TWELVE MILLION CALLS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19365, 1 July 1937, Page 3

TWELVE MILLION CALLS

SLOT • PHONE SERVICE; COPPERS BY' THE TON ' , • • Public telephone call offices meet a public need so thoroughly, in the Dominion that the total number of calls put a -through these handy slot machines last year came close to 12 millions, representing a revenue of £51,026. There .are , nearly a thousand of these call offices, nearly all having the. one penny in the slot machines, while • a few deal with calls costing twopence and threepence. The calls at one penny numbered 11,732,770. Contrary to the general impression: the.. Post, Office does not regard the public call office business as competitive to the residential telephone. Both classes have shown rapid increases of recent years. The revenue from slot telephones has developed as follows: 1933 £38,274 1934 .. .. £39,093 1935 .. .. £41,686 1936 .. .. £45,422 1937 .. £51,026 As a collector of copper coins the Post Office has no rival in the country, for it sells over £40,000 worth of' stamps annually through its coin vending machines, in addition to its gathering copper through public call offices to the extent of a weight of nearly 114 tons per annum. The holdings of copper coins in the commercial banks at the end of May amounted to £21,000, a figure -exclusive of the amount in the hands of the public. There is no danger of a coppercoin shortage through the large-scale operations of the Post Office because regular : clearances of the coin boxes are conducted at frequent intervals, the . money promptly going back to. circulation through the medium of the banks.

The Post. Office programme for extensions of this useful service provides for at least another 55 public call offices this year.