LEE 
at Berlin, in which 30 countries participated. This agreement 
contained the basic regulations for the marine service (govern- 
ment supervision, compulsory intercommunication between 
all stations, irrespective of the system used, protection against 
mutual disturbance, preferential treatment of distress signals 
from ships, etc.). This agreement came into force on June 1st 
1908, though with the limitation that those countries which 
were bound to the Marconi System (mainly America, Eng- 
land and Italy) did not accept for the time being the principle 
of obligatory intercommunication. This difficulty was removed 
on the occasion of the Second International Radio Congress in 
London in the year 1912. From that date onwards the use 
of wireless telegraphy at sea advanced rapidly. Meanwhile 
radio telegraphy had become an important means of com- 
munication from country to country, between fixed trans- 
mitting and receiving stations. In this connection, agreements 
were only made from time to time, between the governments 
or private companies immediately concerned, at such stations 
where the Universal Telegraph Union has not regulated the service 
(v. Section 12). It was hoped that these questions would be 
settled at the Third International Wireless Conference at 
Washington which, by the London decisions, had been fixed 
to take place in 1917. Owing to the war this conference did 
not take place. The latest proposal is that it should take place 
in 1927. This conference will be of very special importance 
since'all:the most recent improvements and 
inventions of wireless science will have 
to be brought within the scope of inter- 
national regulation, i.e. radio telephony, 
television. etc, ..and. the broadcasting 
system, which has already, during the last few years, 
reached such huge dimensions. 
The radio telephony connection between England and 
America already referred to opens up great prospects of de- 
velopment in the field of public radio telephone service. The 
results achieved recently with radio telephony using short waves, 
open up the prospect that the combination of radio and tele- 
phone technique will, before very long, be able to provide a 
practical and efficient telephone service where telephony over 
wires is impossible. Television by which it is possible to trans- 
mit exact reproductions of pictures and printed or written 
matter (pictures, newspaper texts, documents, cheques etc.) 
at telegraphic speed over the greatest distances, has now passed 
the experimental stage. The possibilities of applying this new 
branch of technology, provide an addition to the existing means 
of rapid international communication of inestimable importance.