RURAL MAILS

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21908, 8 October 1936, Page 8

RURAL MAILS

SUBSCRIBERS INCREASE

ADDED FACILITIES FOR FARMERS

The Postmaster-General (the Hon. F. Jones) recently published proof of how the department under his direction had recovered from the depression in telephone and savings-bank business, but there is one phase of the post office which hardly felt the economic stress. In March. 1929. the number of country residents who paid for the rural mail box service was 19,338. With the depression constant economy became more and more insistent in the hope of keeping expenditure within the limits of a shrinking income, but the farmer could not do without the service of mails to his gate, and the rural boxholders kept on increasing in number though the normal rate of acceleration was decreased. However, every year the total showed a widening of the range of the service until in March, 1936, the total number of rural boxholders was 24,723, an expansion of 5385 subscribers. The old rate of acceleration has now been resumed, ana at the end of July the total had risen to 25,116. Rural boxholders obtain a two-way postal service of unique character. Not only is their correspondence delivered at their gates, but the boxholders can make use of the rural mail contractor for the dispatch of their correspondence and for other services which the town dweller can receive only by going to the Post Office counter. The rural mail boxholder can arrange with the contractor to stamp and post outward letters and to purchase moneyorders and postal notes.