THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. THURSDAY, JANUARY 29, 1914. EXCESSIVE CABLE CHARGES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15519, 29 January 1914, Page 6

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. THURSDAY, JANUARY 29, 1914. EXCESSIVE CABLE CHARGES.

The attitude of the Herald towards the Pacific Cable ' Board is ' fully justified by the report of the Imperial Trade Commission. For years we have pointed out that instead of being the active and beneficent body intended at its institution the, Board has compelled the co-operating countries to contribute annually towards cable which lies generally idle because charges are restrictively extortionate. The Imperial Trade Commission puts forward the assumption that the lack of enterprise shown by the Pacific Cable Board has been due to its "laudable desire to abolish- the deficits," a -desire which has obscured its vision of larger and more urgent duties." This is a most tender judgment and is doubtless due to a courteous acceptance by the Commission of the only excuse which the Board could offer. As the Herald has so frequently reiterated, New Zealand could contribute with a light heart to a deficit created by low rates and popular service, but it is bitter in the extreme to make good a deficit caused by prohibitive charges on a public line- The Commission plainly understands this aspect of the situation for it tells the British world that to spend £2,000,000 and then leave the cable comparatively idle for two-thirds of the day, is neither commercial policy nor common sense." Reduced to figures this sense." Reduced to figures this means that the Pacific Cable could earn as. much at a/ standard one shilling per word as it does at,the existing standard of £hree shillings pep word if the cheaper rate resulted in the cable working full time. .. It is simply monstrous that j a state-owned cable, laid and designed, to facilitate electric communication between Britain, Can-1 ada, New Zealand and Australia, ! should have this Imperial purpose defeated the persistence of a bureaucratic management in methods derived from the great' cable monopolies. It is an ancient, dogma; of cable monopolies- that small business and high rates are the necessary bases of the industry. The result is that after two generations, oceanic telegraphy is still a costly need to commerce and a rare luxury to the general public and is only commonly known to the multitude through the enterprise 'of ; the newspapers. If we compare with the -wonderful popularity ;of land •tblegrlphyy which is : a,' blessing | to every home and a tremendous aid,' to commerce, and travel, we must have a vivid ; perception Of the advantage of cheap- j ness- --y V >-■' '■">■l

The Imperial.. Trade . Commission very rightly > condemns high pable rates to Australasia as " restricting the use of the cable to the commercial classes and checking free intercourse with' - the Motherland." Among other reductions in ■ charges " week-end -messages" - with a minimum of twelve, words _ at sixpence per word are. advised and we are told that to this* the British Post Office is favourable. One would certainly imagine it ,to bo possible, in the year 1914,' to send a short message to the United Kingdom for six shillings, 1 if two days were allowed for its. transmission. All improveare ; desirable, and .those : who seek cable reform have much to gain from any concession which helps to popularise oceanic telegraphy. The difficulty at the present time is that to the' • average citizen the- cable, is as strange as radium and the sending of a cable . message is as. remote fronf his experience as signalling to Mars. ' • The methods '' of the great cable companies, so amazingly copied, by the - Pacific Cable Board, have excluded' the general public from any direct participation in this great invention. The average citizen is so little ; interested that he does not care very much if rates are three shillings a word or thirteen shillings. , He literally does not realise that if charges were reasonable he could telegraph to his relatives in an English town as easily as he does to his friends in Hamilton or Dunedin. If rates 'can be so reduced that cables come within reach of the multitude an irresistible leverage will be available for other reduction.

| • The Imperial Trade' Commission has apparently nothing to say upon cable charges on the Tasman Sea service, though it calls attention to the. unfair exaction by ? the Pacific Cable Board of an extra fourpence per word upon every New Zealand message under the system of a common charge for all Australasian messages, regardless of difference in landing charges. No comment upon Imperial cable matters should be concluded, however, ' without reference to the most extortionate i charge of all, that levied for the transmission "of messages between ! Australia and' New Zealand. Two; state-owned cables - now • traverse Tasman Sea, besides the duplicated cables of the , Eastern Extension Company, yet one and all of them lie almost wholly idle in order that rates may be - kept • at threepence per word, with landing . charges additional. It is proposed to make it possible to send • a short telegra-

phic message from Auckland to London for six shillings, but the public cannot • send any message between Auckland and Sydney for less than, four shillings and sixpence. If the cables under Tasman Sea are working, for a-tenth of the time they are very busy. Can any defence be made by our colonial Governments for the extortion practised upon colonial senders of cable messages between Australia and New Zealand who pay threepence per word when a halfpenny would be ample ? Our statesmen are very enthusiastic for reciprocity and good feeling, yet our post offices effectively bar complete mutual understanding when they make it impracticable for Aus- ] tralians and New Zealanders to telegraph freely to one another.