All About Inventions and Discoveries
The Romance of modern scientific and mechanical Achievements

24 All About Inventions named had seen Marconi’s system at work that he succeeded in achieving any success with his own idea. As he acknowledged several years ago, Marconi suc- ceeded where he failed. Yet this fact has not deterred the Germans from attempting to wrest the credit of the invention from the Italian electrical engineer. There has been pronounced jealous rivalry between the two systems, th© outcome of which at one time threatened to prejudice wireless in the eyes of the public. The German company grew jealous of the success of its Italo-British rival, especially in con- nection with the equipment of vessels of the mercantile marine, and this feeling was undoubtedly accentu- ated because certain German lines embraced the Marconi system in preference to that evolved by native experimenters. The outcome of this antagonism was somewhat disastrous to the development of wireless telegraphy as a whole. The German company, in the determina- tion to compel the wider adoption of its system, refused to accept messages dispatched from ships equipped with the Marconi instruments, and in due course the Marconi company retaliated in a similar strain. This impossible situation was overcome eventually by the ruling of the Radio Telegraphic Convention refusing to acknowledge such distinctions, and compelling one system to exchange with the other. By this action universal wireless became possible. At the same time, however, the feeling of rivalry between the Anglo-Italian and German in- terests has never been subjugated ; it is still as acute as ever, but covertly. The value of wireless telegraphy was first brought