RADIO PROBLEMS

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 10, 6 October 1927, Page 9

RADIO PROBLEMS

OPENING OF INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE A BENEFICENT PUBLIC SERVICE BROAD CO-OPERATIVE POLICY URGED By Telegraph.—press Association. (Copyright.) Washington, October 4. President Coolidge opened the International Radio Telegraph Conference. In an address he urged the delegates from the fifty countries to discuss their problems candidly and be generous in co-operation and conciliation. He declared that the United States was in readiness to aid in solving the problems of the conference, which it was expected would devote over a month tc bringing the 1912 conference up to date. The President said: “In many fields our country claims the right to be master of its own development. It cordially concedes the same right to all others, but in the radio field the most complete development, both at home and abroad, lies in mutual concession and co-operation. Your main object is to raise this great industry into the realm of a beneficent public service.” President Coolidge pointed out the great part radio plays in military defence, navigation, commerce, 'education, and musical and theatrical entertainment. He remarked that undeveloped portions of the globe suffered from lack of communications, and radio offered the means to reach and develop them. “Io use radio,” he added, ‘does not require elementary education. Its main weakness appears to lie in the fact that it produces not a permanent record for future consideration ” Radio having become a great world influence, needed to be raised into the realm of a beneficent public service in order to promote friendship and understanding rather (ban ill-will or dissension among the nations. He urged a broad co-operative policy for the good of all nations, using radio as a means of communication, as it held great promise to bring enlightenment into the dark places of the earth. He declared that the industry required national and international control. Air Must Be Policed. Mr. Hoover, United States Secretary of Commerce,-was elected president of the conference. Mynheer G. J. Hofker, Inspector-General of Posts and Telegraphs of the Netherlands, proposed the nomination, which was accepted by acclamation. Mr. Hoover told the convention that the air must be policed. He said:. “We are most seriously threatened with a chaos of unco-ordinated traffic. Regulation of traffic upon the channels of the ether is as essential as the regulation of traffic upon our crowded streets, but equally, in both cases, the purpose must be to" expedite movement and stimulate progress, not to etard it. If we be successful, we shall have contributed to the march of international commerce.