IMPERIAL BOTTLENECK
Hanighen, Frank C.
Imperial Bottleneck By FRANK C. HANI6HEN JAMES L. FLY, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, recently made an interesting and important speech which has so far remained largely...
...He drew therefrom the moral that international understanding springs from freedom of international communications...
...3) unification of all American carriers under one body, thus preventing the British from playing off one American company against another...
...While Russia and Britain remain what they are (and the Moscow Agreements fail to show that the British Lion and the Russian Bear have changed their spots), the American people can't learn the truth about what goes on under those regimes...
...For Mr...
...One cannot resist the temptation of saying that only by surrendering a portion of their international swag can the British coax America out of the "isolation" which they decry...
...They can't have their cake and eat it too...
...I don't know how low press rates are going to enable an American journalist, even in peace-time, to cable the whole truth about the conditions in India, where British censorship has throttled news for many decades...
...Great Britain," says Fly, "emerged from the peace conference with her dominant position in world communications reen-forced...
...Messages to and from Capetown and India have to be funneled through the imperial bottleneck in London...
...The rate between the United States and Australia was 58 cents a word, while the rate between Canada and Australia was 30 cents a word...
...Imperial Bottleneck By FRANK C. HANI6HEN JAMES L. FLY, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, recently made an interesting and important speech which has so far remained largely unreported by the daily and periodical press...
...And since the consent of Great Britain is necessary to communicate with the important points in its empire, it has been able to dictate the terms and conditions upon which such communication would take place...
...But this goes only for the duration of the war, and at the old rate of 58 cents a word...
...But he also provocatively surveyed the whole problem—beginning with a little-known chapter of history...
...In spite of the fact that the Australian Government wanted this circuit, "we were forestalled...
...Fly gives concrete instances how this British control works today...
...Fly seeks to solve this great problem by a detailed program, which includes the following points: (1) a uniform cable and radio rate per word, and a low rate at that, throughout the world for everybody (he cites the success of the postal union rate) ; (2) instantaneous communication to and from all parts of the world...
...Fly cites the London Standard which said, "It gives power to survey the trade of the world and as a result of that survey to facilitate those...
...Finally he emphasized the need "to avoid at all costs any extensive control of communications facilities by one nation which favors its people and its own commerce...
...Through The Imperial Bottleneck This situation prevails throughout the world...
...We Face A Contradiction Hence, we face the following contradiction: publicists lecturing the American people on the dangers of "isolationism" and at the same time upholding policies : which further "isolate" us...
...Alas, Wilson forgot the memo in his pocket and, as Fly puts it, "In the great scramble for power, the ownership and control of communications went along imperialistic lines...
...Today, while our troops are fighting to save Australia, the imperial interests have relaxed their grasp to the extent that we can now send and receive by direct circuit to Australia, instead of via Canada...
...Rogers, who 25 .ygars ago emphasized the need to "avoid at all costs any extensive control of communications facilities by one nation which favors»its own people and its own commerce...
...In 1931, RCAC negotiated a contract for a direct radio circuit between the United States and Australia...
...activities which are to the interest of (those in control) and impede those which are not...
...In 1919, the battalions of planners descended on Parjs armed with constructive blueprints...
...liAgain, we have only, during the past month, managed to establish a radio circuit with British Guiana, in this hemisphere—on the condition, however, that it must be limited to the duration of the war and with the old high rates...
...As a matter of fact, the Fly gospel falls considerably short of a cure-all...
...It would seem a wiser course—than working in conjunction with these foreign imperialisms—to give the world the whole truth about what's going on in this country, which involves telling our own people first...
...The Empire's Cable Tolls Who'created this bottleneck...
...Rogers pointed out how the wide diffusion of speeches helped to bring the war to a close...
...We may well wonder, therefore, whether we're getting the full picture of the Indian famine...
...He quotes Mr...
...Quite evidently, as Fly points out, the British control retards with "long hours of delay" messages to America from all parts of the world...
...But not safe from British imperial control of radio circuits...
...Moreover, why should we have to protect the American people's good judgment against "attacks" no matter how intemperate and vicious they may be...
...In short, Mac Arthur's winged words sent homeward cost almost twice as much as those of a Canadian business man in Australia, f^ut while we have a direct radio circuit to the Antipodes now, we haven't a direct press circuit...
...Not only did it have its own world-wide cable system but it also acquired a good deal of the German cable system which, prior to World War I, gave American interests a slight measure of protection through the balance achieved by the competition of these powers...
...Fly also lifts the edge of the curtain on another aspect of this situation...
...In connection with the 'last point, he says, "It is idle talk about a free press in terms of a well-informed world community where physical facilities are inadequate or where they are throttled and controlled to serve selfish ends, or where the cost of service discourages less than the optimum usage...
...That seems a big enough problem in itself...
...If Americans do not get sufficient press coverage on our campaigns in the Southwest Pacific, it's because the high rates limit the length of their dispatches...
...An American correspondent must pay 12 to 14% cents a word, or between six or seven times that paid by a Canadian correspondent...
...All to the good...
...The truth is that Fly, like other global planners, is waging a futile battle...
...As a result, messages between the two countries had to be transmitted first to Montreal or Vancouver...
...Among other things, Rogers called for the establishment of "worldwide freedom for news and the breaking down of existing barriers, chauvinism or lack of vision...
...Obviously, British commercial interests have the jump on American interests in making decisions, giving orders to buy and sell, etc...
...At their head, President Wilson carried in his pocket a memorandum written by his chief communications advisor, Walter S. Rogers...
...Finally, to this day, we cannot get direct communications with South Africa and India...
...4) low, uniform press rates everywhere...
...nor how two cents a word from Moscow will relieve the pains of any honest reporter who for 20 years has writhed under the Moscow restrictions...
...Well, we've got troops at Dakar now and apparently we're safe...
...What affairs are so "purely domestic" that news about them should be censored...
...In view of this picture, one may well ask, "Who's fostering isolation now...
...Remember Dakar...
...As a matter of fact, British control effectively "isolates" this country from free access to world news, just as other British controls have "isolated" us from raw materials, etc...
...But, Fly yields characteristically to the usual bureaucratic promptings and plumps for a sort of censorship, when he says that each country should adopt "certain policies which would guard against intrusion into purely domestic affairs and at-' tacks upon nations, races, or creeds...
...Fly reveals that the direct radio circuit from Dakar to Montreal costs 30 cents a word, while it costs 90 cents a word, three times as much, from Dakar to New York...
...While imperialism and totalitarianism exist, no amount of "freedom of communications" along the Fly lines will accomplish much...
...If that be "isolationism," it's at least better than submitting to the kind of "isolationism" which Britain and Russia have long imposed on us and now wish to perpetuate...
...Dakar was a "spear pointed at the security of the United States," according to the interventionists...
...A Canadian correspondent can cable home at British Empire press rates of less than two cents a word...
...To a great extent the United States was left, and it has been left to this good day, looking at the rest of the world through a bottleneck...
...He demanded "adequate facilities for the fair control thereof and for the provision for the generous flow of intelligence in all directions...
...Fly revealed hitherto undisclosed facts about the impediments to the free flow of international communications—facts which confirm the impressions of the five globe-girdling Senators on this subject...
Vol. 7 • December 1943 • No. 50
