NIAGARA’S NEWSPAPER

Southland Times, Issue 18938, 11 May 1923, Page 6

NIAGARA’S NEWSPAPER

A WIRELESS ‘ DAILY.” A FEATURE OF' SEA TRAVEL. When the steward brings your “gun fire” cup of tea to you in the morning on board the Niagara he also (if you are a subscriber) hands you a copy of the “Wireless News,” published on board daily and containing news from all the world broadcasted (in these waters) from the Pennant Hills Station, New South Wales, by the Wireless Press, Sydney (says the Auckland Start. Such papers have for some time been a feature of ocean travel across the Atlantic between Europe and the States, and the Oceanic Company’s boats on the Pacific, but the Niagara is the first of the Union Company’s fleet to give passengers a daily summary of what is going on ashore. Consisting of eight pages, eight and a half inches by eleven and a quarter inches, “Wireless News” has six of them printed—mostly advertisements of Fiji, Hawaii, and Canadian origin—and two of them are cyclostyled' daily abroad the mail boat. “This morning’s news by wireless” is the heading under which the passenger lying in his bunk finds the world’s doings in tabloid form. In the old days when people went to sea some cheerfully bade farewell to news and newspapers, and others did so regretfully. To-day wireless holds the sea traveller in touch with the world whether he wishes it or not. Now even the daily news sheet has tracked him to his bunk and when he goes down to breakfast the weather, the possible run for the twentyfours, and such ship-board chat give place to the more solid longshore talk about the latest development in the Ruhr, the London pros and cons of Singapore as a naval base.

Passengers by the Niagara spoke appreciatively of the novelty of getting a newspaper with their matutinal tea, and the popularity of the little sheet is such that no doubt the Union Company will extend the innovation to other ships in the Vancouver run.