THE CABLE COMPETITION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12269, 13 May 1903, Page 6

THE CABLE COMPETITION.

TO TEE EDITOR. Sir,—-In the Press Association telegrams from' Melbourne of the Ist inst. a return is published on the authority of . the Post-master-General showing that the error percentage is slightly higher on telegrams exchanged with New Zealand "via Extension than " via Pacific." I am, however, in a position to ascertain where the errors are made, as all telegrams are sent to my office to be rigidly checked for errors. Upon examination I find that practically the whole of the errors "via Extention" are made on the Government iir.es connecting with the company's caoies, and not on our cables. The return, therefore, is only a sad exposure of careless working on the"part of the Government operators. The return itself rather naively proves my statement, the percentage from New South Wales being .56 per cent., and from Victoria 1.3 i per cent.—that is to say, as the message proceeded inland the errors grew neatly threefold. The accompanying figures are the actual return of the error percentage of our New Zealand station for the last six months, and speak for themselves:—Actual number of words examined, 183,793; number of errors made, 27; or one error in every 6000 w mis, and considering the difficult code words used in cablegrams nowadays, I venture to say that this return reflects great credit on the manner in which this company performs its work for the telegraphic public. I am very pleased to be in a position to state that, so far as the Government lines in Now Zealand are concerned, we receive a most efficient service at then hands.—l am, etc. W. Wakren. Manager in Australasia. The Eastern Extension, Australasia and China Telegraph Company, Limited. Melbourne, May 2, 1903.