A LEAGUE WIRELESS STATION

Hokitika Guardian, 19 September 1929, Page 7

A LEAGUE WIRELESS STATION

A league wireless station

The spectacle of the Flying Squad is growing increasingly familiar in great cities. Jt has-long been recognised that in cases of extreme emergency all ordinary business life must give way to facilitate immediate action by the authorities. When a house is burning, a serious street accident has taken place, or a crime has been committed in which the criminals may yet be caught red-handed, all traffic stands aside to allow the fire brigade, the ambulance or the police car to reach the scene of action at the earliest possible moment.

It' is only recently, however, that the same principle has begun to be applied to the sudden crises of international affairs. In the old days diplomacy had always time; and the stories of the conferences and conversations between statesmen in July, 1914, make melancholy reading when one considers that a little less waste of time in one capital nr another might have averted the whole catastrophe. of the World War.

It is in the light of the new understanding of the supreme value of every second in times of emergency that the League qf Nations is now considering a plan for erecting a wireless station for the purpose of ensuring independent communications ifor the League in time of emergency. The plans will come before the Tenth Assembly this September. It is proposed to set up a short-wave wireless post with two transmitters able to communicate with all stations of the world. In time of emergency the Secretariat or delegations at Geneva will be able to communicate with the Governments of practically all State members of the League, or with any special missions which the council may have sent to study the situation on the spot. The station will be owned by the. League. It will be worked in normal’, times by the Societe Radio Suisse, but, in times of emergency, will come under the exclusive authority of the League of Nations. In this way the initial cost will be reduced, and the receipts will be more considerable, as they will be derived both (from official and business communications. In fact, the cost’ is likely to be but small, for in the 1930 Eudget only a credit of 50,000 francs will have to be inserted. The real saving in enabling the League of Nations to handle and settle international disputes' with the minimum of delay cannot be estimated in millions of pounds.