WIRELESS CONTROL.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 299, 18 December 1935, Page 7

WIRELESS CONTROL.

Important Judgment by High Court of Australia. GOVERNMENT'S POWERS. SYDNEY, December 17. The full High Court to-day delivered an important judgment concerning the right of the Commonwealth Government to control wireless broadcasting, deciding the issue in favour of the Government. The matter arose on an appeal by Mrs. Dulcie Williams against her conviction for being in possession of an unlicensed receiving set. The Chief Justice, Sir John Latham, said the Commonwealth had power under its constitution to control "postal, telegraphic, telephonic and other like services." These words undoubtedly empowered the Commonwealth to control that form of wireless telephony known as broadcasting. The word "message" meant something which might be transmitted and received, as distinguished from communications between persons who were face to face, and even if the reception of a wireless musical programme was not the receiving of a message, this fact did not affect the truth of the proposition that the reception of wireless speech was the reception of a message in the sense wherein the word had long been used in connection with telegraphy and telephony. Mr. Justice Dixon, in a dissenting judgment, held that broadcast pro- J grammes did not constitute messages. Wireless sets were a mechanical means of extending the range of natural hearing, whereas the expression "postal, telegraphic and telephonic services" possessed definite • characteristics—altogether different characteristics from wireless broadcasting. The Court dismissed the appeal with costs.