KAIRANGA POST OFFICE.

Manawatu Times, Volume XLVI, Issue 2031, 24 January 1922, Page 5

KAIRANGA POST OFFICE.

Sir, —For some time past some of the Kairanga residents have been agitating for a rural mail delivery. For many years they have had a daily mail service which left their Post Office (very centrally situated) at 9.30 a.m. and a return bag arriving at 2 p.m. Their mail matter was carried to every part of the district by their children attending school (which, by the way, is also the post office). Each settler has a private box at the local Post Office, and all this box cost him was the cost of erection, about 5/-. Not content with this, many in this highlyfavoured district wish to be further spoon-fed, and have their mails delivered to their doors by the Department, the cost of such delivery, I am told, approximating £IOOO per annum. One resident states that he has had to travel four miles for his mail for 40 years. Pie should think himself lucky—some settlers in parts of New Zealand have to travel 14 miles over muddy bridle, tracks. Others state that the present service is unsatisfactory, for the reason that mail matter has been scattered about the roads and found under doorsteps and in gardens. They should have informed the public that it was their own children who were responsible for the scattering and loss of letters, and not the fault of the service or any officers of the Department. Deputations have waited on Ministers and members, who, of course, do not like to give a direct refusal. Messrs Nash and Newman should have enough courage to tell the deputation that the Government cannot afford to spend so much money on a luxury, when it has nothing to spend on bare necessaries, and at a time when the Postal Department is working at a loss and is reducing the salaries of all its officials. But the general election is at the end of this year. At the last meeting held here it was decided to request the Department to close the local office in favour of a rural delivery and to get Mr Nash to pull the necessary wires. At that meeting there were several from right outside the Kairanga postal district who strongly resent closing the local office, and who are perfectly satisfied with the present service, but I. suppose they must be put aside for the sake of their more selfish brethren. —I am, etc., WHEY CHEESE. Kairanga, January 22. __