Ashley Sterne Radio's Rival

This topical comic article on international telephony by Ashley Sterne was reprinted in the Toowoomba Chronicle and Darling Downs Gazette (Queensland, Australia) on 3 June 1926.  The article exhibits Sterne’s trusty techniques of exaggeration and elegant variation.

The end of the article from Trove was very faded, so I may have erroneously transcribed the phrase “talking hot ether” in the last paragraph, although “talking hot ether” sounds like authentic colorful radio slang.

RADIO'S RIVAL.

World Telephony.

THE HUMOUR OF IT.

The success of the recent wireless telephony trials between London and New York has left me with somewhat mixed feelings, writes Ashley Sterne in the "Radio Supplement."

On the one hand, I want to get up and cheer at the prospect of very shortly being able to ring up the Waldorf-Astoria and book a supper table for the week after next (Ellis Island permitting); on the other, I am fearful that the novelty of international telephoning may jeopardise our growing interest in international radio. For, of course, once wireless telephony becomes a commercial fait accompli between us and all the States, the other countries of the world will sooner or later be similarly connected; and then the acid test will be invoked as to whether telephony or radio is to form our principal fireside diversion.

Instead of the international radio enthusiast waking his wife up in the middle of the night to tell her he's got Pernambuco on only one valve, I can dimly foresee him bursting in upon her slumbers with the startling news that he’s got through to St. Helena after only three wrong numbers, and thereafter swanking about it to that fellow Simpson, who has been vainly endeavouring for a week past to ring up Corsica with no better result than a monotonous repetition of the depressing formula, "Corsica engaged."

There are, however, several obstacles to be surmounted before anything approaching a general change of allegiance from international radio to international telephony takes place. To begin with, there is the language difficulty. The ringer (let me so style him) will have to confine his activities either to English speaking countries or to those countries of whose language he has something more than a correspondence system knowledge.

It will scarcely add to the amity between nations if, for example, he rings up Milan, and, when connection is established, can find nothing better to say than "Buon giorno! Andante ma non troppo!" or "La donna e' mobile!" In like manner, no good object would be served by his ringing up, say, French Guiana, and urging the listener to pass the mustard, or inquiring as to the whereabouts of the umbrella of the gardener's little feminine neighbour, or —worse still—plodding painstakingly through the entire conjugation of an irregular verb. All of these things would merely lead to verbal reprisals, which fortunately for the ringer's peace of mind and self-respect, he would be unable to understand.

Again, even supposing the ringer to be thoroughly familiar with the language of the country he is ringing up, he will certainly find it a matter of impossibility to sustain a conversation that will prove helpful and stimulating to both parties. He gets on to Lhassa, the “forbidden city'' of Tibet, for instance. Well, after he has inquired after the health of the Dalai Lama, and ascertained the state of the praying wheel market, I cannot imagine what subject of mutual interest he could possibly pounce upon. To inform the stolid Mongol at the other end that Double Chance was strongly fancied for the Grand National, or that the cuckoo had been heard at Billericay last Tuesday afternoon, would create nothing but a purely ephemeral emotion in the phlegmatic Oriental breast.

Even should the ringer establish communication with some highly civilised community, such as Japan, the same difficulty would confront him. Having got on to Tokio 6689 and learned that the subscriber was the proprietor of a jinrinkisha garage or of a samisen warehouse—well, after expressing the hope that they were all well at home, and that business was bucking up, I can't see that anything else remains to be said.

Then, too, the potential international "telephone" fan will need to bear in mind that, unlike international radio, international telephony works both ways. That is to say, he himself stands to be rung up, possibly at considerable inconvenience to his personal comfort.

To state a theoretical case, he may be roused at midnight from the heavy slumber induced by a Masonic banquet in order to satisfy the importunate advances of some fellow "fan" who has rung him up from Auckland (New Zealand), where, of course, the time is half-past 11 to-morrow morning. Or on some bitter, winter night he may be summoned to the 'phone in his pyjamas at 2 a.m. to exchange greetings and kind enquiries with some thoughtless enthusiast in San Francisco, where the time is 8 o'clock yesterday evening.

And lastly, I should never be surprised to learn that with the universal adoption of wireless telephony a new system of payment for calls was necessitated, and that ready money only would be accepted in settlement therefore, and that in the currency of the country whose exchange you were employing (which is only right and reasonable). For this purpose every wireless telephone would have to be accompanied by a please-turn-the-handle cash receiver, and 1 can quite imagine the difficulty the ringer would have if he were not familiar with the currency used in the country he desired to talk to. Take Tibet again. Tibet Exchange informs you that it has got Lhassa D78S, and requests you to put in the slot a pound and a half of brick-tea. Well, unless you are previously aware that brick-lea constitutes the customary currency of Tibet, the odds are that you won't have any in the house.

Or take the Solomon Islands. Fancy being told to put 25,000 cowrie shells or their equivalent in wives!  Or even Russia. An exchange twopenny call at about twenty million roubles, and by the time the ringer had put in only a tithe of this amount, he will probably be well through his second childhood and incapable of any further physical effort.

In view of these difficulties which  have briefly indicated. 1 may possibly be adjudged an alarmist in contemplating a conceivable warning of public interest in international broadcast reception. But my enthusiasm for international radio is such that I am very jealous for its present justly named prestige: and hence I shall not in the least mind if the reader accuse me of talking hot ether. I shall have spring-cleaned my conscience.