PHONE FINANCE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 57, 8 March 1923, Page 8

PHONE FINANCE.

PROPOSES NEW CHARGES. ARE THEY INQUIRY BY COMMITTEE. (By Telegrapih.—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, Wednesday. A special committee of the Canterbury Progress League, which considered the Postmaster-General'a proposals to increase telephone charges, reports that there are considerations discounting the claim of the department that the telephone branch cannot in future be carried on without loss except with largelyincreased revenue from telephone subscribers. Theee considerations are:—(l) The year of expenditure selected by the department as the basis for its estimate of loss was that ended March 31,1022, a year in which it was shown to the committee that the cost of la-bour was at the I peak, as also \yas the cost of material as I charged to the department. (2) Since then, the department's officers informed the committee the ~cost of salaries and wages is less than that of the year ended iMarch 31, 1921, by 10 per cent, and though some classes of materials have i not yet decreased, important classes, J such as bronze wire and cables, have con- ! siderably decreased in cost. (3) The offi. |T»rs of the department admit that the ■ coming extensive installation of automatic telephones will reduce operating , expenses within the next three years, ; though they are at present unable to 1 say to what extent, but it is obvious that if the change is justified, the annual saving funded will pay off the cost of euch charge. "We therefore consider, on the information available to us," eaya the committee, "that it should be quite practicable for the department, while paying interest on capital and providing against depreciation, to profitably carry on its telephone business on Its revenue based on the already substantially increased charges of the last two years without asking more from teleprone subscribers as a whole than they at present pay." The second question with reference to the fair apportionment of increased charges between various subscribers needs no answer as the committee at present considers no increase in charges ia necessary. Information has been given to the committee which leads' it to the conclusion- that without increasing the total charge to subscribers as a whole, good work, may be done by the telephone branch in: (1) Ascertaining some.really distinctive classification' bet ween business and private telephones; (2) the classification of all telephones- into a few distinctive grades, according to manifest grade of use; end (3) the extension of flat rate areas, as already proposed by the department. The method of charging measured rates for telephone service, involving keeping account of the number of calls on each telephone throughout the year, has been frequently referred to during the sittings of the committee. On this question the .committee unqualifiedly agrees with the chief telegraph engineer that the advantages of measuring rates are enormously outweighed by the disadvantage of the heavy additional cost ojf operating and accounting which they must involve.