CHEAP POSTAGE RATES

Taranaki Daily News, 15 July 1930, Page 7

CHEAP POSTAGE RATES

EFFECT ON WAGES. CIVIL SERVANTS’ COMPLAINT., Penny postage in New Zealand had been i eintroduced at the expense of the post and telegraph employees, said Mr. H. J. McKenzie, general secretary of the Post and Telegraph Employees’ Association, at Wellington on Friday. “When making his report to Parliament on the year 1922-23, the Post-1 master-General. estimated that revenue' would exceed expenditure by £572,00.0,” said Mr, McKenzie. “After making provision in various directions the net revenue was expected to reach £lOO,OOO. The Postmaster-General used this surplus for a reduced rate, on letters and a reduction of telegraph charges by 3d per message. “In 1927-28, the-gross, surplus of the Post and Telegraph Department was £1,029,000, its.net surplus only £20,000. Without raising the question of what became of that great total, we may say confidently that the drop in the return in 1927-28 was not duo to salaries. In 1923 there were 11,003 post and telegraph employees, in 1928 there were only 11,753. To account for the difference, the salary bill would have had to increase by £90,000, and even if we take the whole of the additional 750 men at an average of £l2O, which is high, that would not anything like cover the shrinkage in net revenue.

“Now, the reduction of tho postage rates to the public coincided with the application of the salary ‘cut’ to the Civil Service, and- to that extent the postage concessions-, were made at the expense of the Post and Telegraph employees themselves.” ■ Mr. McKenzie hinted that the great differences between gross and net revenue in tho Post Office in recent years were duo to the fact that very largo appropriations had to be made for the purpose of the telephone material depreciation. He said that his association was now concentrating its efforts on obtaining the institution of arbitration within tho department.