POST AND TELEGRAPH DEPARTMENT

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1636, 8 July 1903, Page 58

POST AND TELEGRAPH DEPARTMENT

A STE A DILY-PH OSPER OU S BUSINESS. THE ANNUAL REPORT. The report of the Post and Telegraph Department for the year which ended March 31sr was submitted to Parliament last Thursday. Tne business, the report states, was highly satisfactory, the receipts exceeding those of any previous year. The gross revenue, which showed a drop in tne previous year on account of the penny post, was £30,525 in excess of that for 1901, whilst the balance of revenue over expendiure reached £37,284. Despite the cheap postage, the telegraph revenue has continued to increase abnormally, but the large addition required to the staff to handle the telegraph business is responsible for the fact that there is still a balance of expenditure over the telegraph receipts, and this has to be matte good out of postal revenue. The different character of the postal and telegraph business may be gauged by the fact that £21,507 more postal revenue was collected than in the preceding year, for an increase in salaries of £0792, while for an increased telegraph revenue of £15,018 the telegraph salaries rose by £11,930 —-that is to say, the additional postal business coso 31.58 per cent, for salaries, while the additional telegraph business cost 79.44 per cent. Moreover had the same volume of postal business been done at the postage rates subsisting two years ago, nearly double the revenue would have been derived at the same cost. On the other hand, the telegraph business was dealt with under the same tariff as had been in operation during the six preceding years. The total telegraph salaries show an increase of £22,680, but th,9 large difference is accounted for by tho inclusion for the first time under the head of “ salaries ” of the payments made to country telephonists by way of fee-s, and formerly charged to “ miscellaneous.”

It is not alone in the handling of mail-matter and the transmission of telegrams that the business continues to grow. The year, the report states, has been also a record one for savings banks, and nearly all other classes of business .transacted, except in moneyorders issued, and newspapers handled. In newspapers the figures fell 2.41 per cent, as compared with those for the previous year —a result to be <at-w-nbuied mainly, if not entirely, to the fact that a happier, though less stirring, period followed the late war. Th© fail til money-orders issued is duo to the attempt to suppress the Tasmanian racing lotteries. The receipts on tho postal side of the department during the year amounted to £302,604 0s 9£d. and tho telegraph revenue to £222.494 16s 6d, the tonal receipts, therefore, being £525,093 17s 3£d. The expenditure amounted to £487,814 10s, made up as follows:—Postal, £259,447 9s 5d ; telegraph, £228,367 0s 7d.

The remarkab.e increase in the Post Office Savings Bank business is the subject of special comment in the report. It is pointed out that the number of separate deposit accounts is in. the ratio of one in every 3* of the population (including Maoris;, so that not only must almost every adult possess a banking account, but numbers of young people and children also have accounts. Nor is this a mere matter of a few shillings saved, since the average amount at tho credit of each account has reached the very respectable sum of £3O 5s 3d, or a total of £6,883,787, which is equal to £8 10s fid for each man, woman and child in the colony. While, during the past ten years, the number of offices has been increased from 318 to 481, or more than 51 per cent., the number of deposits has inoreased from 186,945 to 411,215that is to say, by 120 per cent. —'and the amount from £1,878,270 to £5,069,619, or 170 per cent. There has also been a steady increase in the total and individual savings. During the decennial period, the amount at the credit of depositors increased from £2,863,670 to £6,883,787, or at the rate of over 140 per cent. It is only natural, observes the report, that with an increase of 102 per cent, in the number of depositors, their credit balances should be largely augmented* but when it is remembered that .the increase in the savings far outstripped the ratio of increase in the number of depositors, it will be seen that not onb r are there more than double the number of depositors, but that each depositor is richer than in 1892. Tho average increased 19 per cent., or from £25 9s to £3O 5s 3d. While the amount at the credit of the depositors increased 140 per cent., the amount allowed by way of interest exceeded that- of 1892 by only some 55 per cent. —a fact due to the reduction in the rates of interest between June, 1893, and November, 1897, though it proves that the institution fulfils its function as a savings bank independently of the rate of interest. It is noteworthy that the number of withdrawals has increased in a greater ratio than the number of de-posits—-a circumstance attributed to the tendency to deposit amounts in excss of actual savings, and to draw occasion xeouires.

The number of letters posted during the year was 53,278,875, an increase of 4,908,059 as compared with the preceding year, and equal to 66.78 letters per head of the population. Tho letters received from places outside the colony numbored 3,410,381. The number of forwarded telegrams of all codes was 4,559,304, an increase of 391,323. Money orders numbering 367,207 for the value of £1,277,059 were issued, and 286,642 orders, representing £1,117,137, paid. Tho telephone subscriptions amounted to £62.151. When the value of the free official correspondence and Government telegrams is added, the credit balance on the year’s transactions amounts to £135,670.

The report states that the Pacino cable is steadily growing, and since the completion of tho cable, tho colony’s telegraph business by both routes has increased by about 50 per cent. Tho average number of messages transmitted to and from New Zealand prior to tho opening ef the Pacific cable was about 425 per day. The present average is nearly 600 a day by both routes.