POLLAK VIRAG SYSTEM OF TELEGRAPHY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 329, 22 January 1909, Page 4

POLLAK VIRAG SYSTEM OF TELEGRAPHY.

tlf the above system, which llr Tk'imiker 1 1™ ton and .Sir Joseph Ward believe will exercise a great inlluence in deteriiimg the future cost of cable messages, Air Mela Steiner, director of the l'ollakvirag Company, Paris, writes to The Times as under :

With regard to the article ami noti . which appeared in your issue of Novem ■ I'cr 18 on tlio I'ollak-Virag system ol telegraphy, „iay | ))e allowcd'to stati that the inventor, 11. Pollak, has nevel claimed that his instrument at the present time will work on long suhmar me cables; nevertheless, it is not certiih Hint such a result may not lie attained at no distant date. The statement thai the I'ollnk-Virag system is onlv eapahk of transmitting 12,0011 words per houi is incorrect, and must he due to some misunderstanding. The facts are thai the Frew)! (iiirerunient officially report ed that on the line from Marseilles Paris, fjoiilongc, niid back to Paris ter initial station (commencing in Marseille) with .underground cable, then overhead wires to Paris, with underground cahh through Iho city, again overhead to ami from Bonlongo. and underground to tin stution in Paris), a total distanee oi 1,."Ki1l kilometre-, an effective speed of 4(1,(10(1 words has been attained. With regard to the speed given for the Baudot sextuple set. this also is incorrect. The apparatus is not in regular use ; tlie quadruple Baudot has a theoretical capacity of 7,200 words per hour, although the Kreneh (iovernment- have stated that in practice it gives 20 per cent, less speed, therefore 5,800 words per hour. The sextuple gives in practice a minimum of 7,000 words. The writer of the article in your paper has omitted to state that quadruple Baudot requires ten operators, the sextuple, fourteen operators, who must he changed twice in a day (therefore 20 and 28 operators respectively). The Polhik-Virag apparatus is equal to five sextuple Baudot apparatus. We have not. made comparisons between the Whentstone and Pollok-Virag systems, because we have never been able to obtain practical and official statistics as to actual speed of working, and the various private statements we have received which give the speed at from 200 toSOC words per minute cannot be accepted by us as a basis for a calculation. It is true that the Wheatstonc apparatus can send a large number uf words, hut it is equally true that these arrive at the receiving station in an unfinished condition. So far as the public are concerned, I lie greater the •number, of words pel hour transmitted the more costly it becomes to translate and to write 'out the telegram. A telephone conversation between Paris and London costs lOf for three minutes, in which it is possible to speak about 200 words, each word, therefore, costing sc. If the same 2011 words be sent by telegram, the cost is 'lof. Why •> It is only possible to make ten telephonic communications in one hour, which represents for the (lov eminent -X sum of 1001'. If during the same space of time one can telegraph 4(1,000 words with the PollakVirag system at the rate of 4c a word, the receipts will he l.liOOf. The total annual delieil from the telegraph service for the different countries in ICurope amounts to .1M,000,000. If this fact were properly appreciated by the public, it would lie'insisted upon that this (telicit would be wiped out and the tariff' considerably reduced. Mr llenuiker Ilea ton, in our opinion, is quite right in what he has said so far as the laud lines are. concerned.' As for ourselves, we concern ourselves only with laud line working, and in that respect we consider that Mr. Ifeimikcr lleaton's statements are indisputable.