TELEPHONE CHARGES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 114, 17 May 1933, Page 6

TELEPHONE CHARGES.

The "Star" recently published a contributed article relating to telephone charge's, which calls for "some comment from this office on account of its inaccurate statement of the position. The profit stated, in the article as the average profit from the telephone branch for the two years ended March. 31, 193-2, is much in excess of that shown in the Department's accounts. The writer lias not taken into account the very important item of depreciation, and it would appear that he has not availed himself of the information, conr tained in the Department's profit and loss accounts and balance-sheets, which are .published annually in Parliamentary paper- 81, Part IV., after being duly audited by the Controller and Auditor-General. Had he done so, it would not Lave been necessary for- him to have drawn upon his imagination, in arriving at the profit derived from any .particular branch of the Post and Telegraph service. A copy of last year's profit and loss accounts and 'balance-sheets is attached for your information. It will be seen tfcat the telegraph, toll and telephone branches are each treated separately; so that the writer's suggestion that it is difficult to separate telephone figures from telegraph is not substantiated. I also desire to refute the inference that there has been manipulation, of figures ■with a view to improving the position of the telegraph branch at the expense of the telephone 'branch. There has been no manipulation of figures in the direction suggested. Capital expenditure is invariably charged to the branch concerned; and where Hues and apparatus are used for more than one branch, interest, depreciation, and maintenance are divided between them in proportion to use. This is more noticeable in the past few years, due to increased use of lines for toll purposes as against their decreased use for telegraph purposes. G-. McNAMARA, Secretary, Post and Telegraph Dept., Wellington.