WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY.

Southland Times, Issue 14506, 26 August 1910, Page 4

WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY.

The new Australian Navigation Bill, of which cabled particulars appeared in yesterday's issue, contains the provision that all vessels registered in Australia or engaged in the coasting trade must be fitted with wireless telegraphy. The Australian Government is to be congratulated on submitting this proposal to Parliament at the first opportunity that has offered since it assumed office, and there is little room for doubt, but that it will be. adopted almost unanimously. It is not too much to say that a wireless installation lias come to be regarded as a necessary part of a ship's equipment. The commercial advantages of communication with hind are so numerous and so great that business considerations alone render it advisable to lie ships with the wireless apparatus. Apart from business considerations there is the necessity for safeguarding by every possible means the lives of those who (ravel on the seas. It has been proved by experience that the possession of a wireless plant may moan all the difference between disaster attended by an appalling loss of life, and the mere loss of a piece of property which, however valuable, can always be replaced. What has to be guarded against in connection with such a proposal as this is a tendency to discriminate between passenger-carrying vessels and ships which are employed solely in carrying cargo. "With regard to passenger-carrying vessels there is likely to be no difference of opinion as to the necessity for making wireless compulsory. Even if wireles.s equipment be not enforced by h;w. it is likely soon to he enforced by the strength of trade competition. Without, legislative pressure shipping companies have in recent years shown commendable enterprise in fitting their vessi !.-. with wireless, arid in a very short time those vessels which are nut able to offer passengers the advantages of wireless eoiumiuiic'tlion will) land, and 111" greater assurance of safelv which wireless lo|e•■.rapl.y gives will hj" passed m>r in l'a\(Jiir of Ivtte!' equipped vessels, fail the position of lh' e.ir.o tramp is dil.erelll. Tin Se -,■•■ :;.-).; r:llT> I"-' nassenaers. Tiie only ii ■>".-' at sisi-.e SI'S I ilOcO (if t lie iMl'iCel'-, ti.Ui' <S i ','.'. slid ill I'hlgl.llld at all e, , lit . ii',' Is ! : ha', e show n an iaHieai a.n in pi ! ;>■ ainsl any ;il I ■ ■ 11: J • i lo make lit" is slallai ion of wireless in purely cargo vessels compulsory. Th, disi indie.'! is. one that should not be drawn. On the tramp there are hsman beings lust as Ihere are on the great liners which carry thousands 01 passengers from one end of the world to th" oils :s The diU'oi-rnce beiwv--a tiie 10.-; o! iii'e in the wreck of a pa-s'mrmr ship and that in the wreck of a tramp is merely one of degree, and a difference in degree is no justification for ,

a claim on the* part of owners that cargo tramps should be excluded from the law requiring wireless equipment. We are glad to note that the Australian 'avigation Bill makes nc such distinction, and we hope that the Australian Parliament will give the wireless provision universal application, and that in a very short time the Bill will be copied in New Zealand. Although Ntw Zealand is working in conjunction with Australia in the matter of wireless, the Commonwealth seems to be getting ahead of us. So far nothing has been done in this colony, and the Prime Minister has made no announcement.