INTER-ISLAND TELEPHONE.

Taranaki Daily News, 11 July 1927, Page 6

INTER-ISLAND TELEPHONE.

The inauguration of direct telephonic communication between the North and South Islands of the Dominion which took place on Wednesday last is an act of progress that has long been overdue. So far as Taranaki is concerned the ser. vice has not yet been declared open for general traffic, but between Auckland, Wellington and as far up the West Coast as Wanganui, the system is now open to the public. It is anticipated that a very few weeks will see its extension throughout Taranaki and the North Island generally. John Redmond once said that England and Ireland would understand each other much more readily if there was no sea between them, and there has been manifested on more than one occasion sufficient parochialism on both sides of Cook’s Straits to prevent a thorough realisation that the two islands are but portions of the same organic whole. The effects have not been serious, and any soreness has, of late years, been from the South, possibly due to the drift of population to the North Island, with the consequential diminution of political power in the Southern electorates. Whatever the cause, the existence of any feeling is to be deprecated, and anything which will tend towards its elimination should be warmly supported. To this end the new telephone service will be something more than a mere business and social convenience, welcome as it is from that point of view.