BEAM WIRELESS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19699, 27 July 1927, Page 10

BEAM WIRELESS.

When the beam wireless system of communication was successfully inaugurated between England and Australia in April it was announced that there would shortly be opened similar communication with India. That is now achieved. So the linking up o:f the various parts of the Empire rapidly proceeds. The significance of this progress should not be lost upon New Zealand. There has long been hesitation, on the part of our Dominion's Government, to bring this country into line with it. That hesitation* was not unjustified when the project was mooted yeai-s ago, for there was then reasonable room for doubt whether this type of installation would be wholly satisfactory. The success of the Australian venture is now fully proved, and this entry of India into Imperial wireless cooperation adds a further reason for expediting this Dominion's action. It has from the first been clear that, as a matter of national policy, facilities should be provided for direct wireless communication between Britain and New Zealand. This is part of a desirable programme for perfecting Imperial consultation, which the march of international events is making imperative. There has also been a prospect that, with such direct communication, a lowering of the cost of some types of message might be of benefit to the public. General agreement as to these things was nevertheless not enough to warrant the considerable outlay involved in equipping a beam wireless station, so long as the technical doubt remained. India's participation in the scheme, following so soon upon Australia's, ought to prompt practical steps here. Farthest from Britain, New Zealand need not be the last of the Dominions to cooperate in a project designed to link the whole of them to the Mother Country and to each other. Its very distance suggests a special need to avail itself of this means of communication, now that its practical efficiency is assured.