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Evening Star, Issue 17958, 3 May 1922, Page 4

The reduction of postal rates which tho British Budget forecasts will Cheaper not provide ail tho relief for

Postage, business which critics of the postal administration would Have liked to see, but it makes a beginning ot a return to pro-war charges which will be welcomed. The PostmasterGeneral, who was adamant a few weeks ago, has evidently yielded- to the representations of economists who have urged that if extreme charges wore of any benefit to his department—which they refused- to admit—that advantage was outweighed by their national disadvantages. It is unlikely that improvement in tho postal finances has been an influence in the new concessions. Its finances were not improved by the latest additions to rates. The trade depression, wheso termination had) been indicated by the PostmasterGeneral as a condition precedent to reduced charges, is not ended yet, and tho natural inference is that a new policy has been adopted to assist in hastening tho end of trade depression. It was urged by a conference of business men which met in February last that, in the interests of trade, a return to pre-war rates of postage by tho end of the year should be made by throe instalments. Tho first instalment has now been conceded, somewhat unexpectedly. Tho second and third have not yet been promised, but increased hope will bo felt that they will materialise, if not in tho present year, before much more time has passed.

The rate for letters, which will now bo reduced from 2d to IJjd, was raised to the latter sum, for postage within the Empire and to the United States, two years ago. The rates for post cards, reduced from ltd to Id, aodl for printed papers, reduced from Id to were fixed at the higher amounts in April of last year. Presumably tho rate of 5d on foreign letters is still to stand. The effect of changes now announced is that British postal rates will be cheaper in the immediate future than tboso now prevailing ire New Zealand 1 . Tho dominion rates have stood at 2d for letters and l,]dl for post cards since August, 1920, when a further increase was aleo made in

the rate for telegrams. They arc charges which press on everyone, and especially on i business. The letters posted in the year 1 covered by the. latest departmental report ! formed an increase of 3.64 per cent., as 1 compared with the preceding year, in spite of them; but the numbers of post cards and telegrams both shewed fallings off of 1.15 per cent, and 15.3 per cent, respectively. An increase was shown in the department’s irfivonne as a. result of the higher charges; but increases have been shown every year, and there is no proof that the revenue would not have- been as good, without injury to the community, from a larger volume of business if the charges hat* not been raised. Penny postage, with ils advantages for trade as well as general communications, was a valued boon in New Zealand, as throughout the British Empire, from the time when it was introduced' till it went the way of ether pre-war and a return to that ideal should be the object of our statesmen. It would be a mistake if this subject should be excluded from the deliberations of Mr .Massey's Taxation Committee.