TOPICAL READING.
SEARCHING INQUIRY WANTED,
Dealing with the alleged "Government stroke" at the Addington Workshops, the Christchurch "Press" says that it is. of course, very important to find out whether the management of the Addington Workshops is satisfactory or the reverse. It is of much more importance, however, to ascertain whether our whole system of railway administration is or is not on a sound basis. The Government may exclude this point from the order of reference if they like, but, incidentally, the inquiry is bound to throw some light upon it, and. sooner or later, Parliament will insist on the general question of the management of our railways being thoroughly investigated.
CENTRALISATION. Though New Zealand has been termed "parochial" in its sentiments by wandering critics from abroad, its own citizens must be well aware of the steady tendency to filch power, privileges, and authority from our local bodies and to concentrate them at Wellington, remarks the "New Zealand Herald." It is questionable whether a party avowedly devoted to the assertion and maintenance of local rights is more needed in Australia than it is in New Zealand, for not a session of Parliament passes without some grave infringement of local rights and some distinct step being tak<>n towards a most undesirable form of centralisation.
WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY. Mr Marconi, in the course of an interview in Nova Scotia, gave an account of the progress which his system of wireless telegraphy is making in Transatlantic business. "On October 17th," he states, "we transmitted 13,000 words, and received 8,000 words'in reply. My system is a grand success, and in a short time we shall be able to handle all messages offering. To-day we are progressing very slowly, only sending ten words a minute. We are accurate, regular, and continuous. The scientific end is successful, but our connections and organisations will have to be perfected before we can hope to handle all the business offering. We were absolutely flooded on
October 17th. . , . It takes us two hours to send and get a reply from London, but we can send a message and get a reply from Clifden, on the English ( coast, in three minutes. We do not pretend at this time to be able to compete with the cable companies. We have made a start, and will work up slowly but surely. It is only a matter of organisation when we shall be able to handle everything offered to us. W* l have made contracts with some of the papers to furnish them with news every day, and shortly we shall be prepared to give the news to all the paper?, but not now. At present we do not want any private messages.".
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WAG19090208.2.7
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3110, 8 February 1909, Page 4
Word count
Tapeke kupu
448TOPICAL READING. Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3110, 8 February 1909, Page 4
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Wairarapa Age. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.