POSTAL AND TELEGRAPH DEPARTMENT.

Timaru Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 2770, 9 August 1883, Page 8

POSTAL AND TELEGRAPH DEPARTMENT.

The report on the Post-office and Telegraph Department dealt with the year ended December 81st, 1882. The statement of revenue and expenditure, however, ia for the financial year ended March 31st, 1883. There has been a large and general increase m the bniiness of the Department, the last year baring been more than usually prosperous. Thenumber of letter: dealt with >v 30,525,579 — an increase of nearly 5,000,000, or 19 44. per cent. The number of telegram) of all codes trans-milt-d was 1,570,189— an increase of 131,417 messages, or 9.13 p»r cent. The revenue shows an increase of £80,105 lOi 2d, or 18.79 per cent over the previous year's receipt*. The expenditure for the year increued by £21,255 19s Id — an abnormally large increase. The statement of the revenue is a> follow*;— Stamps for postage, £130,000 ; money-order commitsion, £8369 6s 8d ; money-order commission received from foreign offices, £295 10s 2d ; private box and bag fees, £3029 Is Ed ; postage from foreign offices, £24,305 17i 2d ; miscellaneous receipts (postal), £5008 19s 9d ; ordinary and Press telegrams, £34,876 4s 6d ; telephone, £SOl9 9s ; miecellaueoui receipt* (telegraph), £2745 10a 2d ;— a total of £264.634 18s 2d. The expenditure was: — Salaries, £115,268 Os 4d ; conveyance of mails by sea, £61,977 6a 7d ; conveyance of inland mails, £26,049 Si 7d ; moneyorder commission credited to foreign offices, £1299s 13s ; maintenance and repair* of telegraph lines and miscellaneous, £44,642 14 i 64 ; cahle subsidies, £5312 7s 6d :— total, £251 547 10« 3d. Balance of revenue otct expenditare, £101,087 7s lid. The revenue from stamps ia but an estimate. Daring the year £18,654 for telegraph extension and £9938 for new building* was expended out of loan. The sum of £3090 for buildings, alterations, and repairs was apentoutof vote on 111 public buildings— in all £34,672. The carriage of mails by railway is not debited to the Department. This lewice :s valued at £15,000 per annum. No credit is taken for official correspondence and telegrams, amounting to £84,361 8s 4d. Though it is desirable that the actual receipts and expenditure of the Department should be capabls of being stated precisely and m a conoise form, this cannot be accomplished under the present system. The post-cards delivered were 418,477, and poated 640,618 — showing a total increase of 86,555 ; book-packets and pattern parcels delivered, 1,087,584, posted I,3oß,o7l— showing an increase of over 28 per cent over the previous year ; newspapers delivered, 7,357,473, posted 5,955,626— an increase of nearly 9 per cent. Tho number of letters poated by e*oh person is estimated at 30. The sum of £102,345 8s 8d -way collected at post-offices, m 16,478 payments, on account of the pro* perty tax. Forty-two additional wall or pillar receivers were erected daring the year, and 10 closed, the total number of such now being 183. Forty-eight new post-offices were opened, nine reopened, and 25 closed during the year, tbs number of post-offices being now 900. Eighteen additional money order and savings banks offices were established. The inland service was performed at a cost of slightly exceeding 2d per mile. The net cost of the Ban Francisco and firindisi service* were £1176 5s 93 and £4715 3a 9d respectively. Unclaimed letters show an increase of 6 per cent. In the letters opened m the Dead Letter Office were gold, money, and cheques to the amount of £6892 Its. In addition there were gold watches, ring*, nuggets, and brooches. The registered letters numbered 111,?74. On an average tbe B*n Francisco service to Dunedin was five days shorter than the Brindisi service. In tbe savings banks there were 21,204 new accounts opened, and 14,505 cloted, the number of accounts now being 67,517. There were 129,952 deposit! made, for £1,325,852 2s lid ; there were 69,303 withdrawals, for £1,142 599; and the total amount at credit at the end of 1882 was £1,470,950 13s 6d— an iqprease of £238,162161 9d. The excess of deposits over withdrawals for the year was £100,000 less than the previous year. The average cost of each transaction was slightly under sd. The number of shil* ling aocounts opened was 852; the previous year there were 1656 of snch accounts opened. The money orders numbered 148,162 for nearly half a million. The money orders issued for Europe and Australia show a balaaoe of .£104355- against the colony. The telegraph was used for the transmission of 15,133 orders, for £"50,263. The telegraph rath revenue for the calendar year was £39 876 18» 2d, and tb« expenditure £96,005 15s 4d— or a loss of £6128 17s 2d. The average number of telegrams sent to every 100 letters for the whole colony was 13 — an increase over the previous yew. m the face of an unusually large increase of letters. The average cost for maintenance of telegraph lines per mile was £5 17s sd. Nine hundred and fifty-one telephones were imported, of which 767 are now m use.