SALES OF STAMPS

Hawera Star, Volume L, 10 January 1931, Page 7

SALES OF STAMPS

STOPPAGE OE COMMISSION

DEBATED 60 YEARS AGO

Payment for commission on postage stamps isold by shopkeepers in eonjnnticn with their business, which has been brought before the public by the Government’s decision not to- renew licenses, was a subject discussed by Parlament as far back os 1866. Probably before then, and as a result it was de-. cided that the system of paying commissions to vendors was worth while front the -point of view of convenience. In 1866 a return .was asked and cabled showing the expense incurred in the- Postal Department in “allowances to sub-postmasters and licensed vendors of stamps’’—-licenses which are now to he discontinued, and the result of this return, apparently was that the system '<ot paying commission to- vendors and of salary- to sub-post-masters, was adopted again, after it bad been discontinued a few years previously. The actual cost set out in return was £1257. The- discussion in the House- when the returni was asked for is of particular interest at present, for from the point of view of convenience in obtaining -stamps, the same conditions, to all intents and purposes, exist to-day.

Air .Stafford, in the absence of the Postmaster-General, said it was a voluntary act on the part of so-me vendors to sell stamps, but it was the duty of the- country postmasters- to do so, and it was therefore merely a question of salary in regard to them. . .With regard to the others, lie believed they would still sell stamps without commission,'as it was not for that small amount—-which would not cover the interest -on the first- outlay—that they did so, 'bu to draw custom.

Mr. J. C. Richmond said that great inconvenience did; arise in Nelson, where he might say that postage stamps could only he got at the post office. Wh en a mail was leaving the clerks were besieged for them and the greatest annoyance was the consequence.

Mr. J. O’Neill said inconvenience arose from the new arrangement at Auckland, where those who had before sold stamps now positively refused to do so.

Other speakers who agreed that it was a great convenience for stamps to be .sold by others than the post office were Mr. Dillon Bell, Major Richardson, and Mr. Atkinson.