Most of the queries and requests from New York reach the man abroad in the early afternoon after (he business day has, been well started at headquarters, Consequently he has only a few hours in which to get anything that has to be gotten from officials in answer to such messages. In these days most countries have good telephone service buf it is à rare thing to get an official to talk over the wire. Transmission normally is slow. That works equally against competing staffs but it often breaks hearts by the long beats it makes possible. The reporter who gets something by his own enterprise has a long lead. By the time his story is published or gets to the attention of others hours sometimes have passed and it may take one or several hours for his rival to be notified. Then, unkss the message is quite complete, his competitor may not loca the story for hours. and sometimes not at all Berne and Zurich became important transmission centres early in the war because neutral Switzerland adjoins Germany and Italy. Telephone and wireless communication was and is good in that highly-developed little country with her modern equipment. Switzerland's neutrality makes that country the best listening post in Europe, but there are some handicaps—now Ankara is a fount, Switzerland tries to avoid any display of sympathy with either belligerent group. but since the political and economic theories of the Swiss differ from the Nazi system it is inevitable that Germany should construe as unfriendly some Swiss acts and some of the newspapers' comments. The fact that news ers continue their background explanations of events supports the Swiss assertion that newspapers remain independent and frankly honest, although carefully, guardedly objective. Di all the care taken, however, the Swiss press has be warned ominously by both German and Italian spokesmen that it is not always truly neutr: iis attitude.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.