NEWS ON SHIPS.

Taranaki Daily News, 3 September 1924, Page 5

NEWS ON SHIPS.

SERVICES BY WIRELESS. NEW ZEALAND ITEMS. (By Wire-—Parliamentary Reporter.) Wellington, Last Night. So far the Union Steam Ship Company appears to be the only shipping company that has availed itself of the New Zealand news that is broadcasted from the Awanui station every night. Their news is printed in an excellent little paper published daily on the company’s principal passenger steamers trading between New Zealand and San Francisco, New Zealand and Vancouver, and New Zealand and Australia, and is much appreciated not only by New Zealanders but by others as well. From time to time complaints are made by passengers on the big liners trading between New Zealand and England that no such news is published. This is purely a matter for the companies concerned, who could obtain the same news as is published on the Union Company’s steamers. The cost involved Is small, and sooner or later no doubt the companies whose passengers are Interested in the receipt of New Zealand news at sea will follow the lead o’f the Union Company. The Postmaster-Gen-eral (Hon. J. G. Coates) says that the news now broadcasted could be made available for other liners. American news, which is of little or no Interest to British and New Zealand passengers travelling between here and England and vice versa, is taken by the Home liners, but not the New Zealand news.

So far as wireless broadcasting in New Zealand is concerned, Mr. Coates mentioned that a New Zealander interested in wireless development had written to him from America stating that many broadcasting stations in the United States had closed down, but those few remaining were giving a good service. “Several interested people I spoke to,” stated the correspondent, “thought our scheme, which I outlined to them, was admirable: in fact the only sensible way to run any broadcasting scheme.”