GERMANY SAVES HER SHIPS.

Taranaki Daily News, 30 September 1915, Page 2

GERMANY SAVES HER SHIPS.

WIRELESS MESSAGE BEFORE WAT! WAP DECLARED. Mr. Godfrey Isaacs, managing director of Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Co., Ltd., at the annual meeting in Ixmdon, related how the Germans tried to. save their mercantile marine by a wireless message sent out at 5 o'elock on August 4th, 1914, seven hours before war was declared. Mr. Isaacs also referred to the great, opposition the British company had to contend with in the early year's of its existence owing to the existence of a German wireless company subsidised by the German Government. Germany's chain of wireless stations in all her colonies i-ost her £2,000,000. "In.the light of what has subsequently happened," said Mr. Isaacs, ''you will probably say that it was a very had investment; but you would be mistaken. You will remember that this country declared war on Germany at midnight on August 4th last. At r> o'elock in the afternoon of August 4th Germany sent out a mesage to all its wireless stations, which passed that message on from one to another, and sent it out to sea, covering a radius of something like 2000 miles or more—a message to this effect: War declared upon EnglandMake as quickly as yon can for a neutral port. "By that message, which occupied but a few minutes, Germany contrived to save the greater part of its mercantile marine. If it had saved one of its big ships—the Vafcerland or any one of that class—it would have paid for the whole cost of these wireless stations. We all know that it was a great deal more than that, and it did a great deal more than send this message to its mercantile marine. But I don't think I am permitted to go further or to tell you any more than I have told you with regard' to the saving of the mercantile maris*,