LINKING UP THE ENDS OF THE EARTH

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21182, 1 November 1938, Page 6

LINKING UP THE ENDS OF THE EARTH

Thirty-six years ago to-day the first message was ticked over the Pacific cable connecting the Motherland with New Zealand. This was made possible by the linking up of Fiji and Fanning Island. Thus the Pacific cable connection between the outposts of the Empire was consummated to the obvious delight of the people of New Zealand. It is interesting to recall something of what was said by way of comment on the closer linking up of the Homeland and the Colonies:

“We cannot let the opportunity pass,” said one journal, “without congratulating the colonies concerned, and New Zealand in particular, on the event. That the undertaking will exercise a real influence on the life of the Empire is not to be doubted. It was the patriotic sentiment in the first place that led to the proposal, and If only for sentimental reasons we must feel proud to have completed the first great line of the State-owned Imperial cable system.

Steady and at times almost bewildering progress has been made down the years in improving communications with the Homeland. Less than a century ago when the telegraph had still to replace mail coach and pony express, the new channel of communication was regarded as something of a novelty, which was considered never likely to oust the surer if less spectacular letter mail. Even ten years after the telegraph came into use in England, when the first Atlantic cable joined Europe and the United States for a few days—before the first line broke—the wonder of such instantaneous communication was so overwhelming and so unbelievable that even President Buchanan of the United States hesitated to answer a cable message of good will from Queen Victoria lest he find himself the victim of some monstrous hoax. But the magic of the telegraph is more than matched to-day in the field of communications, what with broadcasting and ocean telephone as well as cable and telegraph and most recently the mechanical marvel that transmits photographs over thousands of miles of telephone lines. Then we have radio telephones, while in the Homeland, television is preparing to carry the visual reproduction of everyday events into the homes of the people. To-day the King speaks and his voice is heard at the ends of the earth, and to-morrow through the medium of television millions of subjects within the British Commonwealth of Nations will not only listen to the voice of rulers and statesmen, but will look into their faces and thus more closely cement the family ties which hold the British Commonwealth of Nations in understanding unity.