FIRST SNAGS MET

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 127, 26 November 1945, Page 7

FIRST SNAGS MET

TELECOMMUNICATIONS CONFERENCE

Rec. 9 a.m

BERMUDA, Nov.

The telecommunications conference, in the committee stages of its deliberations, is meeting with many snags which will have to be removed before any worthwhile progress towards an agreement can be reported. The most important committee (that dealing with rates and circuits) is the one on which the greatest differences have been exposed.

An offer from the British Commonwealth to extend the Empire penny-a-word Press rate to the entire world was a feature of the first session of the rates and circuits committee yesterday. Among proposals in writing on which the United States delegation" had asked the British Commonwealth delegates for comment was one for a three-cents- Press rate as an ultimate objective. This drew the response from the Commonwealth spokesman that the .Empire penny rate (about three cents) was an instrument of Commonwealth policy introduced during the war and that no change in this level was contemplated. Moreover, the Commonwealth offered to extend the penny rate to the entire world. American representatives pointed out that the United States private and commercial companies, one of which was engaged exclusively in handling Press traffic, must of^ necessity be permitted to earn a reasonable return from their operations, and also that while it was desired to give the widest possible encouragement to increased use of the Press transmission facilities there existed in the United States no mechanism for subsidy for this classification of traffic. They also emphasised that the Empire penny rate applied only to matter for publication, whereas the American three-cents proposal would also apply to Press queries, orders, and administrative messages.

Another American proposal was for a ceiling rate of 20 cents (about half-a-crown) for general traffic between British areas and the United States. Commonwealth spokesmen generally opposed this on the ground that it was an uneconomic rate, and the United Kingdom^ delegates promised to produce their own ceiling figure later in the proceedings.

A third United States suggestion was that urgent non-Press messages should be carried for qne-and-a-half times the charge for ordinary messages. It was clear from the Commonwealth's response to the American proposals' that fundamental divergencies existed over rates. It obviously became a question whether the differences could not be composed more swiftly in bodies. even smaller than committees, hence the establishment of sub-committees to deal with particular subjects involving the thorniest problems. The Press rates sub-committee sat for an hour this morning without progressing towards a decision.