A CREAT SCHEME.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 9037, 4 January 1901, Page 3

A CREAT SCHEME.

NATIONALISATION OF" CABLE SYSTEMS.

PENNY A WORD MESSAGES.

Eleotrio Telegraph— Copyright -United Press Association. LONDON, Jan. 3. Sir Sandford Fleming is advocating the nationalisation of the cable systems, and the consequent reduction, of the existing rates to one-tenth.

Mr Henniker Heaton, M.P., the apostle of penny postage, chatting with the Duner din Star representative m Sydney, said : "What I would like to impress upon the people of New Zealand through you is the fact that there will be no peace, no completion of the work of real Imperial Federation, which I know the statesmen of New Zealand have at heart, until we have annihilated distance by making telegraphic communication as cheap between New Zealand and England as between England and Ireland — that is, a halfpenny per word." "And do yon think there is any possibility of such a thing coming about?" "Certainly I do. There is a great movement now under way to that end. In the House of Commons we have formed an Imperial Telegraph Committee, at the head of which we have elected Sir Edward Sassoon, who is a brilliant and sagacious public man. One! object* of the committee iaJto get the Imperial Government to buy up all the cables of the world which are m English hands. And we have so far succeeded that we have forced the Government to purchase the cables between England and Europe. These now pay very well, and that affords a good object lesson." •*I suppose you have gone carefully into the figures of the project? It must involve large expenditure?" "Let me tell you what are the facts. There are about fourteen cables between Great Britain, and the United States and Canada, and twelve of these are kept idle by the cable ring, which is very largely American m its composition. Thsn take the Eastern cables. There is, a. land line to India and also a cable. Both of these are m the hands of the Eastern Extension Company, and yet, though the land line is only 3000 miles m length and the cable 6000 or 7000 miles, the, rates by both routes are identical. In other words, the land lines are constructed at one-fifth the cost per mile, and carry five times the number of messages which pass over the cable, yet the charge is the same — 4s per word. That is "monstrous. No, the only way to annihilate distance is by securing a State ownership of cables, and it is absurd to talk of the federation of the British Empire until we do annihilate distance. We must make cable communication' as cheap as possible." "And is this your mission now?" "I want the' United States Government to join the other Governments m the matter, and by getting those cables to join, Bay, India and New Zealand, to bring the rates down to a shilling per word, and ultimately to a penny or even a halfpenny Look at the facts. To-day we spend thousands of pounds per day and more m telegraphing between Australia and England, thousands per day- between England and India, £1100 daily between China and the East and England, £1200 daily between England and Africa, and £3300 daily, or £1,000,000 yearly m telegraphing between England and America. What a noble sum that is, and if the Governments would only take that m hand and secure it to themselves they could reduce the rates and speedily bring cable communication between the mass of the people into every day use. To show what the present system means, let me say here that out of every hundred cable messages sent now from New Zealand, only one is of a social nature All the rest are purely of a business character. Social messages, and many business messages, are prohibited, by the present high tariff to England. The same thing applies to all outlying parts of the Empire."