CABLE BUSINESS

Grey River Argus, 30 April 1938, Page 3

CABLE BUSINESS

A MILLION WORDS MONTHLY. MAINLY WITHIN THE EMPIRE. The reductions in cable rates now operating bring substantial advantages to New Zealand cable users, who will have the benefit of a uniform rate of Is 3d per word for fullrate messages where the charges in the past have been higher. Proportionate reductions have also been made in cheaper classes of cables to Empire joints. Great Britain, Canada, South Africa,' India, and the Straits Settlements are included in the Is 3d rate, and the most recent survey of New Zealand’s inward and cutward cable business shows that nearly 88 per cent, of the total is conducted with these countries and with Australia. This new scheme brings for the first time into the sphere of overseas telegraphy within the Empire the principle of a uniform rate which has long been applied with |such advantage to Imperial postal traffic.

The cables of the world continue to carry a heavy volume of telegraphic traffic despite the competition of radio. New Zealand’s cable business runs into just over one million words per month, this being fairly equally divided between messages originating in the Dominion and those addressed to it from other countries of the world.

When cable communication began between New Zealand and the United Kingdom in 1876 it was on the basis of 13s per word, this high charge being maintained until 1883, when it was reduced to Ils lOd. There was a heavy reduction in 1893 to 5s 2d per word, and a 3s rate was established in 1903. Since that date there have been five successive reductions in fullrate charges, while special concessions for deferred and other classes of traffic began to appear in 1912. It is of historical interest to know that the original cable rate from New Zealand to Australia m 1876 varied fiom 9fd to Is 8d per word according to the office of destination. One ~>t the most vivid contrasts in rates is in connection with South Africa, to which cables could be sent from new Zealand via Australia in 1876 at a cost of 16s 5d per word. To-day under the new Empire scale, giving a low uniform rate even to the most distant points, the charge is Is 3d per word, with corresponding reductions for the cheaper classes of traffic.

A cable from New Zealand to the Falkland Islands, near Cape Horn, will in future only cost Is 3d per word, although it will have to be “Via Imperial”—the term which cov-' ers all the routes of Cable and Wireless Limited —to London and then forwarded by radio-channel to its destination. NEW ZEALAND’S CABLE OUTLETS The Dominion is well provided with cable outlets all controlled by Cable and Wireless Limited. To the west there are two direct cables across the Tasman from Auckland to Sydney, and a third operating from Auckland to Brisbane, via Norfolk Island. There are two routes running east across the Pacific, one being from Auckland direct to Suva and the second via Norfolk Island and Suva, both crossing the Pacific to Bamfield, near Vancouver. The messages transmitted from Auckland go direct to Montreal, eastern Canada, without the necessity for further manual operation owing to the use of automatic repeaters at Suva, Fanning Island, and Bamfield. All cable messages are transmitted automatically through the medium of a perforated tape of paper, the sending rate varying from 42 to 60 words per minute.