THE COMING OF WIRELESS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9991, 11 March 1910, Page 3

THE COMING OF WIRELESS.

The world has already become so far accustomed to the wcndprs of wireless telegraphy that the achievements of Marconi and his coworkers have ceased to astound us, and .ire now accepted almost as a natural feature of our everyday livts, Intrinsically, there is nothiner more marvellous in the Marconigrarn tl>an in the ordinary cable mtssage, -nd the bewilderment which grteted the exploits of Wheatstone and Morse in the infancy of telegraphic science was more excusable than the incredulity with which Marconi's revelations were first received. But there issomething singularly fascinating in the idea of the transmission of messages over land and sea without the intervention of any visible medium of communication, and though wa do not really know who and why an electric current runs along a wire, we will always imagine that we understand cable messages better than Marconigrams, simply because we can see the wire, and we cannot follow the course of electric waves through the air. Accordingly we may expect that a large number of people will be more or less astounded by the news that a vessel voyaging from Sydney to New Zealand can now be kept in constant communication with tbe Australian port all the way, and that, given the appropriate installations, there is no scientific or practical obstacle to prevent us from interchanging views daily with our friends in Australia by means of UDseen electrical discharges traversing empty space without the assistance of any interven ing wire or; cable.

But tne imagina tive aspect of "the wireless wonder" is of infinitely les9 importance to tbe world at large than its practical side. And there can be no doubt that whether Herz or Marconi or Poulsen or De Forrest has done most toward the solution of this remarkable problem, the joint result of their, labours in the advent of "wireless" has put an entirely new face upon the possibilities of telegraphic communication. Already the world has received convincing proof of what the new system can do for us from i's use as a medium for news on the Atlantic liners, and its successful employment in so many recent instances of shipwreck and disaster at sea. But this][is only the beginning of the career of "wireless," Marconi has fulfilled his promise to establish regular communication between America'and Euiope on a very low scale of charges, and we may safely anticipate that he will speedily achieve his purpose of "linking up" the Empire by means of a series of wireless stations established at con-

venient intervals throughout its length and breadth. Ordinary newspaper telegrams will soon be transmitted by "wireless" rather than by the submarine cable; and through the immense reduction in charges, rendered possible by dispensing with the tnormous outlay on cables, one of the most difficult problems of Imperial policy will speedily solve itself. So far, the new telegraph system has barely started upon it&. career; but even a glance at the change that the introduction of the submarine cable made in our relations wkh the rest of the world would be enough to cjnvinci us that the establishment of "wireless" communication between Australia and New Zealand, even as an experiment, is an event of 'momentous importance that will yet pro\e to mark a memorable epoch in Imperial and colonial history.