SILVERN SPEECH

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23886, 14 August 1939, Page 8

SILVERN SPEECH

An extension in the hours during which the radio-telephone service is in operation between Australia and New Zealand, as announced in.a Sydney cable message, is a reminder of the ever-increasing part that modern communications take in bridging distance. To the greater number of New Zealanders it is possible that the radio-telephone seems only a remote extravagance. To not many people, it might have been imagined, would it occur to "ring up Australia." At ten shillings a minute—a recent reduction from fifteen shillings—conversation assumes a new value, words require to be chosen with a due regard to their weight in silver. Yet this decidedly long-distance service has proved its worth. When it was inaugurated a few years ago a mere hundred or so impetuous people in Australia and New Zealand had the temerity, or found the necessity, to make use of it. In the past financial year, more than a thousand calls were made from New Zealand to the Commonwealth, while Australians put through 1272 calls to this Dominion. As to ringing up those left at home when one is embarked in the trans-Tasman liner Awatea, or else summoning for a precious word or so those with the fortune to be aboard this 'marine greyhound, that has become a popular pastime. In the past year 800 calls to and from the vessel were handled. The mind almost reels at the thought of the number of cheery platitudes that have been loosed over the stormy Tasman seas. Telephoning the United Kingdom is a more serious matter. This costs £4 10s for the minimum of three minutes' conversation —sixpence a second. The Post and Telegraph Department's report records no calls to New Zealand from Aberdeen! But in the year there were 220 calls from New Zealand to Great Britain, while from the English end 60 were put through to the Antipodes. In the next year, it may be anticipated, the number will be appreciably greater, since the statistics will presumably take account of Mr Nash's frequent and—on the Prime Minister's report—uncommunicative discussions with him during the loan negotiations! The calls of statesmanship apart, however, it is clear that the radio-telephone has established itself as another important amenity in a world given over to talk. New Zealanders, who with 12.69 telephones per 100 of population have, next to Americans, the greatest number of telephones in proportion to population of any country, have long been, in the modern phrase, telephone-minded. That they have extended the scope of their telephonic orbit to embrace lands afar is not to be wondered at, but it must be a source of some gratification to the department which exacts tribute on every winged word.