ALL-BRITISH TELEPHONES.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 9 February 1927, Page 4

ALL-BRITISH TELEPHONES.

-» AN EXPLANATION,

A corresnondont signing himself “Interested,’’ in a letter to the Editor published yesterday, asked how it came about that, in view* of the published statement that the Hawera automatic telephone installation w*as the first allBritish system to be installed in New Zealand, his business telephone bore the name of a 'Chicago firm of telephone manufacturers. “Interested’s” question was submitted to the Postmaster, Air L. ,T. Bull, who stated that the telephone instruments which subscribers used were certainly of American origin, but they represented only a minor part of the system. The whole of the automatic telephone exchange at: the Post Office was British, the work of Alessrs l Peel, Connor, of England. One of the supervising engineers who was in Hawera in connection with the work, -when a similar question was put to him said, “The ’phones themselves are nothing. They are American made : certainly, but w r e do not look upon the instruments' in homes and offices as the telephone system. The automatic installation is at the Post Office, and that is (British all right. The relation of the American ’phones to the system is just about on: a par with a set of 'Yankee tyres on a British motor car — It’s still a. British ear.”