BEFORE PHONES

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXXII, Issue 12528, 13 April 1935, Page 7

BEFORE PHONES

RETIRING T.O. ENGINEER ■ LOOKS RACK NEW ZEALAND’S PART IN DEVELOPMENT (Special to the Times). WELLINGTON,) April 11. It would be difficult to appreciate what the world would bo like without telephones; yet Mr C. S. Plank, who has just retired from the .position of Chief Telegraph Engineer of the Post and Telegraph Department after 43 years’ service, was able to recall at a farewell gathering memories of New Zealand under those conditions. Only recently lie had discovered a ciicuit plan showing all the circuit; connecting various offices in New Zeaaml. It was .dated about 52-years ago—a period he could recall quite well—and ft was '.surprising; to him to see that on that plan there were no offices at such places at Daimevirkc, Ekctahiina and Pahiatua, and no circuits or offices between Marton and To Awamutu; and it was hard, he said, to realise that the country had developed so much in lews than one lifetime. Nowadays, of course, large telephone exchanges at places like Tailpipe, Ohakune, and To Kuiti served largo rural areas, but 53 years ago there Was not one telephone wire in Niow Zealand, and all the work in con uection. with telephones had developed since that time. New Zealand’s telephone development, added Mr Plank was third in the world, the only two other countries having better figures than New Zealand being the 'United States of America and Canada ; and, in so far us country districts wore concerned, New Zealand' was more developed than Canada in the matter of rural telephone;;. The Department was indeed in a proud position to-day, and during the past few years fihero had been revolutionary progress :n connection with telephones and telegraphs. lie asked his hearers to> recall tho various stages in the rapid development of telephone communication in New Zealand up to tho point when the streets were lined with masses of wire. These were eventually replaced by overhead cables, and later on by underground cables. In that connection he suggested that it was a matter of satisfaction .for everybody to know that all tho construction work had been done by New Zealanders, and that all work-insilde and outside of exchanges and telegraph offices had been performed by an engineering staff which had been recruited solely from New Zealand. It is a far call from 53 years ago, when thero was no telephone wire in New Zealand, to the present ’day, when there are no fewer than 125,000 eubserjber!? connected to the telephone exchanges of the Dominion,