THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 25, 1909. THE SAFETY OF SHIPS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14148, 25 August 1909, Page 6

THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 25, 1909. THE SAFETY OF SHIPS.

Whatever has been the fate of the Waratah it is the duty of all our colonial Governments to take individual and collective action for ensuring the greater safety of ships. For that a great modern steamer should thus mysteriously disappear, whether for a month or for ever, is duo to public neglect of the use of wireless telegraphy. The Waratah was in all respects but one the latest expression of maritime architecture, for this was her second round-trip, and she had been built by a strong and ambitious company, long and favourably known in the Australasian trade, to compete for business in one of the great trades of the world. Of 10,000 tons register, twin screwed, and fitted with

two distinct sets of quadruple expansion engines, she appeared to be beyond all the ordinary risks attaching to engines and propellers. As for her buoyancy, the owners' announcement at her appearance on the run that "the steamer is divided into eight watertight compartments, and has a cellular double bottom extending the full length of the vessel, thus rendering her practically immune from any danger of sinking," was by no means extravagant. She was, without doubt, one of the finest and staunchest of modern liners of her class, and that she was not fitted with a wireless installation is explained immediately we remember that our colonial GovernmentsSouth African, Australian, and New Zealand alike —have shirked the duty of establishing land stations, and have thus made an expensive plant comparatively valueless to all vessels that . enter, Southern waters.

The Waratah, staunch and buoyant as modern shipbuilders could make her, and abundantly provisioned, apart from her cargo, may still be afloat, nor should hope be abandoned until every possibility of her reappearance has completely vanished. But if, as we trust, some happy solution may yet be found for this latest of sea mysteries, the necessity for public attention to wireless telegraphy will become the more evident. Whether she is actually lost or only adrift, it is an impeachment of our public attitude to maritime interests that she should have vanished from sight on a civilised colonial coast and on one of our great colonial trading routes. . For we must bear in mind that rhe same thing might have happened on the Australian coast or on the New Zealand coast as easily as on the South African coast. There is no means of communicating with the shore even if a vessel were fitted with wireless telegraphy; as a consequence we have no wireless telegraphy installations on our coastal shipping, although the need for it is emphasised year after year. As if to give our colonial Governments a final warning, the mysterious disappearance of the Waratah has been accompanied by the equally mysterious disappearance of the French steamer Menarandran, which was on the same part of the South African coast as the Waratah and at about the same time. The Menarandran, it is reported in our cable messages of this morning, is given up for lost. She may also be adrift. In any case, wireless telegraphy will keep any vessel in touch with a shore station or with other ships so long as her dynamos work.

There is no necessity whatever for wireless installations to be a serious loss to the Governments establishing them, for they can be used with economy for land messages as well as for receiving and sending messages over the water. Powerful installations would enable communications to be carried on between New Zealand and Australia, thus doing a commercial business as well as doubly covering the greater part of the Tasman Sea, a region with which New Zealand is more directly concerned. In both our North and our South Islands there are numerous sources of water power, each more than sufficient for any possible electric installation of this description ; Tasmania is also well supplied with natural water power and even Australia, along the entire eastern coast, is permitting water to run to waste which would send electric messages far and wide over land and sea. The Marconi Company is doing a profitable business on the Atlantic with coal-made electricity, and the Canadian Government has repeatedly considered the establish-

ment of a chain of wireless stations across the continent. Electric communication between Australia and New Zealand would enormously increase were rates reduced to a Penny per Word, and at anything like the same ratethe ship making a reasonable " landing" charge— there would be a very considerable telegraphic business between every passenger vessel and the various ports. It is common knowledge that telegraphic communication between every part of this Dominion has been so encouraged and developed by the Sixpenny Message, that innumerable people send " wires" where they might quite comfortably send a letter; and that telegraphic communication between this Dominion and the Commonwealth has been throttled and choked by the Threepenny Cable, with ' landing charges added. It would pay our colonial Governments to bear a constant annual loss for the maintenance of wireless stations, for thereby they could not only give cheap intercolonial rates to i their various peoples, but could keep constant watch over every ship within the range of their installations. No vessel could then disappear as so many have disappeared in years gone by, some to be found again and others never to be heard of more. No vessel could then disappear, as the Waratah has disappeared under our eyes, vanishing inexplicably upon a coast which should be patrolled, as should every civilised coast, daily and nightly by reciprocating electric guardians. Moreover, wireless installations would give us aerial cables, which no enemy could cut, and which could not possibly be interrupted anywhere, when all British steamers could toss messages one to another and send them on to any station or to any port No progressive Government can afford to be indifferent to all these considerations, and no maritime people can

afford to allow their Government to be indifferent even if it wishes to be. .