THE Grey River Argus. PUBLISHED DAILY MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1874.

Grey River Argus, Volume XV, Issue 1899, 7 September 1874, Page 2

THE Grey River Argus. PUBLISHED DAILY MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1874.

Ijt a recent issue we presented in a summarised form the tenth annual report of the Telegraph Department for the year ending 30th June, 3874 From the tenor of that report, and even from the balancei sheet with which it was accompanied, it would seem at first sight that the working ot the department was most satisfactory, bat this cause for gratulation is more apparent than real. The chief desire of the General Manager appears have been to show that the department pay?, and to prove this he triumphantly points to his "highly satisfactory" balance-sheet. IE it could serve any good purpose, it could easily beshown that, even according to this "highly satisfactory" calculation the telegraph department is not pecnniairally successful, nor should it be of necessity, beI cause in telegraphic, as in postal matters, the convenience to the public is of greater importance than the commercial success of either branch of the public service. But before this public convenience can be secured ?we must {first have efficiency, and in this respect the telegraph department is a positive failure. Without attempting to undervalue the services of the officers of the department, and without making one word of complaint against any of these|hardly-wroughtandunderpaid public servants, we cannot ignore the fact that complaints, both load and deep, are continually being made of the nonI efficiency of the general working of our telegraphic system. Assertions are commonly made that the efficiency of the department is sacrificed to the peculiar notions of the General Manager with regard to economy, or, in other words, that he obtains those balance-sheets which are so very satisfactory by means of what the immortal Captain Wragge would describe as the " cheap and nasty system " of management. Thus it happens that the cause of the complaints made of the bad working of the telegraph department, can be traced directly to the anxiety to produce a good annual financial statement. The public at large, and business men especially, are continually complaining of delays, as well as of gross blunders and inaccuracies, in the transmission of messages which are often of the first importance; indeed we know of one instance where the unaccountable delay in forwarding a message, and its unintelligibility when received, resulted in all but absolute ruin to the sender, and being acquainted with the circumstances, we know the department is to blame. But this state of affairs can only be expected, when boys of deficient education, as a rule, are employed to do the work of capable men, and the system will be perpetrated as long as no inducements are held out to retain well-trained and well-tried officers in this branch of the service. As a contemporary remarks — " One phase of the Ward-Chapman case, if all the facts were carefully sifted and if the truth could be arrived at, is most probably the result of " economical management," and the inflictions under which the Press of the Colony has groaned is another. It seems as if the general manager had issued an imperative order to all his subordinates, that they must be strictly economical, and that in accordance with this rule he supplies them with bad tools. They write on miserable pnper with still mor^ miserable pencils, and their object seems to be to use as little of the former as possible. A long Press message, for instance, which requires a great deal of filling in, is written so closely that the person who has to do this important work gives it up in dispair prefers to adopt—- he is often compelled to do so— the easier task of transcription. An operator could surely do his work as easily and as expeditiously by writing the lines of his manuscript one inch or more apart as -by jamming them so close to each other that " filling in" is not bob-

sible. And the receivers of messages have a right to expect that they, should be legibly written on paper that will bear handling." The General Manager, by his earnest and energetic personal attention to his duties, may have deserved the high compliment he reserved from the Premier during the recent discussion in the House with reference to the Telegraph Department, and it must be satisfactory to Mr Lemon to know that he has virtually received the thanks of the Parliament for his professional ability, as shown in the application of the duplex telegraphic system to the Cook's Straits cable. We do not begrudge him the bestowal of these honora, but we do object to his mixing up high class professional skill, with exploded ideas of arriving at commercial success, and that is all he has exhibited in this wonderful achievment of his in producing a financial result, which will not bear the test of even superficial examination.