§ Major ARCHER-SHEEasked the Postmaster-General whether, in view of the Report of the Special Expert Committee on Wireless Telegraphy, in which they state that there may be periods when communication is impracticable, especially in tropical regions, where atmospheric disturbances may be expected to cause more difficulty than over the Atlantic, the Government will now give further considera- 903W tion to the request of the Governments of Australia and New Zealand that a subsidiary conference should be called to consider the question of a State-owned Atlantic cable, with the object of completing the All-British chain of communication between England and Australia, viâ[...] the Pacific cable, and of thereby duplicating the vital means of communication between the most important parts of the Empire in conjunction with the Imperial wireless scheme?
§ Mr. HERBERT SAMUELI can find no relation between the paragraph referred to and the question whether the existing cables and wireless communication across the North Atlantic should be supplemented by a State-owned cable. No reply has yet been received to the dispatch on the subject of the subsidiary conference suggested by the Australian Government which was sent to that Government on 7th February last.