PENNY POSTAGE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20322, 2 February 1928, Page 18

PENNY POSTAGE.

AGITATION IN AUSTRALIA. (From Our Own Correspondent, j SYDNEY, January 26. Inspired by the Canadian Budget, which proposes the reversion to penny postage to Britain and other parts of the Empire, a section of the Sydney pressis agitating for the same reform in Aus tralia. The Federal Government would at least remove an anomaly if it only restored the penny postage in local areas and re tained the three-halfpence for longer dis tances. That it should cost the same to send a letter from, say, Sydney to Perth as it does to send it from one suburb ol Sydney to another suburb seems ridicu lous. It was the Fisher Labour Admini stration, in the days before Labour put its head in the oven and turned the gas on, which reduced the charge to a uniform penny, not only throughout Australia but also oversea. That was in 1917. During the war, however, the charge wa increased to three-halfpence. Then came the twopenny postage. A few years ago the extra halfpenny, which was regarded as a tax and not as an extra charge for service, was removed. The Government is now being told that the time is ripe for another reduction. If it were not for the press, the public would cheerfully submit to all these things. The fact has just been revealed, for example, that if one wants to post a late fee letter at the Sydney railway station he must, forsooth, first of all pay twopence for a platform ticket to get on to the station. The excuse is that this charge is made, as is the case with every one going on to the plaform, to prevent congestion of traffic there. Poor old Demos would be dumb and blindly obedi ent to every demand made upon it if it were not for the press and for its exposure and \ ontilation of quite a lot of legitimate gri nances.