POST AND TELEGRAPH.

Gisborne Times, Volume V, Issue 77, 6 April 1901, Page 4

POST AND TELEGRAPH.

GREAT INCREASE IN BUSINESS.

During the course of a speech at a banquet given by himself to tho Post and Telegraph Association, Mr Ward said everything pointed to the success of universal penny postage. The increase in volume of post and telegraph business in the past year had been great and significant.

The revenue would amount to about .£58,000, an increase of between £19,000 and £20,000 over the previous year; this in the face of the fact that penny post had been in operation for the last three months only. As yet, of course, it was impossible to give any definite approximation of the effect of penny post. The telegraph receipts would probably exceed those of last year by £13,000. The paid telegrams would probably be found to number 3,458,628, as compared with 2,997,746 in the previous year, an increase of 15'24 per cent. Since the introduction of sixpenny telegrams there had been an increase of 83'95 per cent, in paid telegrams. The number of letters, letter-cards, and post-cards posted was about 39,269,292, an increase of over a million and a-half.

The Savings Bank business also showed a marked increase. The sum of £4,170,000 was deposited, as against £3,645,000 in -the previous year ; £3,827,000 was withdrawn, as against £3,470,000; and the sum at credit of depositors on 31st December was £5,809,552, as compared with £5,820,321 in the previous year. An addition of £489,000 to the balances at credit of 197,408 depositors could not but be considered wonderful. In face of the Savings Bank results, the Government had decided to borrow half-a-million locally. He predicted that the money would be readily subscribed.'

Mr Ward states that of eighty-five countries agreeing to allow New Zealand to send letters to their territories, only twelve have not agreed to allow letters to be sent back at the same rate. He looked forward to the time when cable messages would be sent to and from England and elsewhere at the same price as messages sent in the colony. If the cable companies stood in the way they would have to give way to the State or to State competition.

The great value of artesian boring in Central Australia has just been proved by the successful result of operations at Anacoora, about fifty miles east of Charlotte Waters. After boring to a depth of 1250 ft, a daily supply of seven hundred thousand gallons of water has been obtained, and a dry district has been transformed into an oasis. There is now a lake about half a mile long and a quarter of a mile wide at Anacoora. In consequence of the great success of this bore the Government is inviting tenders . for the sinking of another about thirty miles to the north-east, where the prospects are equally favourable, except that it is likely that the bore will he a little deeper.