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Enclosure 2.
Extract from the Proceedings
of Legislative Council.
Hon. Mr. POLLOCK-Your Excellency, I beg leave to make the motion which stands in my name, and as hon. members have the motion in full before them I will, with your Excellency's permission, ask them to take it as read. This motion, Sir, has reference to the very important subject of wireless telegraphy, which, as your Excellency is aware, has formed the subject of questions and debates in this Council for something like two years past, but, Sir, all the information that we have been able to get upon this sub- ject has, until the last few weeks, been very much of a tentative and provisional character, in fact, Sir, when I asked the question in this Council at our last meet- ing on 22nd August this year as to whe- ther the Government could give any in- formation to the Council with reference to the promised establishment of a wire- less telegraph station in this Colony, the hon. Colonial Secretary replied: The Government is not yet in a position to give any information on the subject." That, Sir, was the position of affairs so recently as a few weeks ago. Since then, however, there has come out to this Colony a report of the debate in the House of Commons on the 7th August, the last day of the session, in the course of which debate the Postmaster-General, Mr. Herbert Samuel, made a statement with regard to wireless telegraphy which gave us some useful, interesting and pleasureable information. It appeared, ; Sir, from the speech of the Postmaster- General on that occasion, that various im- portant bodies such as the Cable Landing Rates Committee, the Sub-Committee on Imperial Defence, and the Imperial Con- forence had taken into their joint con- sideration the question of communication by wireless telegraphy throughout the Empire, and it appeared from the speech of the Postmaster-General that as the re- sult of that conference, whilst providing for the sending of all Naval and Military messages required for defensive purposes, it was still apparently considered prac ticable that a considerable number of commercial messages could be dispatched, thereby incidentally reducing consider- ably, as it was hoped, the cable rates be- tween different portions of the Empire. The sending of commercial messages and the reduction of cable rates are very pro- minent features of the Postmaster-Gen- eral's speech. With regard to the erection of a chain of wireless stations through- out the Empire, he goes on to say that on two points there will be no disagree meut. The first was that the erection of a chain of telegraph stations at suitable points throughout the Empire was in itself desirable. In peace they would be useful for commercial
purposes and
would be likely to contribute to the cheapening of telegraphic communication between various portions of the Empire. He later says that the problem of the Empire was largely one of communica- tion, and the more the Government was able to improve communication the bet- ter it would be. I am sure these words will find an echo in the minds of members of this Council. Under the heading of working of the system he states that each Government would pay for the mainten auce of the station which it erected and would be credited with the receipts of traffic which its own station handled. The receipts would not be pooled.
The revenue would be divided on the same principle as the through telegraph traffic revenue was divided between the various countries. Later on, under the heading
لبلاد
3h Der 1912
of cost and remuneration, after stating that the annual expenditure for working six stations, allowing for the redemption of capital in 18 years, interest and man- agement expense, would be about $106,000 per annum, the Postmaster-General went on to say that "the revenue must naturally depend upon the rates charged for traffic and on the amount of traffic obtained, but it would be impossible to form an estimate of revenue until it had been decided what the rates were to be. If they were able to secure enough traffic to enable the stations to work 20 hours a day and if they were able to carry the traffic at a speed of 20 words a minute duplex, if one-third of their traffic was! unpaid, that was to say, Government traf- fie, and if one third was Press traffic, on these terms this system would be remun erative, indeed, quite profitable, and allowing for a considerable reduction of rates. If they were not able to keep the stations employed 20 hours a day or if any of the other of these conditions were not fulfilled, then, of course, the financial results would be modified accordingly." And he goes on to say that "even if it were not remunerative the Government thought it advisable to erect stations if only for strategical reasons. There fore, Sir, it will be seen from the extracts I have read from the speech of the Post- master-General that although he natural- ly feels the importance of the erection of general wireless stations throughout the Empire for strategic and defensive pur- poses, he puts in the matter before the House of Commons the erection of these stations as being also likely to turn out a solid and profitable business proposi tion; in fact, as your Excellency will have noted, he goes so far as to say that he believes a profit can be assured even allowing for Government traffic, which has to be carried gratis, and for Presh traffic, which is carried at reduced rates, and also allowing for a reduction in the rates charged for telegraphic communica- tion. So far then, Sir, one may say that the statement of the Postmaster-General is of an exceedingly satisfactory charae- ter, because one can hardly suppose that he wontd have launched out into these commercial figures and calculations un- less he were fairly well satisfied with his deliberations with the three bodies I have mentioned, two of which, as your Excel- leney will have noted, were the Sub-Com- mittee on Imperial Defence and the I- perial Conference, which might be trust- ed to look after the interests of the Em- pire, and after taking into account their views as well as those of the other body mentioned the Postmaster-General obvi- ously thought that he was justified in putting this matter before the House of Commons as a speculation which was likely to turn out profitable. So far, as I said just now, everything would be entirely satisfactory from our point of view, but there is one point, as is indicat- ed by the motion, upon which I would respectfully venture to suggest that it is desirable that we should express our views, and that is the point as to the date of the erection of the proposed wire- less telegraph station in this Colony of į Hongkong, The Postmaster-General mentions in his speech certain places in regard to which apparently wireless tele- graphy stations are to be erected at an carly date. Those places mentioned in the speech as places at which the British Government would erect and pay for four
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