WIRELESS CHAIN.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 January 1922, Page 10

WIRELESS CHAIN.

; EMPIRE COMMUNICATIONS. i $ J V'i ' ¥ „ POST OFFICE SCHEME. & REJECTED BY MR. CHURCHILL.' I? London, Nov. 18. , ■According to the Westminster Gazette’ the post office scheme for an Imperial wireless chain of stations 2000 miles apart, to embrace the whole Empire, has collapsed. The article referring to this subject is evidently an inspired on» by Mr. Robert Donald, chairman of the Empire Press Union. The writer contends that the post office scheme was doomed at its inception on account of the aloofness of the Dominions and India. It has been killed by the refusal of Mr. Winston. Churchill to have anything to do with, the post office scheme. In this attitude the Secretary of State for the Colonies is supported by Sir James Stevenson, business adviser to the Colonial Office, and Dr. Eccles, the leading Government expert on wireless telegraphy. At the recent Conference of Dominion Ministers the official scheme was damned with the faintest praise. The Cabinet appointed a sub-eqmmittee, comprising Mr. Winston Churchill, Mr. Kellaway (Postmaster-General), and Sir Robert Horne, Chancellor of the Exchequer. Mr. Churchill, who was also chairman of the Imperial Communications Committee, definitely rejected the scheme. Sir Robert Horne, with Mr. Kellaway, agreed to go on with it very slowly—the former on the grounds of finance, the latter because, as PostmasterGeneral, he did not want the post office to lose its hold upon wireless communications.

Later, when the leading wireless advisers were forced to admit that the post office proposals were out of date, the matter was finally settled. An alternative proposal has been put forward by Mr. Robert Donald. He advocated the formation of an all-Empire Wireless Board on the lines of the Pacific Cable Board, which has one cable owned jointly by the Governments tff Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. A COMMERCIAL COMPANY. There would be this difference: the Imperial Wireless Board should be organised as a commercial company — not as a Government department. This would mean that the company would not have to redeem its capital, although interest would be paid on it. The Pacific Cable Board has to do both, and the capital is being repaid at the rate of £70,000 per annum. This alternative plan has the support of some of the Government wireless advisers, including Sir James Stevenson and Dr. Eccles. The Postmaster-General, backed in. a. lukewarm fashion by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, continues’ to spend the tax-payers’ money upon the official route, the construction of the wireless station at Cairo being allowed to proceed. If it were nq| for the public money still being squandered, the affair Would be a first-class political farce. The post office terminal station at Leafield was planned in 1913. Despite the great advance in wireless apparatus since then, Leafield was built and fitted with an obsolete system and Cairo station is to-day now being erected with identical sets. Leafield can be heard working daily on the continuous wave system, but owing to faulty construction of the installation it is easy to pick up Leafield’s signals over a large range of wavelengths. This defect is so serious that a new aerial will probably have to be designed at a cost- of £50,000, the present arial being scrapped. An excellent story is told of this loose adjustment of the Leafield station. It has been jamming the whole of European stations. Leafield. in fact, is the bull in the wireless china shop. Official complaints come to hand from Norway, Germany, and other countries that “G.8.L.” was jamming in a wholesale fashion. DOMINION OPPOSITION. The Postmaster-General, ignorant of the fact that “G.BjL.” (initial letters of Great Britain, Leafield) was the code signal for his own Imperial terminal, sent an official complaint to Marconi House, alleging that t b eir station at Carnarvon was the subject of international complaints, and asking for the matter to be given prompt attention.

The Post Office Imperial scheme involved the co-operation of the Dominions and India. Australia was the corner-stone of the .scheme. Australia has now .definitely decided to have nothing to do with post office circuit involving five transmissions. The Commonwealth is convinced that a highpower radio-station can be erected in the Dominion for direct communication with Great Britain, and the Overseas Cabinet is now considering the matter. India will consider nothing but direct communication with England; she is opposed to a re-transmitting station at Cairo.'