PUBLIC SERVICES.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17948, 15 November 1918, Page 4

PUBLIC SERVICES.

POST AND TELEGRAPH OFFICES CLOSED. SERIOUS INCONVENIENCE. The closing of the postal offices and telegraph offices in Christchurch and the suburbs on Tuesday, Wednesday and yesterday has raised ai storm of indignation. Inconvenience and loss have been caused to business people, private affairs have been interfered with and, above all, it was impossible during parts of Tuesday and Wednesday to get into communication with doctors and chemists or to send telegrams to relatives of. persons suffering from tho influenza. The bitterest complaints in tho latter respect come from tho public and private doctors. They say that in some cases the gravest consequences followed the want of the* usual facility for communication. Telegrams sent to relatives of people who wcro dying were returned. Even yesterday large numbers of telegrams came back to the senders. Art illustration of the annoyance caused by tho delay iu the post office is afforded by. the fact that the mail by the 0.8 express from, the south last night was not available at 8.20 p.m. Amongst the citizens wild feel that they have just cause for complaint ' is Mr P. Davidson., president of the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce. The return of a telegram he wished to dispatch led him to make inquiries, and he was informed that the stoppage of tho services on Wednesday and yesterday at least was the result of instructions from Wellington, and that those instructions were general throughout the Dominion. Mr Davidson last evening expressed very strong opinions on the authorities' action. He said that it was absurd at any time and was absolutely reckless at a time like the present. It would bo brought before the council of the Chamber of Commerce at its meeting on Monday, and he hoped that a strong, combined protest would be made by the Chamber, the Industrial Association and representative bodies. At the annual conference of Chambers of Commeroe in Wellington recently ho again brought up the question of avoiding interruptions in communication between •Christchurch and the North Island. It was proposed to ask the Government to place a sum on the Estimates that would avoid interniptions by storms on the land lines. Mr Davidson said in conclusion that the recent stoppages were decidedly unfair to this community, and that the instructions should not have been issued.