P. AND T. DEPARTMENT

Press, Volume XLIV, Issue 19389, 15 August 1928, Page 8

P. AND T. DEPARTMENT

REVENUE UP £108,845. £THE PEBBS Special Service.] WELLINGTON, August 14. The annual report of the P. and T. Department for the past financial year j was presented to Parliament to-day. The Postmaster-General expresses his gratification with the result of the year's working, a further increase of revenue of £108,845, and another decrease of expenditure amounting to £46,703. Thus in two years the revenue has increased by £229,115, and the expenditure has decreased by £109,985. He anticipates that next year's operations will yield a net profit of about £20,000. The staff of the Department, excluding non-permanent postmasters and telephonists and railway postmasters, has been reduced in the year by 499 officers, yet the Department has undertaken a larger volume of work- than in any preceding year. The report says that rural mails have become very popular. Some _ 17,000 farmers have joined up with it. In some districts, the Invercargill postal district for instance, many small post offices have been permanently closed as a result of this efficient service. The Telephone Exchange revenue for the year exceeded £1,000,000. The report adds that it is the aim of the Department to provide such a toll service that a person at North Cape will be able to speak by telephone with a person at Bluff at any hour of the day or night. - In the march towards this goal much has already been achieved. Bough Handling of Mails.

In the House of Representatives today Mr E. J. Howard (Christchurch South) drew the attention of the Acting-Postmaster-General to the.rough mantier in which the mails between the North and South Islands are being handled. They were, he Baid, shamefully treated. They were dumped on the ferry wharf at Wellington, put into slings and dumped into the hold of the ship. The system, he said, was 6ut ol date, and he advocated the use of containers which could be filled in he Post Office. This would prevent the battering the mails received at present. Parcels arrived at Christchurch in_a shameful condition, and it was time the system was altered. . The Hon. Mr Williams promised to have the matter looked mto. tie hJwevS'pointed out to the hon member that a large proportion of these mails arrived by tram, and the time for handling them was brief.