• THEPROGRESS OF WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY.
THE recent dispute whether Great Britain ought to accept the International Convention on wireless telegraphy has left the public, we fancy, rather mystified; and if it has concluded that Great Britain has acted wisely in deciding to fall into line with other countries, it has done so chiefly because it has bowed to authority in the form of the various Government Departments. It is, moreover, not only the politics of wireless telegraphy which are confusing ; its practical uses cause much doubt. Some people expected cable telegraphy to be rapidly superseded ; occasionally they are informed in newspapers that the competition between it and wireless telegraphy can end in only one way, as the cable system involves the expense of keeping up the cable, whereas no such expense falls on those who avail themselves of the circumambient air. But in spite of the logic, the supersession of cables is delayed. Perhaps there will be room to eternity for both systems. What with the intricacy of the politics and the false scents of scientific rumour, many people must have given up the hope of following closely the progress of this extraordinarily fascinating application of . science. They would hardly recognise radio-telegraphy, more properly so called, as the same thing as the wireless telegraphy which excited their imagination a few years ago. They might even think that it had something to do with radium. The only mistake the public seems to have made was to expect progress to be more rapid than it possibly could have been. The accomplishments, such as they are, are satisfactory and promising, and are vastly to the credit of such pioneers as Mr. Marconi. • In the new number of the Edinburgh Review and in the current number of the West. minster Review there are very clearly expressed articles on the subject which may help unscientific readers to take their bearings. We cannot assume responsibility for any of the statements in these articles so far as they are controversial; but we recently declared our conviction that the Government were right to sign the International Convention, and the articles before us help to confirm us in that judgment. In any case, the progress of radio-telegraphy is so important that the subject cannot be shunned merely because it provokes some commercial rivalries. The nation has to make up its mind about it in its own interests just as much as it had to decide what power it wished to retain over other services which exist for the public good.
It is a little over nine years ago that the first payment was made for "a message by wireless telegraphy. Lord Kelvin paid his shilling, and the message went from Alum Bay to Bournemouth. Since then Mr. Marconi has steadily increased his range. In 1902 Mr. Charles Bright, the writer of the article in the Westminster Review, proposed that wireless telegraphy should be used for putting the coast naval and military stations into communication with their base. In October, 1907, the Marconi Company inaugurated a public Transatlantic service at lower rates than are charged by the cable companies; for example, the charge is 70. a word from London to Montreal instead of a shilling. But Mr. Bright says that the newspapers which recorded the working of the system greatly exaggerated its average speed. "One very simple message of only eighty-five plain English words took six and a half hours before it was got through correctly." Probably in some of the reports of the number of words transmitted the repetitions were included. We may remark that in any case a great deal of trouble appears to be taken to convey the words accurately, and for certain kinds of messages a few hours' delay would make no difference. Mr. Bright says that for messages not particularly urgent he would use the economical radio-telegraphy, while for a pressing business matter he would still use the cable. "Up to the present," he remarks, "there are no signs of long cables being supplanted by wireless telegraphy." And he adds sug- gestively that if wireless telegraphy had been invented before cable telegraphy, the latter would have been regarded as an improved adaptation of the power.
In 1903 it was admitted that some form of national control of the new force must be thought out and applied. In 1904 the Wireless Telegraph Act was passed, which made it legal to establish an installation within the United Kingdom only under a license from the Post Office. The Marconi Company has kept indisputably ahead of its rivals ; but British rivals do exist,—a fact which appears sometimes to be forgotten. In the last official year the total number of outward messages dealt with by the Post Office was 1,140, and of inward telegrams 15,853. One early result of Mr. Marconi's activity was that foreign nations began to emulate our use of wireless telegraphy at sea. German ships, for instance, desired to communicate with Marconi stations on the British coasts, but the company refused to communicate with ships not carrying Marconi instruments. In 1903—a year before our Wireless Telegraph Act was passed—the German Emperor had pro- posed an International Conference to draw up a plan for universal communication; but though the Conference met, it had not adequate powers, and nothing definite was decided. In 1906 the second International Conference met in Berlin. The chief points agreed upon were :—(1) Obligatory inter- communication between ship and shore independent of system ; (2) the adoption of a common wave-length. This important Convention was only provisional, and a Select Committee was appointed by the House of Commons in December, 1906, to consider whether Great Britain ought to ratify it. The Com- mittee reported last June in favour of ratification, and the Convention will come into force next July.
The advantages of this Convention and the objections to it must now be weighed. The writer in the Edinburgh Review thinks, and we believe with some reason, that a prejudice was .created against the International Conference because the German Emperor proposed it. The shape which the objection took was, in fact, a belief that Germany wished to share with us, and, indeed, largely to deprive us ' of, the advantages which fairly belonged to us through the fine enterprise of Mr. Marconi. British perseverance had got a long start for 'itself. Why give away with mistaken Quixotism all the ground that had been gained ? Those who argue Hie that should ask themselves, as the Edinburgh Reviewer suggests, whether they would hold the same opinion about telegraphy by cables. Really, the case for holding to an exclusive system is less strong for radio-telegraphy than for the cables. Submarine telegraphy was virtually in our hands for many years, but we are not in the same position in the practice of radio-telegraphy. Though Mr. Marconi is the most success- ful of all experimenters, the German companies have for some time had more stations. The chief questions, there- fore, which the British. Select Committee bad to answer were whether it was not hopeless to try to maintain an exclusive system, and whether it was not undesirable even if it were possible. The Report of the Select Committee was carried by a majority of only one; but it is to be observed that the Postmaster-General and two ex-Postmasters-General and the Admiralty and the War Office were all in favour of accept- ing the International Convention. The strategic argument against the Convention has at first sight a formidable look. It is said that we ought to keep our system to ourselves in order that our secrets may be our own in war. But it seems that in the long run the policy of equality of opportunity will be more valuable to us than a misguided attempt at pro- tection. In wartime stations on British territory will pass entirely under British control, and as the number of stations will, of course, increase greatly under the Convention, we shall have more stations to use than we should have had without the Convention. Further secrecy appears to be no more assured to those outside than to those inside the Convention.
But the strategic question is not the only one. If the Marconi system had been given what would have been in effect a monopoly, we should have been tied down for a long time, or indefinitely, to the maintenance of a particular system whatever the unforeseen discoveries of science might be. For the sake of the safety of the shipping of all the world, Great Britain could not have remained outside the Convention very long without appearing inhumane. But apart from that, we believe on principle in a wholesome and quickening competi- tion, and that is ensured by the Convention, but would have been excluded by its rejection. Another point discussed in the Edinburgh Review is the assertion that the Marconi system cannot communicate with others. Sir William Preece and Mr. Charles Bright have denied that impossibility, and what we know of Mr. Marconi's success in overcoming difficulties persuades us that if he has not overcome this one already, he is able to do so. As a matter of fact, we are told that the Marconi system communicates with other systems in the Argentine and elsewhere. We are convinced that in a field of fair competition without artificial restrictions the beat system will always be ahead of its rivals. If the Marconi system keeps ahead, it will well deserve to do so because it will hold its position by sheer merit. If the rights of this system are being infringed by others—a subject of which we know nothing—the remedy is surely not a demand for protection, but an appeal to the Law Courts, which are perfectly able to prevent injustice in the imitation of patents.
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