N.Z. CABLE BUSINESS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 April 1938, Page 11

N.Z. CABLE BUSINESS

A MILLION WORDS MONTHLY. The reductions in cable rates now operating bring substantial advantages to New Zealand cable users, who will have the benefit of a uniform rate of Is 3d per word for full-rate messages where the charges in the past have been higher. Proportionate reductions have also been made in cheaper classes of cables to Empire points. Great Britain, Canada, South Africa, India, and the Straits Settlements, are included in the Is 3d rate, and the most recent survey of New Zaland’s inward and outward cable business shows that nearly 88 per cent of the total is conducted with these countries and with Australia. This new scheme brings for the first time into the sphere of overseas telegraphy within the Empire the principle of a uniform rate which has long been applied with such advantage to Imperial postal traffic.

New Zealand's cable business runs into just over one million words per month, this being fairly equally divided between messages originating in ine Dominion, and those addressed to it from other countries of the world. When cable communication began between New Zealand and the United Kingdom in 1876 it was on the basis of 13s per word, this high charge being maintained until 1883 when it was reduced to 11s lOd. There was a heavy reduction in 1893 to 5s 2d per word and a 3s rate was established in 1903. Since that date there have been five successive reductions in full-rate charges, while special concessions for deferred and other classes of traffic began to appear in 1912. It is of historical interst to know that the original cable rate from New Zealand to Australia in 1876 varied from 9£d to Is 8d per word according to the office of destination. One of the most vivid contrasts in rates is in connection with South Africa, to which cables could be sent from New Zealand via Australia in 1876 at a cost of 16s 5d per word. Today, under the new Empire scale, giving a low uniform rate even to the most distant points, the charge is Is 3d per word, with corresponding reductions for the cheaper classes of traffic.