The Star. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 7, 1928. NOTES OF THE DAY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18406, 7 March 1928, Page 8

The Star. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 7, 1928. NOTES OF THE DAY.

r I ''HE TEAM of six New Zealanders selected for the Olympic Games is the largest and the best team the Dominion has been able to muster so far. In 1924, Miss Shand, a swimmer, Purdy, a boxer, and Porritt, a sprinter, took part in the games, and Porritt ran third in the 100 metres. This year the swimming team of three is much the strongest that New Zealand has ever assembled, and Lay, the javelin thrower, stands in a class by himself. Up till now there have been no athletic events for women, but the widening of the entry has now enabled New Zealand to select a lady runner. The cost of sending the team to Amsterdam will be about £3OOO, and this sum is practically in sight, but an effort is to be made to send a rowing eight as well, and this ■would call for an expenditure of an additional £SOOO. It is doubtful whether the expense would be justified by the results, although New Zealand has had every reason in the past to be very proud of its oarsmen, and a New Zealand eight might carry all before it.

X7TCTORIA is facing a deficit on its Railway Department ’ this year of £2,000,000, partly because of a bad harvest, but principally because of road competition. This is the experience of every country, as Mr Coates had occasion to point out to a gathering of railwaymen on Saturday. Mr Coates is prepared to face heavy expenditure for the next two or three years in an effort to place the railways on a thoroughly payable footing, as compared with their present loss of £1,000,000 a year. It will be necessary, of course, to complete the rail system conjointly with other transport systems, and it will be. necessary, moreover, to administer the railways on more strictly business lines than is the case at present. Actually there are far too many non-payable lines under construction, while the Government ignores the advice of Sir Sam Fay that the one line necessary to complete the railway system of New Zealand is the South Island Main Trunk line. With the lines that do pay at present the Railway Department has a glorious opportunity, because there is no road system that can possibly compete with railways, properly administered for the special purposes for which they are suited. New Zealand has too much money invested in railways not to have a very keen interest in their success or failure, and in the rather difficult transition period that is ahead the Department is entitled to all the assistance the public can give it.

AN ERA of brighter wireless in England is anticipated as the result of the decision announced yesterday to remove the ban on controversial subjects. Action on these lines should have been taken long ago, but it was only recently that the Postmaster-General, with whom the decision rested, began to take any notice of tlie agitation for cancellation of the rule. Unlike at least two other members of Mr Baldwin’s Cabinet, he seemed to think that speakers into the microphone should be confined to platitudes that must not hurt the susceptibilities, political, professional, or religious, of any of the millions of listeners. Now that the obstacle represented by this peculiar attitude of mind has been disposed of, the wireless authorities can expect a greater measure of support in their endeavours to overcome certain technical difficulties. The possibility of securing clear and effective broadcasts of programmes throughout Europe by means of linking land lines with wireless relay stations has been occupying the attention of engineers for some three years, and already a good deal of progress has been made. It was found by the experimenters that the normal telephone cable with its heavily-loaded coils and duplex repeaters, while excellent for the transmission of broadcast speech, was well nigh useless for transmissions of higher frequencies required in connection with a musical programme. The overhead line systems of the Continent, too, offered peculiar difficulties, and it was to the evolution of a more efficient cable service that the activities of the investigators were devoted. Experiments undertaken proved remarkably successful, and it is now hoped that before the end of 1928 London will be able to listen-in at a scheduled hour to an uninterrupted programme from, say, Moscow or Berlin.