POST AND TELEGRAPH DEPARTMENT.

Otago Witness, Issue 3376, 27 November 1918, Page 5

POST AND TELEGRAPH DEPARTMENT.

[ ANNUAL REPORT. The annual report of the Post and Telegraph Department shows that, notwith- : standing tne state of -war, the business of s the department during* the year was very ! satisfactory. The total revenue amounted !t0 £1,837,260; the expenditure amounted to £1,489,446: there was thus a balance of receipts over payments of £347,814. The I regular expenditure shows 'a serious in- ! crease, due to the rise, amounting in some - cases to 300 per cent., in the cost of materials required for the maintenance of the ! department's services. I Over 52 per cent, of the permanent staff { eligible ' for military service and over 300 !of the casual staff have joined the New I Zealand Expeditionary Force. The total number of officers on the staff I thi3 year and last was as follows: —Permanent staff—l9l7, 6960; 1918, 6969. Temporary—l9l7, 734; 1918, 1188. Not on classified staff—l9l7, '2500; 1918, 2443. During the year the department had found the need of considerably extending the employment of girls as telegraph messengers. The services of the girls are satisfactory. Notwithstanding the severe drain upon its man-power due to military requirements, the department was able to give the public practically a pre-war service up to the end of June, 1918. When it was found that the oalling-up of members of the. Second Division of the Expeditionary Force Reserve would make it impossible for the full services to be continued, the question of reducing the facilities to the public was • exhaustively considered; and the curtail- | ments decided on were made from July 1, ' 1918. Generally, they are in the direction of shortening the hours during which post and telegraph offices are open to the public, reducing the number of deliveries by postmen in the cities and towns, allowing a greater margin of time between the closing and despatch of mails, and reducing the frequency of clearance of street postingboxes. The alterations, involving a considerable reduction of night work, have enabled women to be employed to a greater extent than formerly, when a large proportion of the work was done at night." A safe-deposit system has been inaugurated by the department, and special safes I for tiie purpose have been installed at 25 principal post offices. The system will enabfe the public to place in safe keeping j sealed packages not exceeding llin in length containing valuable documents, such as wills, insurance policies, debentures, deeds, etc. Coin, bank notes, jewellery, precious stones, or other articles of value , will not be received. ! The department has continued without I intermission. its work in connection with j war loans. Since the date of the last report J two loans have been placed in New Zealand I —one in September, 1917, and the other in j : March, 1918, and the sale of war loan certificates has been steady throughout the intervening periods. .The contributions re- | ; ceived towards war loans by the Post Office j i now amount to £10,876,000, of which sum ' | £3,955,000 represents the sale of war loan j • certificates, and the balance Treasury bonds. ■ The public has lodged in custody of the • General Post Office certificates to the value j ;of £1,553,314. Many inquiries were made! jas to the custody of Treasury bonds. This . ] is provided for by the safe-deposit system recently established at post offices. | The l , number of articles delivered in the J dominion, including those received from , places beyond, during the year 1917, compared with the number in 1916, was as under: —Letters and letter-cards: 1917, 124,753,070; 1916, 121,609,30&; increase, 3,143,764. Post-cards: 1917. 4,254,705; 1916, 4,602,910; decrease, 348,205. Other articles: 1917, 43.488,744; 1916. 46,456,046; decrease, 2,967,302. Parcels: 1917, 3,019,336; 1916, 2,981,392; increase, 37.944. Totals: 1917, (175,515,855; 1916, 175,649,654. I The letters and letter-cards increased 2.59 i I per cent., post-cards deoreased 7.56 per , cent., other articles decreased 6.39 per cent., j and parcels increased 1.27 per cent. The declared value of parcels from places ' outside the dominion in 1917 was £580,126, las against £668,377 in 1916. The Customs j duty amounted to £107,432 15s 3d. The dej clared value of parcels despatched to places beyond the dominion in 1917 was £31,215, as against £39,133 in 1916. The proportion of dead or unclaimed j letters, letter-cards, and post-cards to the j total number delivered within the dominion waa 0.51 per cent.

The money order business for the year shows a decrease in the number of transactions and in the total of tho amount remitted. Thirteen money order offices were opened and eight closed, leaving 809 offices open at tho close of the year. "The money orders issued numbered 642,683/ for a total of £3,476,645; 'those paid 550,921, for £3,130,574. The business with countries

outside New Zealand also shows a decrease, the total amount sent abroad being £498,648, and the amount received from abroad £168,710. The total commission received for the transaction oh money order business amounted to £16,077. The postal not© business shows a slight decrease; 2,166,597 postal notes for £638,246, were issued, and 2,150,613 were paid. On ! this business the commission of 9326 was ! received. Twenty-one offices were opened I and 13 closed, leaving 1024 postal note i offices in operation at the end of the year. j The number of British postal orders sold j was 93,058, as compared with 108,612 for ; the previous year. The amount sent away by means of this very useful form of remit- , tance was £55,489. The 20s and 10s notes ■ still continue to have the greatest sales. The business of the Post Office Savings ! Bank again shows a remarkable increaso in the excess of deposits over withdrawals. It amounted to no less than £2,645,360; ! and, in addition to this, there was credited |to depositors' accounts an amount of £947,821 for interest. Thus the total amount at credit of depositors was increased during the year by £3,593,181. The total balance at credit of depositors on the 31st December, 1917, was £29,196,389. TheTse results are an indication of the unabated confidence reposed m the institution by the peoplo of the dominion. Eightyrtwo thousand two hundred new accounts were opened and 53,921 closed, leaving 566,351 still in operation at the end of the year. This gives a proportion of one account in every 2.03 of the population. The total transactions show a material increase. The deposits reached a total of £17,106,529, and the withdrawals £14,461,169. The average deposit amounted to £l4 2s 3d, and the average withdrawal to £2O 2s 4d, while the average amount at credit of each depositor was £sl lis. If the total at credit were divided equally among the whole of the people, the amount at credit of eaoh person would be £25 8s lOd. The working expenses of the Savings Bank amounted to 3.97 d per transaction, which gives a cost per cent, on the total amount at credit of depositors of 0.11 per £IOO. The telegraph _ revenue shows a marked increase whioh is due principally to two causes —(1) the increased telegraph rates which are in force, and (2) payments received from the Defence Department on ageount of the immense amount of work performed for that department. The grand total of the telegraph revenue, including telephone exchanges and miscellaneous receipts, amounted to £861,233, equivalent to an increase of almost 1.97 per cent. If to this be added the value of " free" Governtelegrams, the total amounts to £868,182. The payments made on account of these services amounted to £803,691, an increase equal to about 15.24 per cent/ The expenditure for salaries is below normal on account of the large number of officers at the war, who are replaced by temporai'y and other lower-paid officers. • There is still a steadily increasing' number of , bureau communications, the number having increased from 4,382,823 to 5,040,672, an increase of 657,849. The number of telegrams increased from 5,742,739 to 5,828,198, an increase of 85,459. The cable business during the year shows an increase in the traffic, and also discloses the fact that the Pacific- route, which in the previous year took 71 per cent, of the ordinary outward business, received 63 per cent.; while the Eastern Company's proportion of the business increased from 29 per cent, to 37 per cent. The number of international cable messages forwarded during the year shows an increase of 20.59 per cent, on the number sent during 1916-17, and the number forwarded to Australia shows an increase of 1.07 per cent. The fiv.b wireless stations of the dominion continua to work satisfactorily. The •volume of traffio is not great, owing to the exigencies of the times. Attentive watch is kept at all the stations to meet any shipping emergencies that may arise. The expansion of the telephone exchange system continued steadily throughout the year. Thirteen new exchanges were opened, and the number of subscribers increased by 4415 and connections by 5240. The total number of exchanges ia 280, of which 62 are central exchanges—i.e., self-contained—■ and 218 sub-stations. j The total revenue received was £344,368, ' an increase of £27,093 on last year's figures. Apparctus has not yet come to hand for the buildings at South D'unedm and Bos- j lyn, which are ready. It is expected about the end of the year. I