HALF-RATE CABLES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 14530, 18 November 1910, Page 4

HALF-RATE CABLES.

„ It is good, coinmonsense to take a ' half-loaf when the'whole loaf is temI porarily unattainable, and Ky the same reasoning we can accept the naif-rate for deferred" cable messages, while modifying in no way our contention that the whole rating i system as it exists is extortionate and unbusinesslike. The cable conference which decided to make the <c experiment" had evidently little sympathy with the cheap cable movement, and this is not to be wondered • at when we consider that under the ' extraordinary system which has been developed it is held to be good ' management to keep two cables idle and make another earn dividends for | the three. Our own Pacific Cable does not even earn interest on its | cost, although it is idle much of the time owing to the refusal or inability of the public to pay the excessive charge. By the new scheme, " halfrate" cable messages will be de- ' livered after being carefully , shelved I for a day or two, which is a very different thing to holding them back until the wires have been cleared of full-rate messages. It is | hardly [ imaginable that this deliberate shelving of messages can become part of the accepted cable policy of the J future, but it may lead to more practical concessions, The scheme itself | is valuable, as showing the extraordinary opposition V encountered ! by cable reformers, and should strengthen the movement for bringing under State control enterprises which are as much public services as post offices and telegraph lines.