"BANG GOES A PENNY"

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 40, 15 August 1925, Page 7

"BANG GOES A PENNY"

The greatest confidence trickster in the country at the. present time, in the opinion, of Mr. J. A. Lee (Auckland East), is the Department which controls automatic telephones.

"Sometimes you go to five or tin different machines," he remarked, in the Plouse of Representatives yesterday afternoon, "placing coins in each of them, and you are unable to secure a connection at all."

"Slot telephones?" asked .the Prime Minister. '

"Yes," replied Mr. Lee. "It is almost enough to bring tears to the eyee of the average Scot," he continued. "Frankly, it certainly is not good for the moralß of the telephone user. Ido think, especially when we have a large number of telephones outside the main post offices, that these telephones should be kept in good working 1 order. If you find a slot tolephono out of order in one of the suburbs there may be an excuse, but when you go into five or six boxes outside the Auckland Post Office, and neither get a connection nor the coin returned, there seems •to be something .wrong somewhere. It is »11 very well to laugh this aside, but I think it is vovy gevious."

Mr. P: Fraser (Wellington Central)! "Hear, hear. Bang goes a penny!" "Not only that," said Mr. Lee, "but you can't secure the connection you want to secure."

In replying, the Prime Minister (th» Hon. J. 6, Coates) asid thnre had been somo difficulty about the slot telephones because of the rough handling to which they were subjected. "I Bincerely hope," he said, "that the present extension and development of the machines won't lead to any gross misuse of language. We are doing our best to obviate that." '