The Wanganui Chronicle. MONDAY, APRIR 9, 1934. TELEGRAPHIC CHARGES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 77, Issue 83, 9 April 1934, Page 6

The Wanganui Chronicle. MONDAY, APRIR 9, 1934. TELEGRAPHIC CHARGES

COMMERCIAL houses are complaining that their telegraphic expenses are increased by 20 per cent, as a result of the new scale of charges. This increase is a natural result of the new system, for the basis of the new system of charges is that the distance shall be taken into account in assessing the charges 1o be made for the sending and delivery of telegrams. A business house seldoms uses a telegram for a local message, therefore it has no prospect of recouping itself for the increased cost of the long-distance charges by savings on the short-distance wires. The business house is, therefore, going to lose ou the swings without making up on the roundabouts. What will be the result of the new system? Quite obviously there will be an economising in the use of the telegraphic service. The telegram habit is one that can either be encouraged or discouraged. The world would go on quite happily if possibly one-third of the telegrams were never dispatched. When the telegram habit is discouraged these non-essential wires are not sent, and the disuse of the wires can grow as rapidly as the habit of using them. A ease in point is to be found in the Press telegrams, for whereasat one time the newspapers were very liberal in the use of I he telegraphic service for the dispatch of news, the increase in the charges for this service resulted in an economy in their use. In the first instance the newspapers had to consider their expenditure in relation to their revenue in the same way as any other class of business. Consequently, when the telegraphic charges were raised, the Press wires were cut down to conform to the amount of money available for the purpose of financing a 1 less telegraph service. The net result was that the public was paying the same price for the smaller news service. Other means, certainly less speedy, but nevertheless efficacious, were resorted Io for the transmission of news that was not of urgency. It is not in the interest of a public utility to encourage a searching economy being made by its customers into the ways whereby the disuse of that utility can be achieved. But that is the policy which the Post and Telegraph Department has been following of recent years. The increase in the postal rates, for instance, caused one large commercial house to watch its postal deliveries with care, with the result that a saving of £5O a month was effected. When the postal rates were subsequently adjusted to a lower scale, however, the firm in question did not relax its vigilance on the postal deliveries. The move, in so far as that firm was concerned, resulted in a direct loss to the Postal Department. The public will doubtless follow a similar course in regard to the sending of telegrams, and it is doubtful whether the increase in the charges will offset the decrease in business through the discouragement of the use of the wires.