CODE LANGUAGES IN CABLE MESSAGES

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 303, 22 September 1928, Page 8

CODE LANGUAGES IN CABLE MESSAGES

o A COMPROMISE The Acting Postmaster - General (Hon. K. S. Williams) announces that a report has been received by telegraph from the New Zealand delegate at the International Telegraph Conference now being held at Brussels. The conference was called specially to deal with the use of code language in cable messages, and to consider a proposal made by a committee set up by the last international conference, held at Paris in 1925, that code words be charged for at the rate of five letters to each word. The telegram is as follows: — “A compromise under whieh the public will have a choice of two alternatives was agreed upon in principle by a large majority of the conference to-day. The ten-letter code system is to be maintained at the present rates with a stipulation that each ten-letter group contains not. less than three vowels. The alternative system provides for a live-letter code system at reduced rates without any restriction as to pronounceability. The sender of a message will - be required to choose the system under which his telegram is to be’ charged. The rate proposed for the five-letter code system is twothirds of the full rate. Plain language telegrams will not be affected and addresses and signatures will be charged for, in al] cases, under the plain language rules, but at a rate appropriate to the system selected. The rates are to be examined by a special commission. whieh will also consider, inter alia, whether plain language grouping under Ute live-letter system will be allowed.”