THE COST OF GADLING.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2148, 25 March 1908, Page 4

THE COST OF GADLING.

fl'itii the ••Lyttelton Times")

Mr ,J. S. Larke, the Canadian Trade Cominissioueer, now in Auck-, land, thinks that if cable rates between tho colonies and the Home Country were reduced by one-ball the lines would he kept fully occupied. If this is a correct estimate of the position, the day predicted bv Mr ilonniker Heaton, when the rates ol ordinary cables will ho reduced to a penny a word, must still he far distant. ‘Neither State enterprise in.r private enterprise will ho disposed to spend huge sums of money in increasing the carrying rapacity of mbmarino cables until wireless telegraphy has further revealed its possibilities as a means of communication over long distances. Rut wc doubt if Mr. Larke was fully informed on the subject he was discussing with his interviewer in Auckland. Tho present rates for ordinary messages between Great Britain and New Zealand for instance, is 3s per word, and it is questionable if the reduction ol this rate to Is Oil a word would do much more than double tho amount of business. 11 people had to pay ISs for a message of a dozen words they would not use the cable to any great extent for tlieir social and domestic intercourse. But even il* the trallic across tho linos wore four tunes as great as it is now it could carried without any great inconvenience. AVe may hope, thereioro, that with tho improvements that are always going on in the mode of transmission and m the general equipment- of tho lines that it will still be practicable to 10duee the rates much lower than cno and sixpence a word in tho near mturo. Tho Pacific cable has never possessed any special interest to tho mass of tho peoplo in tho colonies, simply because they have derived no personal advantage from its existence, and while this is the case they certainly will not look with enthusiasm on anv undertaking of the same kind. If Sir Joseph AVard could announce that the rate would be reduced to threepence a word ,or even to sixpence, he would awaken an amount ol interest in cable communication that would enormously assist all his other tradiim and commercial enterprises. Reallv cheap cable rates would enable the Dominion to disperse with a fast mail service lor another decade.