Business: International Radio

The undebatable necessity for uniform rules of international communications brought 400 representatives of 51 nations to Washington last week for an international radio telegraph conference. The only previous meeting of like purpose was at London in 1912, when only dots and dashes could be telegraphed without wires. Rules devised at that time still control wireless methods that have transmitted 1,000 words a minute and can transmit 2,000 a minute; that can be directed over a wave beam to specific receivers; that carry sounds and sights (wireless telephone, telephotography and, experimentally, television).

Because of these recent developments in wireless communication, Secretary of Commerce Herbert C. Hoover recommended to the conference that it name itself International Radio Conference or Convention of International Radio Communication. Decisions on that point and a multitude of others*were to occupy the conference until mid November.