DIPLOMATIC DESPATCHES METHODS OF TRANSMISSION

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXII, Issue 31, 4 August 1904, Page 6

DIPLOMATIC DESPATCHES METHODS OF TRANSMISSION

Just at the present time, -when the States of Europe are m an unusually anxious conldition of mind as the result of the delicate situation winch has arisen t'hrqugh the war in the Far East, the telegraph wire, are kept constantly busy with the most important and delicate work mat is ever entrusted iv ihem— Uial io to Kay, in transmitting the official despatches which are sent from one Foreign Ofhce to another aivd irom the head Ministers of State to Ambassadors abroad. These important messages are always sent in the ntopjt absolutely oonVplete detail (says an exchange), Not a Single Word Being Omitted or left to be guessed, inasmuch as a wo*rd left out might lead to a misunderstanding, the consequences ot which would be of the mo.vt serious character. Thus the telegraph bills are extremely heavy', ajid it is estimated that) already Japan, in her eominunitations with the different Powers on the Subject of the war which haye been published in the newspapers, must have spent Something like £30,0)00, whilst the bilLfoir unjpmblishcd despatches it> likely tio be far in excess, pf this. One of the most rece-nt commVinicatioin« from Tokio to the Japanese Em'toassy in London cott oVer £300 to transmit, arrd the last telegraphed message from St. Petersburg to the Japanese Government eo<st £270, although the rates are much less for this distance than they are for -tele^r'ap'rung from J<ajpan to England. These despatuhes are invariably sent itn code whan they are fronv a (.io-ve-rnment to its own Arabiafcvador, anid sometimes in code from one Government to another whem it has been ariangcd to employ a s<]>ecial one Jor tiho p,urposie, tJhe key to whictti is i*a tiie hands of both Foreign Ministers. In a me&'sage of vital importance, however, the Code is always abatadofneti and plain lajngfiage used, whilst a duplicate is sent as a chock for reference to Vhe Ambassador in the foreign capital to whkji the original is transmitted. If time permits it is als-o tine custom to take a further precaution agaihst mitfund'erstantditng by serkUng of! p-obtihasle by hand another copy of the despatch. l^he codes tftiat are usually employed in these drplomiartic cpmrn^mication's by wire are -what are known as the ' five-figure ' codes, amd whilst messages iii them .ire extlremely simple to -write and re^ad for tihofee wiho have posii,es,sion of tlhe keys or code dictionaries, ' It is Next to an Impossibility far anyone else- to maJre the snvallest sense out of them. Different words are made by ringing all the dhaaic,os vii arnangement of groups of five figures. Tlilis ' ;i7>XU) ' may be agre^u to mean ' Port Arthur, 1 whilst ' 920 I.') ' mi'gltt be ' Alexieß,' and ' 72839 ° would possibly stand for ' Japanese fleet.' r lMierc arc always juwt live ngures to a word, so that a sentence consisting of 500 words would be represented by a long s tiring ot 25110 figures When such a message is recened the decipherer fmst divides t)hc numerals into groups ot live and thcMi sets to work upun them with the code dictionary. I,n the latter all the different arrangements are given icn progressive order, beginning at ' 0000 1 ' aivd go nig on t 0 1 99999,' and tJhe solution to any group may thus be fo'uind in ten seconds, or as quickly as a word could be foun/d in an ordmary dictionary. Of course, tlhe diplomat who writes the "despatch in the first instartce has the counterpart of this dictionary —tihlati is', one in whic 1 !! all the words are gijvcn \n alphabetical m'dor and the code figures attached to themj'. Tihe liunvber of possible ar-range-niont's is infinitely greater Man tlie words to be ioumd in any language,, and lcslt a key should at any time get into the ■wstfnp; harais the code figures are constantly changed. The RusSmi Giovernment employs codes of this description foT all its diplomatic messages to its own Ministers, amd the Ozar, who has 'A Private Code of His ()v\n, mlakes use of it nearly every day for comnvunicati'i m to tits officer's and Ministers abroad. The Bnlish Government also uses this clasis of code exclusively, and so do the German and Frencjh. The Jaryanese code, however, is of aiti unusually con#ilvcated oharact'er, and "whii«> it lias the merit of beimg, if possible, even more abs£)l'utely safe tfaan the others", it is not so easy to deci/jilier by those m p.ossesfeion of the key. A niessape which was recently recetve/d at the Japancsq Lpgatioa jn London from the Fi?rei'gn QflTitO at Tokyo took a whole day tJb translate. , Xh^re is a conuno'n un'derstaji'ding amrvne; the diffei^ijh .ua'tio-tts as tx) Special facilitties which are to re accotrded to the teansmi^bioa of these telegraphed des-

patches. The rule is that a Government mesea'ge of any country imist be given precedence on the wires over all other telegiams handed in, irrespective of the lime when they were passed over the counter. Thus if t)hc Russian Minister in London waited to telegraph to the CVajiv- as he is constantly doi'wg in tlhose days I—when1 — when his code message is handed in at the London ollnce it goes of! at once, even though Uieie are do/eaus of business and private messages' waiting lor their turn. Wtiem it is extremely urgent a ' pilot telegram is sent m front of it, the words ' G<l ear the Jjne ' bcuig. a -wauiing t o operators at t|ie exchange stations all along the route to get ready to paws tue a clutch oq vhe se/coiwi it readies them. This i«ule as to the precedence of the diplomatic telegram is I Sub'jeot to Only Two Variations. The first is that the home Government always has the preference over any other, so that if tfce British Government desired to telegraph urgently to Japan, its message wouid go before that sent by any of the foreign Ambassadors, eVen though handed in later In the same way, if the Russian Government were telegiaphung to its Ambassador in London, the message vsoiild be despatched in advance of any given in by our representative at St. Petersburg. Secondly, where the despatches' of two foreigm diplomats are in the hands of the telegraph authorities at tfhc same time— say, Russian and Japanese messages being Kont from Londou— -the wdniaay rule pf priority holds 'good. To some poople these might 'appear to be very snuall matters; but in time of war a difference of a few mhuites in receiving or transmitting, special taiornxatidn may, and aery often does materially affect the course of the niost important events.