The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING, Luceo Non Uro. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1923. THE TELEPHONE CHARGES.

Southland Times, Issue 19757, 3 February 1923, Page 4

The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING, Luceo Non Uro. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1923. THE TELEPHONE CHARGES.

The Invercargill Chamber of Commerce, after a lengthy discussion with Mr Veitch concerning the new telephone charges, has decided to go into the whole question deliberately before committing itself to approval or condemnation. If the good people of Hawke’s Bay, who gathered in Hastings on Thursday and carried a number of resolutions condemnatory of the new charges had moved with more caution, they also would have found that the Post and Telegraph Department’s case for the new rates is prodigiously strong. The Hastings meeting’s first complaint was that the proposals were brought forward in an unbusinesslike manner, without full information concerning the revenue and expenditure of the Department being given to the public. It would be a fair question to ask if the Chamber of Commerce and the other bodies in Hastings were viewing the matter as telephone subscribers or as payers of taxation. The Department put forward its claim and invited comment with the offer of assistance from the officers of the Department, but, adopting the stand of a business concern, it may state that it is required to show its balance-sheet whenever it proposes to increase the charges for the goods it sells. The shareholders may be entitled to see the balance-sheet, but the consumer so far has not enjoyed that privilege. It is rather peculiar to find a Chamber of Commerce, in an age when business men have insisted that Government trading departments should be conducted on commercial lines, stoutly condemning an effort by the Telephone Department to accede to their demands. The PostmasterGeneral, in his statement a few days ago completely disposed of the fallacy that extensions of the service cheapened the cost of operation. It seems that so far as telephones are concerned, this principle of factory' management is subject to so many qualifications as to be practically inoperative. While the community is calling for commercial methods in trading departments and in public services, and while business men are seeking for reductions in the cost of administration of the affairs of this country, it is futile to start condemning the Government’s efforts to follow this advice, simply because the charges to the public fbr a service have to be increased. The New Zealand telephone charges under the new scale are still much lower than those obtaining in Australia, United Kingdom or America, and users of the telephone should remember that fact before they hurry with their condemnations of this increase. One point upon which the Chamber of Commerce in Invercargill might with advantage obtain more information, is the exact effect of the new scale on rural telephones. It seems to us that the best possible development of the telephone in the interests of the Dominion, is the adoption of substantial reductions in the charges to telephone users in the country, reductions which will be so attractive that the small farmers will insist upon installing the telephone. The Invercargill Chamber, from the few remarks made by members on Thursday, is evidently taking a reasonable view of the whole position and it is not allowing itself to be carried into hysterical objections simply because the price of the service has had to be raised. Resolutions like those adopted in Hastings cannot help the Department and cannot help the country. It is much better for business men to deal with the question as business men, and not as subscribers trying by threats to frighten the Department into abandoning the necessary increases.