THE TELEPHONE DEPARTMENT.

Press, Volume LV, Issue 9989, 19 March 1898, Page 6

THE TELEPHONE DEPARTMENT.

It is very much to be wished that those people who think the millennium l would arrive if State management was substituted generally for private enterprise would sometimes stop to enquire whether the work which is already carried on by the Government is so superlatively weU-dose ias '•■ to encourage us in handing over other departments of human industry to their care. Take the telephones, for example. Are they well managed ? Is the service increasing in efficiency and decreasing in cost? Everybody knows that the exaot contrary is the case. Only recently ; the charges have been raised and the accounts are cooked, so as to conceal the amount which the Government are actually drawing from the telephone subscribers. We are using antiquated, worn-out, old instrumental and switchboards that were in vogue when telephones were first introduced, and the result is a minimum of convenience and a maximum of profanity. Improved switchboards have been introduced, in Wellington, but we are told Christchurch will have to wait eighteen months before it can hope to see the improvement adopted here 1 What would be said of any private company that was so deplorably dilatory and behind the times ? The truth is thai Government management is like a blight on any institution entrusted to its tender mercies. Political corruption has entered even into the telephone service. Appointments are supposed to be made in order of application, but everyone knows that it is a farce to put down the name of a girl on the list unless she is backed up by political influence. If she has the ear of a member of the right colour she can/ be appointed at once, even though there may be a thousand priot applications on the list. Again what hope is there of reducing charges with ,' a Government so of money, and so lavish of squandering it in unproductive works? The administration of the Telephone Department is a disgrace to the Government and a standing beacon to warn all would-ba socialists oi the folly of trusting, everything to Government control.