Better Listening

New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 379, 27 September 1946, Page 5

Better Listening

HERE is a wise woman in OT cae of George Macdonald’s novels who learns early that God is "aye agen planning." We all make the discovery sooner or later, but it is more devastating in some cases than in others. Seven years ago, and a little more, we had ambitious plans for this journal;. but a war came three months after our first issue and made nonsense of nearly everything we thought we were going to do. Eight years ago, and a little more, plans were made for the kind of radio service the wiseacres now know New Zealand should have, and the war not only upset them all-but made it impossible to explain to the public what the programme was, Now all these yedrs later the plans are announced in part, but it has had to be announced simultaneously that in the interval a great deal of the technical equipment has become obsolete or obsolescent, and that much money that would ‘normally have been available for new developments will be required for replacements. It. is all a rather depressing justification of George Macdonald’s wise woman; but fortunately not the whole story. The plans are almost as good today as they were eight years ago, most of the money involved in their development has, with a struggle, been saved, and the war, if it has been such a disaster in other directions, has greatly advanced the kind of knowledge on which radio engineering depends.. But the first step is to give better reception to those who for eight years have not been able to hear any major programme as well as everyone in New Zealand now should. Meeting the elementary needs of those will invélve delays in satisfying the more luxurious ‘wishes of others, but it is clearly better that all should hear reasonably than that there should be lopsided development in favour of any section,