Those who have for the past two years been urging the adoption of Wireless on all steamers on the China Coast will be gratified at the announcement just made in Hongkong that before long it will be made compulsory on boats trad ing there. The Hong Moh disaster did much to rouse: public opinion on the subject, for it seemed certain that had she been in wireless communication a great many more lives would have been saved. Then when Swatow.was visited by the typhoon which did so "much damage, Hongkong received the first information by wireless from one of the ships in port and was able to make instant preparations for relief work. The original difficulty about the introduction of wireless was that there was no central authority to make it compulsory, and its voluntary adoption, it was felt, would penalize the companies so doing by causing them additional expense. This has, however, been dissipated by the fact that more and more companies have seen the advantage to be derived from wireless in all directions and to-day we see boats on the Hongkong-Calcutta run equipped with it while even Japanese colliers of small tonnage have it, When the Hongkong ordinance is brought into force it will have the effect of hastening the general adoption of wireless, but even without that there is every reason to expect at no distant date a very much more common use. What "ought to be aimed at as far as
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.