The Timaru Herald. FRIDAY, AUGUST 13. 1909. THE PRESS CONFRENCE.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13978, 13 August 1909, Page 4

The Timaru Herald. FRIDAY, AUGUST 13. 1909. THE PRESS CONFRENCE.

}!r -Mark Cohen, editor ol" the Dunedin "Evening Star," one ol'.the delegates from New' Zealand to the Imperial Press Conference, in a letter to hi.<paper expresses dissatisfaction with the Conference on several grounds. "In some respects I am very pleased with the results of the Conference,'' lie says, "in others I am much disappointed." The one matter about which anything really definite was done was the reduction of the cable rates for Press inessages; and this. !Mr Cohen said, would not affect New Zealand for four years, unless a current agreement was set aside-. Even, on this point he was disappointed, because the reduction does, not amount to providing cheap cables for private messages. Businc'ss people, who have to use the cables regularly, register themselves as users of "codes": the private person cannot use a code: and the reduced word tariff is still too high to allow of domestic messages being exchanged by cable. Mr Cohen is greatly disappointed that nothing was done in rogai'd.to quickening and cheapening the means of travel between the. centre and the outposts of the Empire. Not a word was said about that. He. complains that on more than one occasion the Labour Party at Homo was treated with some discourtesy by the Conference. It may havji been unintentional; but it happened. But worst of all, in bis opinion,, the Conference was ''oob-

bled" on the Defence question. ' Our readers must have been struck with the prominence given to the discussion on Defence in the Press Association cablegrams we' received while the Conference was sitting. Tt seemed as ; f the Press representatives were usurping the functions of • the Defence Conference which was to meet latc'r. Apr parentl.v they were led into this by speeches made to them by authorities at Home —Lord Charles Beresford telling them the Xavy had gone to the dogs—as some one is always ready to say. Then the delegates were taken to see a. huge naval review, to give them a contrary impression. A. Wellington delegate mails out to his paper, the "Now Zealand Times," a, budget of opinions of persons at Home who use the cables largely, and they seem to be unanimous in saying that while cheap cables would be a great boon, the reductions effected, will not be of much service. One man even discounted the value of the reduction to business people using codes, his argument being that the more messages are [ put on the lines the greater will be the speed of transmission required, and therefore the greater the clanger of inaccurate transmission ; and this may mean something extremely important in a coded message. Sir Robert Stout happened to he in London, the delegate asked for his opinion on the effect of cheaper Press messages, and obtained rather a depressing one. - The news agents, Sir '-Robert supposed, would simply send more of what appeared in the English papers, and these contained very little indeed of interest to the colonies, in the way of news, and the custom o'f sending opinions of Lon-

don newspapers was misleading, as the great majority of these were Conservative. As to commercial messages, the coding system made these cheap already, and to the general public, lie thought, cheaper cabling was not a' matter of much importance. One great difficulty in the. way of cheap cables, . it appears, is the control of all the Atlantic cables by a syndicate, who refuse to reduce their charges, and another is the fact that the arterial lines of cable are now carrying as much traffic as they will bear; or at all events cannot be loaded with so much more as to make cheap rates profitable. There seems to De an alternative way of getting oyer the difficulty ._ Mr Marconi told the Conference that a S ; wireless system could be established between Britain and New Zealand with ten stations, and that the whole of the Empire could be linked up by the establishment of twenty-four stations, costing less than a million and a half.

He estimated the annual cost at a quarter of a million, and if all the stations were kept busy, a penny per word, would bring in a revenue .that would yield a handsome profit. Mr Cohen, in. writing of this system, .says that if Air Marconi could redeem 00 per cent, of his promises, the era. of cheap'telegraphy over +'•<>. ocean is tn sight; but he does not seem very hopeful of seeing it himself. "We sympathise with Mr Cohen in his regret that 1 the subject of cheap travel was not dealt -with; but here also it■ is a question of'cost, and the steamship lines at present are not paying extraordinary dividends. And over all the work o' the Press Conference there remains the shadow of the fact that it was "nobbled by Defence," with which it ought ■ to have had nothing- to do.