CABLE PRIVILEGES.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 167, 8 April 1908, Page 7

CABLE PRIVILEGES.

CABLE. COMPANIES AND THE USERS. BT TELEGRAPH—PRESS ASSOCIATION —COPYIHGH? .' Melbourne, April 71, Sir Horace Tozer, Agent-General for Queensland, will represent 1 the Commonwealth at tlio, International Postal Conference at Lisbon; next month. It is expected that lie 1 will be instructed- to oppose' any withdrawal of the concessions made in 1904 in the way 'of extra facilities for the .transmission by cable of code words., , RESTRICTED CODES. A GAIN IN. TIME/ BUT A 1 LOSS IN REVENUE. It Was stated in London.'that...the cable companies are agitating \to restrict the use of. tlie unpronounceable^ words which' aro commonly used in code messages, and whioli, the cable'companies say, cause them loss of tlmo in transmission and loss of reveriuo:'" The London Chamber of Commerce, on the 1 other hand, protested' against any modification of the regulations applicable to code words, urging rather ' the removal, of all restrictions regarding unpronounceable words so long as they do not exceed ten letters. On Marcli 31 it was announced from Now' York that a heading commercial organisation was taking s.tep's to oppose any curtailment .of; existing code privileges. •. • . DEPxUITMENTAL ■ VIEW — SAVING : OF TIME. , = . . In order to ascertain the' Telegraph Departments point of,view of this difference of. opinion: between the 'cable, companies and the ■users of the cables, a Dominion reporter waited yesterday on. Mi*. H. W.-Harrington, Officer in Charge of Telegraphs. [ ■ ' . Mr. Harrington's attention-was drawn particularly to 'tho' statement in an article published .yesterday, that tlio difficult' and unpronounceable words■ in use did not cause a material delay or lead to more errors, .than was the case when ; the '• code words were simpler. ' Viabsurd,"..said Mr. 'Harrington. -. J.pat,is-'incorrect on the face of it, as the operators have no clue to an unpronounceable word, whereas, in an ordinary telegram tlio case is. different, and good speed can be maintained.; Thes ( e words certainly delay the' work and cause errors. Of couvsc, the merchants : maintain that the' words are pronounceable in- some of the bight 'languages allowed, but • that is just • the trouble; such words may,be quito unpronounceable by us The cablo. companies evidently 'want to go back to the old rcgime.'of. only transmitting words' contained in dictionaries.of any of the eight languages. This would be much simpler for the oporators.i and a considerable saving in time would.be effected." RESTRICTIONS ■ WOULD REDUCE .. ' CABLES' RECEIPTS.. An authority who may-claim to bo a very, large user of the cables stated that the matter did.'not .affect his company greatly, but'it would cause heavy expenditure to some firms Which did a large cabling, business. The matter in a nutsliell was the loss of rovenue and the difficulties to operators. . Code words wero difficult to ; transmit, and the liability to error was very much greater than in tho case of plain messages. His firm could not complain on the .score of errors; they could riot expect all messages to .escape mutilation.' Seeing was'no reduction in price' and that .business 'was increasing in 'volume;-.it was. only a fair concession that had been made so far to allow one, word to mean perhaps a ; wholo string of sentences.' On tho other hand, ho doubted whether the cable companies' loss was as much as they represented,' because all messages before tho ton-fetter concession was made, .wero cut down to the minimum, and there was thus a risk of ambiguity. At the present time, senders are able, to make tho v cables fuller and more explicit by means of tlio tenletter code system. Tho proposal to revert to the old scheme would certainly decreaso the volume of business,, as many messages, which could'possibly be dispensed ivith, .would not. bo dispatched. As things are now, he did . not think, that the cable companies suffered, any. loss, as a good many people would'not cable'wore it not for the facilities obtaining at present. People came to send 'messages ' throuch; the private codes, and they'fixed a limit of cost which thev could afford/ and, it certainly helped to iricrcaso tho receipts of the cable companies.