The Guardian (And Evening Star, with which is in corporated the West Coast Times.) TUESDAY, MARCH 11th, 1924.

Hokitika Guardian, 11 March 1924, Page 2

The Guardian (And Evening Star, with which is in corporated the West Coast Times.) TUESDAY, MARCH 11th, 1924.

VOICES ACROSS THE SEA. Numerous great, inventions have found their first application and use as toys and sources of amusement. Their value as practical aids in civilisation came as a later development. That is true ol the radio with the difference that the radio, was in the beginning limited to scientific and governmental use. Its popularity became established when it was discovered that a new medium for the introduction of audible communication available to everyone had been discovered. The radio had overleaped national boundaries. While most of the broadcasting to which the world is ‘ listening in” is of a sort that appeals to entertainment rather than instruction, tile radio as an educational and national acquaintanceship feature is on the threshold of a development that promises ail entirely new era in the world’s history No one knows exactly how ninny people heard President Cooliclge deliver his first message to Congress hut it is not beyond the mark to say that his audience was numbered in the same fashion by hundreds of thousands of people, not only in the localities where his scheduled addresses were made, but in sections hundreds and even thousands of miles distant from the sound of his voice. Of late. American radio broadcasting has leaped the Atlantic and is being picked up universally in England. While discounting in a measure the cable reports that all England sit’s up nightly to heai messages from America, it is still tine that the two countries have found a medium for instant and popular communication that makes them next door neighbors to an extent absolutely imcl.'eamed of only a year rgo. It .is ic!L> to dwell on what this means. While America may for the moment amuse and acquaint England with lighter forms of discourse and entertainment, and England may reciprocate in a sim)|t,r way, radio communication will not

lie confined altogether to such flippant exchange. Important addresses in Congress and in Parliament will be heard by audiences in both hemipsheres, and no doubt the radio will he used on many occasions to present in an authoritative manner some point of national discussion or interest. The radio is bound to be a mighty factor in

‘bunking tile whole world kin.” Discei'el and wars usually find their origin in differences that might" easily have been obviated through popular understanding, and it is not too much to say that the radio itself is going to he one of the greatest peace promotion plans ever devised. Certainly it is hound to promote good will and a better understanding between countries with a common language, a.s in the case of the United States, England, and the Dominions.