REPORT ON AN APPLICATION BY MR. R. TAYLOR FOR A LICENSE TO ERECT AN EXPERIMENTAL WIRELESS STATION
AT HONG KONG.
TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE,
The Cables (Landing-Rights) Committee have the honour to submit the following
report:
1. A meeting of the Committee was held on the 23rd May 1911. presided, and there were also present--
Captain FitzMaurice (Admiralty),
Mr. Johnson (Colonial Office),
Mr. Kirk (India Office),
Mr. Law (Foreign Office),
Colonel Macdonogh (War Office),
Mr. Mackay (Post Office),
Mr. Pelham (Board of Trade),
and
Mr. Simon (Secretary).
Mr. Tennant
2. The Committee considered an application by Mr. R. Taylor for a license to conduct experiments in wireless telegraphy at Hong Kong (see Report Serial No. 147, and the annexed Memorandum).
3. Mr. Johnson said that he was not now prepared to press the suggestion which he had put before the members of the Committee some months ago, that a license should be granted to Mr. Taylor to experiment until such time as the station of the Eastern and Marconi Companies should be erected at Hong Kong (see Report Serial No. 127). He hoped that this station would be working before very long; and it So far as he was aware, might perhaps be as well to refuse Mr. Taylor a license.
Mr. Taylor had not yet obtained permission to erect a station at Macao.
Captain Fitz Maurice said that the Admiralty had no particular objection to the issue of a license in this case, apart from the general objection to allowing experimenters to work in the neighbourhood of Admiralty stations.
4. The Committee thought that there was no strong reason for granting Mr. Taylor a license; and as there was already an Admiralty station at Hong Kong, and a commercial station was about to be established, the safer course seemed to be to refuse to permit the erection of another station, even for experimental purposes. They accordingly agreed to recommend that Mr. Taylor's application should be refused.
(Signed)
L. SIMON,
Secretary,
9th June 1911.
(Signed)
H. J. TENNANT (Chairman). MAURICE FITZMAURICE.
G. W. JOHNSON.
H. A. KIRK.
A. LAW.
G. M. W. MACDONOGH.
R. J. MACKAY,
T. H. W. PELHAM.
3
MEMORANDUM.
Mr. R. Taylor, who has already been refused permission to establish a commercial wireless telegraph station at Hong Kong because a license is to be granted to the Eastern Extension and Marconi Companies, now asks that he should be given merely an experimental license (see the Governor's despatch of 15th December 1910 attached). If the Portuguese Government give him a license for a station at Macao, which thất Government has been told might communicate with the proposed Companies' station at Hong Kong, provided suitable arrangements with the Companies could be made (see Report No. 147, and Foreign Office letter to Sir F. Villiers of 30th January 1911), there will perhaps be no objection, supposing the Macao station is established before the station at Hong Kong, to allowing Mr. Taylor to experiment at Hong Kong until such time as the Companies' station at Hong Kong is erected.
(Signed) GEORGE W. JOHNSON,
11th February 1911.
(No. 418.)
SIR,
No. 1.
Hong Kong, 15th December 1910. WITH reference to Lord Crewe's despatch. No. 227 of the 19th of last August, I have the honour to forward copies of letters dated the 15th ultimo and 3rd instant addressed to me by Mr. R. Taylor and to inquire what reply should be made to his application for permission to erect a wireless installation in this Colony for experimental purposes only.
I have, &c.
The Right Hon. Lewis Harcourt, M.P., &c. &e. &c.
YOUR EXCELLENCY,
Enclosure 1 in No. 1.
F. D. LUGARD,
Governor, &c.
Oriental Hotel, Hong Kong, 15th November 1910.
I HAVE the honour to be very grateful to your Excellency for your great kindness and courtesy in connection with my recent application to the Secretary of State for the Colonies for a license to erect and establish a commercial wireless station in Hong Kong, and while I regret that it has not been considered advisable to grant me such a license, I feel confident that, had it been at all possible, your Excellency would have been only too pleased to have it so.
Being greatly interested in wireless telegraphy, and having been at considerable expense in purchasing the necessary apparatus, believing as I did that my reading of the Wireless Telegraph Ordinances was the correct one, namely, that a license could be obtained for the installation and working of wireless telegraphy at the discretion of the Governor of the Colony for the time being, I venture to again approach your Excellency for permission to establish wireless telegraphy apparatus for experimental work only, such permits being granted by the Postmaster General in England. By the Wireless Telegraphy Ordinances in force in the Colony no one is allowed to establish such apparatus even for experimental work, and this, I respectfully beg to submit, throws a very great hardship on persons desirous of experimenting with wire- less telegraphy unless a permit he granted, and under these circumstances I trust your Excellency will be able to extend a similar courtesy to me as the Postmaster General does in the case of experimenters in England, when I shall be pleased to make a proper application through the recognised channels.
Under such a permit the experimenter could be fined or imprisoned or both and have all the apparatus confiscated for any breach or transgression of the conditions of the permit, and as experimental stations are entirely outside the Wireless Telegraphy Convention, November 3, 1906, signed by most of the Powers, every interest would be safeguarded. With the permission of your Excellency I would also respectfully bring to your notice the fact that under the International Wireless Telegraphy Convention referred to above private stations are allowed to be erected with the permission of the Governments of the respective Powers, the only restriction being
E (33)0003. Pk. 47. 50, 6/11. E. & 8.
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