COUNTRY TELEPHONES

Evening Post, Volume XCIX, Issue 33, 9 February 1920, Page 2

COUNTRY TELEPHONES

GOVERNMENT POLICY OUTLINED

HOPES FOR THIS YEAR

The Postmaster-General (Hon. J. G. Goates) deals with the policy of tho Government in regard to rural telephones in the course of the following statement :—"There are many settlers in the back areas who have' struggled along the years with /bad roads, and, in a number of cases, practically emit off from communication. Their demands for telephone facilities are fully justified, and they are entitled to have one of the first claims upon the Department for the con-struction-of their lines. The claims of those returned soldiers who have taken up sections remote from communication must also be attended to. It is the policy of the Government to bring the districts which are now isolated within easy range of communication, and whilst seeing that the needs of the cities are met, it will be the aim of the Government to give the back-cojmtry people the telephone facilities which arc essential to them." ■'

The Minister then refers to the difficulties that hay© been in the way preventing much progress in the linking up of the back blocks with the telephone system. "One of the main' troubles has been the supply of poles and wire," he continues. "There has been a great demand throughout the Dominion for partyline telephone service to outlying districts. Hundreds of applications have had to be held up for the simple reason that these connections involved the construction 41 new lines in areas hitherto not provided with telephone communication: Ample supplies of poles. have been mi order right through the war period, but we could not get them. As many as possible have been obtained in New Zealand, but the labour shortage largely prevented the Department getting much assistance in this direction. . The bulk of the supply of poles which the Department uses comes from Australia, and the difficulty has been to obtain shipping to bring the poles over to New Zealand. Special steps are being taken to overcome this difficulty, and when the supplies of wire, which have been^long on | order, in some ' cases for six years, /are received from overseas, the; work of connecting up remote settlements can be I greatly facilitated, and no time will be lost in pushing on with the work. ' "Almost one of the first things a man I asks for in taking lip land' in the back I areas-is a telephone. In the past the | demand was for public telephone offices, I but the settler is now impressed with | the greater advantages of having a tele- | phone in his own home. For this reason the present demand is for party-line telephones, in connection with which the Department has' introduced favourable rates, and which permit of as many as gix subscribers being joined to.the one j line and sharing the cost betweenythem. ! I hope," Mr. Coates said in conclusion, I "that the difficulties which the Department has been up against for the last few years will now disappear- and thus enable the Government to this year go right ahead- with the telephone communication scheme it has decided upon.'