OUR POSTAL DEPARTMENT.

Colonist, Volume XIX, Issue 2200, 20 October 1877, Page 6 (Supplement)

OUR POSTAL DEPARTMENT.

I Thebx is at least one report among the voluminous documents laid before the Assembly which may be read with feelings of uumixed satisfaction, says the Otago Daily Times. It represents a department which costs the Colony a net £50,000 a-year or so, but when we look at the work done for the money, we, are inclined to say " and worth it—every penny of it.". We allude, of course, to the Post Office Department. . The total cost for the year; including £64,919 for'tbe carriage of mails by sea,'was £140,236, and the total revenue £86,547 j or, if the estimated postage of " franked" correspondence were reckoned, it would be £51,816 more. What a prodigious amount of red tape this latter sum represents we leave onr readers to estimate. We suppose the ' franked correspondence is included in the returns of I the number of letters received and despatched, and may partly account for the immense increase in correspondence since 1870, the date of the commencement of the Public Works policy, which has sent official communications flying all over tbe Colony like flocks of mutton birds. The figures fur the two years are as follows: — 1876. 1870. Letters reoeived 5,576,848 3,018,933 ' „ despatched.., 6,193;889 2,626,947 • TqUI ~,,.,11,770,787 W,979

r flere we'have1 more than' double the number' oj' litters dealt with in 1876 when compared with 1870, and in the samo period the revenue increased io somewhat greater proportion. But the most remarkable and satisfactory feature in the returns, st all'eventß, from a Press point of view, is the increase in tbe circulation of newspapers, which iB as follows: — 1876. , ■ 1870. Newspapers received 4,861,843 2,266,934 „ despatched 3,100,905 1,622,728 Total 7,962,748 3,889,662 There iB amass of valuable and instructive printed matter diffused broad-cast through the country, or emanating from it. Who is to estimate the benefits to the human race derivable from such a supply of newspapers? These figures really are very remarkable, for we have only increased our- population during the period by about 50 per cent., a large proportion of the incroase being infants, who don't, as a rule, read newspapers or write letters /and here we have increased the circulation of letters and papers by over 100 per cent. Could we desire: a better proof of progress than this ? The total number of officers of the department in 1876 was 855, ana tbe total payments for salaries £37,585, an average of £44 o year each, whioh would lead to the conclusion that the said officers are not adequately paid, which we suspect is really the case, although some portion of the salaries being paid by the. Life Insurance and Savings Bank Departments, the actual average of salaries is really higher than this. The coßt of the mail services, via San Francisco and via Suez, is as follows ;— San Francisco. Suez. Cost ;..... £49,129 £14,225 Less postages, etc......... 25,387 8,129 £23,742 £6,096 or in round numbers, a total of £30,000 a year, which is not really an oppressive amount to keep up regular communication all round the world. . The1 inland mails were carried a distance of 7479 miles at regular intervals for £27,797, and the total mileage travelled was 1,792,752, at an average of 3|d per mile.