TWELVE MILLION GALLS

Evening Star, Issue 22689, 1 July 1937, Page 8

TWELVE MILLION GALLS

YEAR'S SERVICE OF SLOT PHONES COPPERS BY THE TON Public telephone call offices meet a public need so thoroughly in the Dominion that the total number of calls put through these handy slot machines fast year came close to twelve millions, representing a revenue of £51,026. There are nearly a thousand of these call offices, nearly all having the one penny in the slot machines, while a few deal with calls costing twopence and threepence. The calls at one penny numbered 11,732,770. Contrary to the general impression, the Post Office does not regard the public call office business as competitive to the residential telephone. Both classes have shown rapid increases of recent years. The revenue from slot telephones has developed as f0110w51933, £38,274; 1934, £30,093; 1935, £41,686; 1936, £45,422; 1937, £51,026. As a collector of copper coins the Post Office has no rival in the country, for it sells over £40,000 worth of stamps annually through its coppercoin vending machines, in addition to its gathering of copper through public call offices to the extent of a weight of nearly 114 tons per annum. The holdings of copper coins in the commercial banks at the end of May amounted to £21,000, a figure exclusive of the amount in the hands of the public. There is no danger of a copper coin shortage through the large-scale operations of the Post Office, because regular clearances of the coin boxes are conducted at frequent intervals, # the money promptly going back to circulation through the medium of the banks.

Every public call office is numbered, and the collections recorded, so that the extent of its service to the public may be gauged. These figures sometimes show that additional public call offices in the same neighbourhood are justified. The Post Office programme for extension of this useful service provides for at least another 55 public call offices during the current year.