Penny-a-Word Cables.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVIII, Issue 18, 30 October 1912, Page 61

Penny-a-Word Cables.

SIR HENNIKER HEATON’S PROPHECY.

lA vision of cables to any part of the world at a penny a word was conjured up by Sir Henniker Heaton in an interview on the subject of the recentlyannounced reduction in the cost of telegrams to Canada and the United States. “Mr. Marconi, my magician friend, is making wonderful progress,” he said, “and he told me recently that if I get telegrams to America for one penny he will do it for half, because he has no cables to construct. I hope and believe that a fair settlement with the cable companies will be come to, so as to save millions of years of time by penny-a-word telegrams, with a minimum of twelve words for a shilling, throughout the world. With the active support of the British Empire League, my so-called ‘dream’ will be realised in less than ten years.”

As regarded the reduction of the transAtlantic rate, Mr. Henniker said the highest praise was due to the Post-master-General of Canada, Mr. Pelletier, who came here with the determination of having a State-owned cable across the Atlantic in order to break up the cable rings. Mr. Pelletier was heartily supported by the Governments of Australia and New Zealand. The British Government did not see its way to adopting the proposal, but joined in making certain overtures to the cable companies, with the result that threepence per word for deferred telegrams across the Atlantic was agreed to. Mr. Pelletier pressed for threepence per word for ordinary messages, and the present shilling rate for urgent and code messages, and he would be successful on that point also very soon. To show the absurdity of so-called deferred messages. Sir Henniker Heaton pointed out that the carrying capacity of the cables to America was 325,000,000 words per annum, and only 25,000,000 words were sent. It was true that there was a great rush of messages during a few hours every day. but one of the sixteen lines to the United States and Canada should be placed at the disposal of the non-code or non-urgent senders. In any case, the delay should never exceed a few hours. About fifty telegraph messages of congratulations were sent to him in Australia this year, and three of the “deferred” messages reached him before the “urgent” ones. He was assured that each cable to Australia could do seven times the work it now did. Only seven or eight million words were sent to Australia, but fifty million would be sent at a penny rate.

If all the cables of the world were destroyed to-morrow they could be reconstructed at a third of the cost. We were now paying for abandoned cables, superfluous cables, watered stock, and all the plundering and blundering of the past.