The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 1912. THE CHATHAMS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 56, 1 March 1912, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 1912. THE CHATHAMS.

Advocating the establishment of a wireless telegraph 'station at the Chathams, the Christchurch “Press” points out that if a wireless station were in existence there we should he kept informed of the arrival and departure of steamers trading to the group, and if any serious delay occurred in a vessel’s return to New Zealand, the fishermen at the islands could he asked to make search for her on the outlying islands. Warnings of approaching storms could also he sent to the Chathams for the benefit, not merely of any steamer that might he there, but also of the local fisher folk. The erection and maintenance of a wireless station at the Chathams would entail a certain amount of expense hut not more, our contemporary believes, than Parliament would agree

to. in tins connection it is interesting to read that the wireless operator of the Mawson Antarctic expedition at Macquarie Island, 1800 miles from Sydney, sent a message to his mother the other night. The message, and another one from the same remote and desolate quarter, came through a Huddart Parker steamer to the Sydney office of the Australian Wireless Company, The latter station, hav-

ing thus established communication with the isolated operator in the subAntarctic, sent him the news of the world for half an hour, and offered to do so every night. Life on Macquarie Island must now lie much more cheerful than hitherto. Incidentally the operator there mentioned that it was “frightfully cold,” and that tin kcop himself warm ho “indulged in j fishing and chasing seals.” This was, at any rate, making the most of his opportunities.