MINISTERS TALK OVER 12,000 MILES

Evening Star, Issue 22032, 18 May 1935, Page 25

MINISTERS TALK OVER 12,000 MILES

THE RADIO PHONE BOON [Per United Press Association.] WELLINGTON, May 17. A few hours after tile Minister of Finance had arrived in London on Thursday afternoon lie was in radio telephone communication with the Acting Minister of Finance, the Hon. Adam Hamilton, and was. discussing affairs of S.tate as clearly and as rapidly as though they had been no further apart' than tho suburbs of the same town. Mr Coates arrived in _ London on Thursday at 1 p.m., having travelled by train from Plymouth to the Empire’s capital. The Rangitane, in which he voyaged from Wellington to Plymouth,'via the Panama Canal, was delayed two days on the trip. Within a few hours after Mr Coates’s arrival in London the High Commissioner, Sir James Parr, and the Post and Telegraph Department made arrangements at the request of the Acting-Minister of Finance for a radio telephone conversation between Mr Coates and Mr Hamilton. “ The conditions for the conversation across 12,000 miles of space were almost perfect,” Mr Hamilton said today. “ The Post and Telegraph Department gave me a ring about 0 a.m., informing me that Mr Coates was call T ing me from London. I got into direct communication with him exactly at 6 a.m Mr Coates’s first message was an inquiry' about his children in New Zealand, and hen we had a talk about the Mortgage Corporation. The clearness of Mr Coates’s voice was remarkable. .It seemed as though wo were having a conversation over a nearby telephone. 1 What is the time in New Zealand?’ he asked. _ When told it was exactly 6 o'clock in the morning'of Friday', he said, ‘Well, I have got you up pretty early.’ ” As it still is possible for listeners-in to hear radio telephone conversations the Ministers did not discuss any Cabinet secrets. The principal item was business connected with the new Mortgage Corporation.