFe resolved to secure cheap cabling for the Empire, and if the Government will not help them, they must act without, or If need be against, them.

In expounding the nature of his scheme, Mr. Heaton mentions that the Atlantic cables are controlled by a monopoly, or, strictly, a duopoly, and that, so far as American cables are concerned, commerce is practically throttled. He proposes that the British and American Governments should jointly acquire the property and rights of the existing cable companies at a fair valuation, and thereby establish a common State monopoly in cable communication. This, he asserts, is feasible and possible, and in the interests ot the millions in both countries it is an absolute necessity. As to the necessities of the British Empire itself, there are already centrifugal forces at work within it, which need the gravest attention of our statesmen. Fortunately, we have within our reach, in the postal and cable services, the means of intensifying and perpetuating the sympathy that is the basis of union. A combination of companies is the absolute owner of controller of the cable net of the Empire, and the possessors of this monopoly have acted solely with a view to their own interests. The obvious remedy for removing these obstructions is for the Government to buy them out and throw open electrical communication to the people at a penny per word. The rate is quite large enough to yield a huge profit in view of the enormous traflic to be expected.

The -first thing to bo done is to call a conference for the establishment of a penny-a-word telegraph rate throughout Europe. The next step is to secure a connection with our Indian, Malayan, and Chinese systems. And the third step is to construct the land line down the Malay Peninsula to Singapore, to connect Singapore with the Summatran and Javan (Dutch) systems by a 'few miles of cables, and then to lay a cable from Java to Port Darwin in Australia. Lastly, it would be necessary for His Majesty's Government to purchase one or more of the cables stretching between the United Kingdom and Canada.