25. Interference and Government Regulation
There has been much discussion regarding the regulations of wireless by governments, owing to the value of the art in time of war. Tor this reason certain governments have proposed to control and regulate the transmission of wireless messages at all times, which action would necessitate a license on the part of an operating company for each station equipped and in operation. Moreover, the government would have the right to grant or refuse such license as it saw fit.
This agitation has been caused by legitimate wireless companies transmitting messages at a time when it would be convenient for the government stations to transmit messages, but owing to the fact that the wave lengths of the government and the independent stations were approximately the same, or owing to the proximity of the stations, it was impossible for both the government and independent stations to operate simultaneously.
The question then arises whether, in time of peace, regular commerical wireless messages, which protect the lives of the passengers and crews of the steamers equipped with wireless, are not just as important as government wireless messages. If competing wireless companies have to wait for one another to transmit their messages, there appears to be no good reason why the government cannot do the same—in time of peace.
It would be interesting to know whether the various