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New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4186, 20 August 1874, Page 2

The annual report of the Telegraph Department is, dated the. 24th instant, and was laid before Parliament yesterday. It states that the progress of" the department during the year had been satisfactory, the revenue, which amounted to £45,000, having exceeded the estimates by £2000./ This is all the more satisfactory since it was in November last that the tariff was considerably reduced, both for private and Press messages. We observe that the number of Press messages, chiefly in consequence of that reduction, had increased during the year by 17,000, or over fifty per cent., though the cash received was £6OO less than in the corresponding period of tho previous year. The amount received from the Press was £4066. Messages to the number of 752,899 had been transmitted during the year. That number showed an increase of 183,939, or rather of more than twenty-four per cent. Eight thousand money orders had been transmitted by telegram in the courseof the year, representing a sum of £38,052, or an increase of 2210 messages and r £9945 in amount. The commission collected by the P.st-Office was £1035, of which £4OO was duo to the Telegraph Department for fees, leaving a profit of £634. The largest number were . issued in Dunedin, Wellington, and Christchurch respectively ; and the second largest amount paid was by Auckland. The extent of line maintained during the year was 2530 miles, at a cost of £6 3s. lid. per mile. Twelve new offices wore opened in the course of the year. The lines earned £59,875, a sum which left £6026 as interest

on an expended capital of £249,594. For every hundred letters transmitted by post the number of messages was over twenty-three ; and in some Provinces the per centage was as high as twenty-eight: At the close of the year, 2530 miles of line, carrying 5182 milesof wire, were in circuit, and it was contemplated to make large additions to the mileage in the course of the year, to meet the increasing business of the department. The report, which is signed by Mr. Vogel, closes with a note from the Premier to Mr. Lemon, the Telegraph Commissioner, in which he writes with reference to Mr. Lemon's discovery of the mode of conducting duplex telegraphy : " I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of the Government, the expression of their recognition of the, service you have been able to render the Colony, and their thanks for the same. I desire also to request that you will convey the thanks of the Government, for the assistance. they have rendered in this important improvement in the system of telegraphy, to Mr. McAlister, the assistant officer in charge of the Wellington station, and Mr. Smith, the mechanician to your department, by the latter of whom all the apparatus now in use was made."

The members of the Legislative Council are to be congratulated upon the course they have adopted in dealing with the State Forests Bill of the Government. The membei-s of the higher branch of the Legislature, most of whom are men possessing . not only local knowledge, but information obtained by travel, and, from observation in many countries, were peculiarly qualified to pass an opinion on the subject matter of the measure. They were tolerably xmanimous, not only in its favor, but in the wish that it had jjome before their House, not in a mutilateolform, but in the larger and more comprehensive aspect that it presented when it first appeared before the Assembly. Of course Mr. Waterhouse did not see the matter in this light ; and Mr. Mantell, who has views of his own on this and other matters, sided with him. But the Council was in so favorable a mood that the second reading of the Bill was carried without a division ; and the Bill wa3 read a third time last night, without amendments, and passed.