International Co-Operation in Telecommunications

Abstract

THE machinery of international co-operation, which has been allowed, in the political sphere, to break down from frictional wear and tear, is being hopefully re-examined as a prelude to reconditioning or reconstruction. Chatham House has been happily inspired to inaugurate a series of monographs on international transport and communications, and the series opened appropriately with the discussion of international telecommunications*: appropriately, because the Union to which was first entrusted in 1865 the organization and regulation of telecommunications was, as the author of the monograph justly says, "One of the earliest, and also one of the most successful organs of international collaboration". The structure, which was founded on the International Telegraph Union, grew large and somewhat sprawling with the rapid expansion, first of line telephony, and later of radio communication systems. It was redesigned and given good architectural form at a conference held in Madrid in 1932. There the International Telecommunication Union was created as the supreme organ of collaboration in these fields. Brigadier-General Sir Osborne Mance's book is an admirable guide to the past history of international telecommunications, and to those considerations which will be important in the planning and management of their future.