TELEPHONE CHARGES

Timaru Herald, Volume XCVIII, Issue 18063, 8 March 1923, Page 6

TELEPHONE CHARGES

THE DEPARTMENT’S CLAIMS. SPECIAL COMMITTEE’S i DIAGNOSIS. PRESS' ASSOCIATION. CHRISTCHURCH, Wednesday. The special committee of the Canterbury Progress League, which considered the Postmaster General’s proposals to increase the telephone charges, reports that there are considerations discounting the claim of the Department that its telephone branch cannot in the future bo carried on without loss, except with a largely increased revenue from telephone subscribers. These considerations are:— (1) The year of expenditure selected by _ the Department as the basis for its estimate of loss was that ended March 31, 1922, a year in which it was shown to us that the cost of labour was at the peak, as also was the cost of material as charged to tho Department. (2) Since then the Department’s officers info nil us that the cost of salaries and wages Ls less than that of tho year ended March 31, 1922, by 10 per cent . and they have shown us that tliough some classes of materials have not yet decreased, yet important classes, such as bronze wire and cables, have con- ' aidorably decreased on cost. (3) The officers of the Department admit that tho coming extensive installation of automatic telephones will reduce the operating expenses within the next three years, though they are at present unable to. say to what extent,, biyt it is obvious that if a change is justified, tho annual saving funded will pay off the cost of such change. “Wo tliereforo consider,” the report continues, “on tho information available to us, that it should be quite practicable for the Department, while paying interest on capital, to profitably carry on its telephone business on its revenue, based on tho already substantially increased charges of the last two years, without asking more from tho telepliono subscribers as a whole than they pay at present. “Tho second question addressed by the committee to itself, with reference to the fair apportionment of increased chargos between the various subscribers, needs no answer as such, as tlio committee at present considers no increased charges necessary, but various information has come to tho committee which lends it to the conclusion that without increasing the total chargos to subscribers as a whole, good work may be done by tho Telephone Branch in—

_ (1) Ascertaining some really distinctive classification between business anti private telephones. (,2) Tho classification of all telephones into a few distinctive grades according to manifest grade of wse, and (3) Tho extension of the flat rate areas, as already proposed by the Department. “The method of charging measured rates for telephone sc twice, involving tho necessity of keeping account of tho number of calls on each telephone throughout the year, ha.s been frequently referred to during tho sittings of tho committee. On this question tho committee unqualifiedly agrees with tho Chief Telegraph Engineer that the advantages of the measured rates are enormously outweighed by the disadvantages of tho heavy additional cost of operating and accounting, which they must involve*'’