Tele
170
3218
0215
HOUSE OF COMMONS Agreement.
That
Marconi Company IMr. Herbert Samuel.] one to Pretoria, and also to India. station will require six aerials. Each of the stations will
cover the great area of seventy-five acres.
As to each of the twin stations which we estab- lish in England, these may have a larger area. My engineers estimate, and the Admiralty engineers also estimate, that the cost of the masts alone will be more than half of the total cost of the stations. These steel masts have to be 300 feet high, and they have to be so constructed as to be able to bear a horizontal strain at the top of two tons. On the average there will be thirty of them, made of steel, and the cost of them per station will, including freight and the cost of erection, average about £32,500. These are not the esti- mates of the Marconi Company, but the estimates of our own officers. The power plant is in all cases to be duplicated, so that these stations will not be put out of action in case one of the engines breaks down. The duplex power plant to be established in the stations-bere there is some disagreement among the experts, some saying the cost will be £12,000 and others £15,000 for the power plant-this apparatus will, my officers estimate, cost between £9,000 and £10,000. These three items alone, apart from the aerials, the cost of supervision, and all incidental expenses, are estimated to cost from £53,000 to £37,000.
Therefore, with regard to the cost of the station, £60,000 is not an unreasonable esti- mate, With regard to the royalty, the inaster or main patents of the Marconi Company expires in 1914. The company will make an application for renewal, which may or may not be successful. Another patent is the Lodge-Muirhead, which has lately been renewed for the period of, I think, seven years. The com- pany have a number of other patents which will be of extreme value in the conduct of this service, and, as I have already stated, they have some inventions, particularly in relation to duplex working, which I under- stand, though I am not quite sure, are quite new and which have not yet been patented. If the company had asked for no royalty they would certainly have re- quired a very much higher price for the erection of the stations themselves. My own view was that it was better to pay a royalty and a moderate price for the sta- tions than a high price for the stations and
no royalty. Because the royalty will main- tain the interest of the company in the
7 AUGUST 1912
What is
Marconi Company I scheme, and make it worth their whit pect any such patents at all.
give us the advantage of every devant by the Clause is this: that if we ment which they can secure in the spar of of wireless telegraphy.
some improved appliance we ould have a report upon it by our own perts; that we should communicate in The royalty is to be on gross reveal terms to the Marconi Company not on net, because we are anxious the nature of the improvement is, the Government should retain cond that the Marconi Company should be
control of the amount of the rates char
iven an opportunity of saying "that they for transmitting telegrams. If we
now this invention or that they know said the company shall be paid so much its general nature is, and that they net revenue, the company would beak it inadvisable, and as our advisers titled to say that the rates should no hoy suggest it should not be introduced";
reduced without their consent.
Further,
but we are not bound to take their advice, might have said it would absorb the and it has been clearly stated to the com- of the profits and that there would pany that they are not, under the contract, net revenue, and therefore it would re have any right to inspect any secret the whole of their royalty if we reduced invention we may think it advisable to rates; consequently, as the Governme introduce into those stations. anxious to retain the entire control of we reserve to ourselves the right at any rates charged in its own hands, there within a year, if we like, after the system was preferred. Of course, I s stations are erected, if we can obtain the greatly have liked to have agreed fo payment of a much lower royalty 10 per cent., and my first offer company was a mere fraction of the we wore in this position, that the pany categorically, definitely, and informed us that they would not take the erection of the stations for sum than that which was ultimately tioned by the Committee and myse should like to make it perfectly cle the House that the company has not granted a monopoly. Many stated have been made, or, rather, misu standinge have arisen in this respect company has not been granted a poly.
use of some better system altogether, to get free of the Marconi patents entirely. We reserve to ourselves the right to dis- continue the use of the Marconi system and to introduce any new system we prefer, and the moment we do so the royalty ceases altogether.
We reserve the right to introduce new invention that we choose into working of these stations. If we hea any improvement which is the propert any syndicate, and we can make terms that syndicate for the use of that impr ment, we are ut full liberty to introd that improvement into our stations. hon. Member for Launceston mentioned me that we had, however, undertaken consult the Marconi Company as to the troduction of these improvements by a company, subject to their advice, and t would
mean that no
ments
Major ARCHER-SHEE: Does not Clause 3 prevent that!
Agreement. be erected by the Marconi Company on the same tenns us are laid down in the It is contract. That is in the contract. true that that Clanse would debar the Government within the next five years from erecting any additional stations in other places on other systems, and the Clause has been criticised for that reason. Within the last two or three days the Mar- coni Company have written me a letter in which they say they have observed this criticism, and for their part they have no desire to be protected against the compe- tition of other systems, and they do not attach serious importance to any protec- tion against the competition of other com- panies. They say :--
Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: No, Clause 3 does not deal with these stations, it deals with any fresh stations that may be My advisers erected after the first six. inform me if for example we were to wish to convert the stations later on and to con- tinue the arc system instead of the spark system, if that is found to be more satis- factory, the cost of the conversion would be about one-sixth of the original cost of the stations, and of course it may be worth while to go to that expense in order to get that new systern; while to convert it to the Telefunken system, which is another spark system, on the same lines as the Marconi system, would cost much less. Of course we do not at present contemplate conversion.
The couany is conddent of being able to retain its own long distance wireless telegraphy and does not Tear the competition of other companies."
Now I come to the five-year limitation to which the hon. Member has referred in originally The 3.
company Clause secret impro would be introduced, beca
pressed for the right to erect all future the owners would not wish them,
long range wireless stations throughout would not permit them, to be
the Empire or any of the eighteen for known to the Marconi Company. T
which they had originally asked licences. objection, which would be a serious d
That we declined, and as a compromise it if it were valid, is not well found
was decided that during the next five years We do not so read the Clause. and
after the date of the signature of the con- company have clearly been given to und
tract any fresh long distance stations stand that they will not have a right
forming part of this general sheme should
And, therefore, they say, if it is thought desirable in the House of Commons that this five-year Clause in the contract should be omitted, on their part they would have very readily, and no objection. I am naturally glad to accept an offer of that character, because it removes the restric- tion of limiting to the Government, and future discussion of this matter can pro- ceed on the assumption that Clause 3 of the contract is omitted.
Mr. MITCHELL-THOMSON: Entirely?
Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: Entirely, and if later on the Government think some other system is better, they may erect. long distance wireless stations in different parts of the Empire on some other system. I confess I am very sceptical that the Gov- erument will ever have to avail of that opportunity. I should like, finally, upon this point to say that within the last few Gernian Government have days the entered into a contract for long distance wireless stations in certain parts of their dominions in the Indian Ocean and Aus- Four stations are to be tralian seas. erected. They have not adopted the are system, but they have adopted the Tele- funken system, which is analogous to the Marconi system.
Mr. MITCHELL-THOMSON: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether that agreement of the German Government with other companies is to be made public?
I believe
Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: not. I have the best information, but I have not the actual terms. I have been in- formed, on authority which I believe is reliable but which I cannot vouch for, that
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