"DEFERRED" CABLES

Evening Star, Issue 14533, 8 December 1910, Page 6

"DEFERRED" CABLES

Press Association—By Telegraph— Copyright. LONDON, December 7. (Received December 8, at 10.15 a.m.) In connection with the deferred cheap cables proposals, it is practically decided that these messages shall not be held back more than twenty-four hours. Prospects of cheaper cable communication with the Antipodes are afforded by a movement which is likely to reach the practical stage in the near future. The idea, primarily, is not to advance the interests of tho business people who have their codes, but to reduce by one-half the cost of transmitting what may bo called social messages. This will be a boon to people of small means, to whom the present charge of 5s per word for the interchange of domestic and friendly • messages is prohibitive. It is not unb'kely that the reduced rate will be experimentally tried in the early part of the new year. The cheap messages wilt be "deferred" for forty-eight hours, this boing the condition on which the reduction is made. The delay will euable the Cable Company to utilise those periods of tbo day when ordinary business messages aro few. At present* some 35,000 words are cabled per week between this country and Australia and New Zealand, but should a system of deferred messages bo adopted it. is estimated that double that number of words could be dealt with. "There would be no reduction made in the Press rates." said Mr A. S. Baxendale, manager of the Pacific Cable Board. "That rate was reduced from Is to 9d per word as a result of the last Press Conference, and of that we get only 2d for the service from Vancouver to Australia, and we could not do with less." Mr iiaiendale emphasised the point that the reduction: in the cable rate woidd be to the advantage of poor settlers in Australia and New Zealand and their friends at Home. By communicating by letter beforehand with tlic cable company a short address might be arranged at either end to cheapen further the cost of tho i message.—l/ondon ' Standard.'