ENGINEER LOOKS BACK

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22545, 12 April 1935, Page 5

ENGINEER LOOKS BACK

WHEN THERE WERE NO TELEPHONESNEW ZEALANDERS’ PART IN DEVELOPMENT It would be difficult to appreciate what the world would be like without telephones; yet Mr C. S. Plank, who has just retired from the position, of chief telegraph engineer of the Post and Telegraph Department after 43 years' service, was able to recall at a farewell gathering in Wellington memories of New Zealand under those conditions. Only recently he had discovered a circuit plan showing all the circuits connecting various offices in New Zealand. _ It was dated about 52 years ago—a he could recall quite well —and it was surprising to him to see that on that plan there were no offices at such places at Dannevirke, Eketahuna, and Pahiatua, and no circuits or offices between Marton and Te Awamutu; and it was hard, he said, to realise that the country had developed so much in less than one lifetime. Nowadays, of course, large telephone exchanges at places like Taihape, Ohakune, and Te Kuiti served large rural areas, but 53 years ago there was not one telephone wire in New Zealand, and all the work in connection with telephones had developed since that time. New Zealand’s telephone development, added Mr Plank, was third in the world, the only two other countries having better figures than New Zealand being the Lmitefi States of America and Canada; and, in so far as country' districts were concerned. New Zealand was more developed than Canada in the matter of rural telephones. The department was, indeed, in a proud position to-day, and during the past few' years there had been revolutionary progress in connection with telephones and telegraphs. He asked his hearers to recall the various stages in the rapid development of telephone communication in New- Zealand up to the point when the streets were lined with masses 'of wires. These were eventually replaced by overhead cables, and later on by underground cables. In that connection he suggested that it w'as a matter of satisfaction for everybody to know that all the construction work had been done by New Zealanders, and’ that all work inside or outside of exchanges and telegraph offices had been performed by an engineering staff which had been recruited solely from New Zealand. It was a far call from 53 years ago, when there was no telephone wire in New Zealand, to the present day, when there were no fewer than 125.000 subscribers connected to the telephone exchanges of the Dominion.