POST OFFICE

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 258, 29 July 1939, Page 15

POST OFFICE

Higher Revenue For Year

SAVINGS BANK FIGURES

Activities of the Post and Telegraph Department for the year ended March 31 last are reviewed in the annual report of the department pres, nted in the House of Representatives yesterday by the Postmaster-General, Mr. Jones. In a preface to the report the Minister states that the revenue collected during the year exceeded that for the previous year by £385,320. The amount received was £4,687.564, compared with £4,302,244 for 1937-38. Increases in revenue were again recorded in respect of all phases of the department’s activities. Payments for the j\ar in respect of working expenses (including interest on capital liability amounting to £588,000) totalled £4,529,358. The excess of receipts over payments was £158,206. Deposits and Withdrawals. Poet Office Savings Bank deposits were £30,434,292, compared with £33,041,082 during the previous year. Interest credited to depositors amounted to £1,726,574. The withdrawals totalled £34,597,708, compared with £29,629,074 in the preceding year. The amount at credit of depositors at March 31 was £60.710,087. The number of accounts open at that date was 940,822, which was 26,017 in excess of the total recorded at the end of 1937-38. At the close of the year, said Mr. Jones, the number of telephone subscribers in the Dominion was marly 158,000, the highest on record. After allowing for relinquishments the increase in subscribers for the year was 9755, or 6.6 per cent. Toll calls also reached a record total, the number handled being 15,567,000, an increase of more than 1,000,000 calls, or 7.5 per cent, over last year’s figures. “The large increase in telephone toll traffic over recent years has necessitated additional toll outlets, and during the past 12 months an unprecedented number of new circuits was provided between the principal centres of the Dominion,” says the Minister. “While the extensive programme for the expansion of the toll system is not yet complete, the additional facilities provided during the year have eased considerably the heavy traffic loads previously carried on many important circuits.”