REDUCED CHARGES

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXV, Issue 306, 24 November 1945, Page 5

REDUCED CHARGES

WORLD COMMUNICATIONS AGREEMENT AT BERMUDA (N.Z. Press Association.—Copyright.) (9.30 a.m.) BERMUDA, Nov. 23. The United States and the British Commonwealth opened the tele - communications conference with an agreement that radio and cable rates must be cheaper and more uniform in future.

The New York Tipies correspondent says that the United States delegates, however, emphasised that they wished the British Empire to allow America to retain the wartime radio circuits to New Zealand, Australia, India and the Near East and also requested the elimination of British communications monopolies in countries such as Greece, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. Spokesmen for all the Dominions and India supported a proposal from Sir Raymond Birchall, head of the United Kingdom delegation, at the opening session that the United Kingdom could support only an agreed rate system which showed a reasonable prospect of being ecopumie when both cable and wireless costs were taken into account.

An immediate issue for the conference to settle was disclosed when the United States spokesman, Mr Paul Porter, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, said the American policy was competition among private companies, irrespective of whether they used cables or wireless.

Sir Raymond Birchall, who revealed that the United Kingdom had called the conference at the suggestion of the United States, reviewed the steps which had resulted in the policy accepted throughout the Commonwealth of ■ nationalising the telecommunications system. PUBLIC SERVICE FIRST.

He added that the United Kingdom Government, in reaching the decision had been swayed not only by the desire to substitute public service for the profit motive, but equally by the determination to have u free hand in providing the cheapest and most efficient possible service, which the whole wurlu required. Tele-eummunications could do much to promote mutual understanding of each country’s viewpoint, which was mankind’s greatest hope. The United Kingdom, prepared to bring a broad constructive outlook to the tele-communications problems, "would be guided less by considerations of immediate gain than by present and future service to mankind. Most of the issues in practice turned on rates, which were the most .fundamental item on the agenda. The regulation of telegraphic rates on the main international routes should always be subject to full consultation and where possible to firm agreement not only between the countries directly concerned in those routes but also countries whose interests were less .direct. The conference should therefore adopt as a policy that Britain. and America should not make a general move in such matters without full consultation. LOWERING OF CHARGES.

Sir Raymond said it was probably common ground that many of the existing rates were too high. The United Kingdom hoped that the conference would agree to substantial reductions, It would be the British aim to secure the adoption of the principle of international collaboration in fixing long-distance rates and the delegation proposed that the Commonwealth and the United States should bind themselves, as part of such a settlement, not to make further .rate alterations on the main routes until the next international conference. It further proposed that other countries should be given an opportunity of sharing rate reductions to which the conference might agree. The British hoped it might he possible at the next international conference to provide in the international regulations for a world rate scheme, which would be the fruit of give and take by all sides and to which the United States and the Commonwealth would be prepared to adhere. Mr P. N. Cryer, for New Zealand, said his . Government was anxious to settle outstanding questions. He appealed for the same British-American co-operation as had operated during the war.

Mr Porter said no one knew what tomorrow might bring in' tele-commu-nications. He hoped they would never achieve finality. • All they could do was to anticipate and formulate a general policy of mutual benefit. Congress had fixed the broad basis for the policy, which was the maximum volume of traffic all oyer the world at the lowest possible rate. Mr Porter, after reference to competition between cables and radio, said cables could be an aggressive competitor with radio, but, irrespective of the differences 5 regarding the organisations, it was clearly important to the United States that direct circuits from America to as many points within the Commonwealth as could be made subject to agreements should be maintained. It was essential for the dissemination of information by the Press and others that the rates should be as low as possible.