TELEPHONE EQUIPMENT

Evening Star, Issue 25619, 20 October 1945, Page 8

TELEPHONE EQUIPMENT

SPEEDIER DELIVERY FROM ENGLAND EXPECTED NEARLY 20,000 APPLICANTS YET UNSATISFIED (Special) WELLINGTON, Oct. 20. A building programme for the next five years, covering 247 new buildings, and costing about £4,000,000, had been prepared by the Post and Telegraph Department, said the Acting Post-master-General, Mr Jones, in the House of Representatives yesterday, when the Estimates for the department were discussed. Owing to'the housing position and the general difficulty over labour and materials, said the Minister, it was difficult to make a start, and there was also a good deal of deferred maintenance to overcome. He assured the House that, within the limits of materials which could be obtained, the department would endeavour to restore its services as soon as possible. The English firms from whom the telephone equipment had been ordered, were now turning from war production, and the department was hoping to get switching material and telephones which had been long on order. Applications for new telephones numbered between 15,000 and 20,000, and if the telephones could be obtained, New Zealand, which was third highest among the telephone-, using countries of the world,.would exceed the proportion in the United States, which now led the world for the highest number of tele-

phones per head of population. An improvement in rural mail services was largely dependent on transport facilities. A temporary air service was being provided for Taranaki, but the aim of the department was to give air mail services throughout the country as quickly as possible.