A Wireless Complaint.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18410, 17 June 1925, Page 8

A Wireless Complaint.

According to a Sydney cable published yesterday, the country Press of Australia is perturbed at the increased popularity of It is stated that the local barber's receiving set is ousting the' country newspaper from its time-honoured •position of news centre for tho district, and that the rural Press is being forced to consider installing wireless plants in order to retrieve its prestige. Tho Country Press Association is not tho first to bo ■worried by the •wireless invasion. Broadcasting has had an almost uninterrupted run of success, as the almost daily eulogies of its present and potential services to mankind show,- but there arc still some people who are old-fashioned enough to look with apprehension upon the inroads into modern social lifo made by radio. In a thoroughly up-to-date English or Australian home a guest may bo regaled with music by the most prominent performers in tho country, or with speeches by politicians, according to the peculiar taste of tho host, all by the touching of various buttons. Even the bed-time story of. our nursery days has its mechanical version. Those who fear that tho days are gone when a select circle of. friends could gather round a fire and talk have some reason for their anxiety, of course, but they will have to sacrifice such simple pleasures for tho sake of tho advancement of science and the ultimate benefit of the world. In any case, when we are informed that at present telegrams from Perth to Sydney take as long to transmit as do cables between London and Sydney, we can understand the broadcasting question assuming an importance in the minds of out-back Australians undreamt of by the city dweller who does, or does not, appreciate speeches in his own home as an after-dinner diversion; The scientific method which can annihilate distance for the transmission of news is assujed of a very cordial support by ; the back-country farmer and his wife. And as for the problem said to be confronting the country Press, even those who fear most the loss of ordinary social intercourse will admit that any means the Association takes to ensure silence in a barber's shop will be justified.