The Communal Traite of Cable Men

NZ Truth, Issue 1189, 13 September 1928, Page 6

The Communal Traite of Cable Men

SOME day you may send a cablegram to a friend m Timbuctoo. The intricate^rocesses and simple manipulation wh.ch.wil! speed^your message thVough the tiny copper thread of submarine cable^w.U not concern you. the Eastern Telegraphs, will talk to you out of the r.pe ejcper.ence of. nearly forty years of cable service. Duty m lonely outposts encourages' communal traits m the tribe of cablo men. But, on the. other hand, the cable chap tends to become a frank cosmopolitan. Naturally so; for he moves about the globe and learns the inner secret, of world affairs. In M^E.Airey, there is more than a suggestion of, the man of the wopld^ He claims the Isle of Man for his. native soil—and proud, he is of that quaint little spot, with its old-world color and attachment to mediaeya. institutions, He'-was^actuaHy orv'his way to New Zealand when the fascinations of a life as a cable operator captured/ hjs callow fancy. . , ■ ;.,-■■; Nothing/perhaps, ostensibly dangerous or adventurous about such;, a eallina, but nevertheless a degree removed from the 'of ordered, nettled existence. Java to Singapore, Port; Darwin to Wakapuaka, tthee/areh e/ are lew stations of the big Eastern system where Airey has not tarried- a, whije. And plenty of incident has penetrated his'official existence; so that. forty years seems but, a spanJ Port Darwin m 'QVwhen a + terr.f.c cyclonerdeniblfshed the town; Shanghai m the' mutiny of, 1905, and the Hong Kong general strike 5 are some of the principal .'events ; relieVmg any monotony; for the 1 time heina He was m charge at; Wakapuaka until the* march of events: ujjrooted a distressed staff from their Arcadian home and set them down m the drab heart of the Empire City. : ; .. . - y, .; •'" Airey knows the East, 1 its fascination and the urge v to return ' m " the hearts' of men who have once felt its subtle. caU.; But he will: also tell yoii that East and West carv never . mingle— that nothing matters more profoundly than the purity of the white race. -• Big m physique and genial- m .propor ? tion, Airey has not travelled thrdugh life without plucking wisdom and, philosophy by the way. # And -the culmination is that he will always- be young enough to play tennis and grow, rbsea iD>eunny No|«oJi when ho layaosldjßvhioxftffJoialip^ : : • '