EMPIRE WIRELESS SYSTEM

New Zealand Times, Volume LII, Issue 12196, 22 July 1925, Page 7

EMPIRE WIRELESS SYSTEM

GOVERNMENT URGED TO HURRY

SERVICE IN OCTOBER PROMISED

Reuter's Telegram. (Received When the House of Commons was debating the Post Office Mr Vernon Hartshorn (Lab.), formerly Postmaster-General, taxed the Government with being lacking in energy . in the completion of the Imperial wireless system. , Viscount Wolmer, Under- Secretary for the Post Offioe, assured the House that the Government was pressing the matter with zeal and energy. He denied that delay had occurred, except in connection with the construction of the north-eastern stations communicating with Australia and India, _in which connection he pointed out that beam wireless is still in its infancy. Both the Post Office and the Marconi Company, he said, were gaining fresh information, which on several ocoasions had mad© a consistent., policy difficult. Moreover, the technical formalities connected with the ownership of the station sites had caused delay, but he hoped these would be completed in a few weeks. He declared that the wireless advisory committee was steadily progressing, and was arriving at recommendations 4 regarding tariffs and routes, and other arrangements by which it was hoped to make the Empire system a consistent whole. He added that nowhere in the Empire was a beam station yet working under conditions of the public service, but he hoped a service would be working in October between Britain and South Africa, and Britain and Canada. Mr C. G. ,G. Ammon (Lab.)saiu he hoped the Postmaster had not so handed himself over to the Marconi Company that they were going to find Imperial communications hnmpered and checked. He stressed the necessity of getting a move on. Sir W. Mitchell Thompson, the Postmaster-General, Baid lie thought Mr Ammon’s fears would, prove unfounded. Although the beam system really was more or less in the experimental stage they knew and Marcoms frankly said they knew, little about it. and until the stations were actually working they were unable to do more than theorise. The debate was adiourned.