TELEPHONE SERVICE

Timaru Herald, Volume XCVIII, Issue 18068, 16 March 1923, Page 7

TELEPHONE SERVICE

IN TEMUKA ELECTORATE. Yesterday afternoon Mr T. D. Burnett, M.P., . accompanied by Mr J. McDermott, electric telegraph engineer ior Canterbury and Mr Pike telegraph engineer for fcSouth Canterbury, completed a day’s tour of the Teniuka electorate. Tho object of the tour was to get into the closest touch with tho telephone users of the district, givo information to those intending to form party lilies and generally to inquire mto further means of extending telephone facilities.' Tho tour was very comprehensive and fully served its purpose. Deputations were met at "Winchester, Geraldine, Mount Peel Station, Skip-ton, Tokapo., Puikoki, Albury, Cavo and Pleasant Point.

As a result of the tour, Mr Burnett is moro convinced than over that tho surest way to relievo tho congestion of traffic that at times comes on to the main arterial telephone lines, and which causes business to be held up oven in tho remotest bureau offices, is to put on another metallic circuit from Timaru to Fairlio. To continue this circuit as far as Tokapo, to confine ail messages from beyond Tekapo—that is Pukaki, Glentartner and the Hermitage —to one of these lines, and the Tek-apo-Burke’s Pass-Kimbell to the other. With an additional circuit, Eairlie to Timaru, it would give a freer passage to all traffic from tho Pleasant Point, Cavo, Albury and Fairlie exchanges, and all the ramifications of lines in tho Fairlie and Mackenzie basins. It would also obviate the necessity for linking the Enirlie-Geraldine route between Owt-rsby and Beautiful Valley, which linking up would give no practical relief to tho drovers taking the big mobs of Mackenzie sheep} to and from winter quarters. As a direct result of the tour three party groups at Tokapo and Pukaki (2) have definitely decided to avail themselves of the accommodation provided by the Loan to Country Telephones Act to assist settlers to erect lines, and consequently there will be, within six months, 21 subscribers to tho Tekapo bureau and 10 to Pukaki. Air McDermott remarked that the additional subscribers at Tekapo were tho final argument in the need for duplicating the line as far as Tekapo. It is just as well to explain that tho seemingly unnecessary delay that has occurred'at Gcr.ddino over tho putting in of tho metallic service is largely the result of the deliberate polioy of tho Department to concentrate during the period of short sapplies of material, now happily ended,- in giving ’pliono facilities to those districts where no such facilities existed, rather than improving systems where such were alreadv in use-. . Another result of the tour is that Mi- Burnett is now approaching the Railway Department, tho Geraldine Comity' Council, and the Geraldine Borough Council to each contribute one-third of the annual rental—that is, ppg—fer a Geraldine exchange connection with Orari Railway Station.