“HELLO, PACIFIC!"

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 212, 2 June 1921, Page 4

“HELLO, PACIFIC!"

WIRELESS NEWS FOR THE ISLANDS AN INTERESTING ENTERPRISE. Every day a New Zealand wireless station flings the news of the world to distant Pacific Islands, so that scattered white men may know what is happening in the busy kinds beyond their horizon. The news goes in tabloid form, for the allowance is one hundred words per day, but it is a great boon to the people for whose benefit it is intended. The preparation of the daily message is one of the tasks of the Department of Internal Affairs. This service, like many other things good and bad. had its origin in the Great War. New Zealand troops landed in Samoa in 1914, and they naturally wished to know what was happening in the country they had left behind them and in the lands where the battles were being fought. The German wireless station at Apia was available for communication with New Zealand, and the Postal authorities at this end undertook to send a daily news message. Then came the movement of troops from New Zealand to Egypt and England. The transports were all equipped with wireless apparatus, and thej' received as long as they were within range the news messages The brief summary of events helped to relievo the monotony of the voyage for the New Zealand soldiers. Presently it was found that the service woe being used more widely than, had been contemplated when it was instituted. There were wireless stations on other Pacific Islands, where the people, white and coloured, were keenly interested in ihe big events that were proceeding on the other side of the world, and these received the New Zealand message. Tonga, Rarotonga, Fiji, even Tahiti, were found to be "listening in,” and their people were getting the news of the day weeks, or even months, earlier than would have been the case if they had been, compelled to wait for tue mails. Nearer home, the Chatham Islands station took the message. The war over, the Post and Telegraph Department saw no reason why it should continue to supply this free service, and it announced that the daily message was going io be stopped. But there was still need of such a message for the use af the New Zealand Administration and the civil population at Samoa, which had become a dependency of the Dominion. and the External Affairs Department took over the task of compilation, and dispatch. The service was placed on a financial footing, and the other stations were told that they must keep out when New Zealand was telling Samoa of the latest sensation in Ireland, the result of the Derby, and so forth. Tonga and Rarotonga asked to bo allowed to stay in, and agreed to pay their share of the cost of the service, so they are still entitled to one hundred words daily from .the big world. The other stations are Officially "out”; but it is not improbable that they manage still to keep fairly well abreast of the daily news.