SERVICES REINSTATED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26241, 27 August 1946, Page 6

SERVICES REINSTATED

POST OFFICE DEVELOPMENTS FURTHER EXTENSION. PLANNED / The reinstatement of various services since the conclusion of hostilities was discussed by the Director-general of the Post and Telegraph Department, Mr H. M. Patrick, in an interview with a Daily Times reporter yesterday. The first step that was taken, said Mr Patrick, was to abolish the closing of the smaller offices at the lunch hour, and the next was the reinstitution of the night clearances of street letter boxes. These were operatihg throughout New Zealand now, with the exceptions of Auckland, Wellington, Wanganui and Invercargill. Staff difficulties constituted the problem that confronted the authorities in Wellington, he continued, but in the other centres private contracts had yet to be made. The clearances in those places had always been done under private contract. A number of the smaller exchanges were asking for continuous attendance, and it was hoped to be able to give this in the not far distant future, said Mr Patrick. On his visit to Australia he found that the Australian Post Office was sympathetic to the smaller offices in relation to hours of attendance. In some of the smaller offices, arangements were made for a boy to sleep on the premises alongside the apparatus in case of- an emergency, but on inquiry Mr Patrick learned that in many instances a month would elapse before it would be necessary to make use of the boy’s services.

Mail service contracts are being relet in the South Island, said Mr Patrick. These are usually on the basis of a three-year term, and the results of the re-letting to date were very satisfactory. Wherever possible and provided the revenue permitted, every effort was being made to extend the service in order to make up leeway which was inevitable during the war period.