The conductors of the Times believe in Mr. Marconi's system
of wireless telegraphy, and have made a contract with him for the regular transmission of messages from America, at prices, they intimate, not greater than the present cost of messages between Great Britain and France. The first message, which occupies twenty-three lines, appeared on Monday, and announced, among other things, that the Cuban Legislature had accepted the Reciprocity Treaty with the United States. It is stated that messages can now be sent to any man-of-war on the Atlantic, the Admiralty having con- tracted to provide the apparatus required. Moreover, it ap- pears from a speech by Mr. Marconi at a meeting of his company that the Post Office is abandoning its resistance to the new system, and will in a very short time adopt it as fully as it has adopted communication by cable. It is certain that with this increased use some difficulties in the way of the new method will be removed, and the world will have at last a cheap system of ocean telegraphy. That is not altogether pleasant news for owners of shares in the electric cables; but the discovery will enormously increase the facilities of inter. national communication, besides, in all probability, revolu- tionising the system of marine insurance. We may note that the Italian Government is strongly supporting Mr. Marconi, partly from interest in his discovery, but chiefly, we fancy, because Italians think, with some reason, that electricity is in a special degree their science.
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