Tide of Greetings Swamps British Post. Offices

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 306, 28 December 1936, Page 10

Tide of Greetings Swamps British Post. Offices

I i.v.JJOA.—Every minute of the ; . l Uitico working day in Britain 1.-ome 1U persons, on an average, waik inlo post oliices and send telegraphic gi votings on special gay golden •greetings” forms to 10 friends. That is what a calculation shows. And the I’ost Ullice admits that ,ji seven consecutive weeks toward the end of the summer a new high figure was reached with a general average of about a dozen senders a minute. Actual figures are 350,000 greetings telegrams sent during those weeks. Lise of 100 rer Cent. That is an increase of almost exact!) 100 per cent,, the Post Unite declare.--, over the corresponding weeks last -year and the result is that new works for the lelegiapn services have had to be included hi mis year's Post Office budget. 1 n.ese no? works are going to cos’ around x_ 1 1 •-. But ica.i.. mis is only a small bite out ol inc. money spread out in the counting House to be spent during J‘J3G uy the G. P. O. This year’s capital expenditure is a record, £13,530,000. Trunk Line Expansion The largest single item iu this bill is, it is announced here, the spending of 14,500,000 on expansion of the underground cable system. This expansion has been made necessary by the increasing use made by the inhabitants of Britain of the trunk, or long distance, phone service. Now that practically any call from one end of the country to the other costs only Is for three minutes talking after 7 at night the present trunk cable system is bending a bit under the strain and complaints have been received that callers sometimes have to wait rather a long time to be put through. The G. P. O. hopes its huge expansion programme will put an end to these delays. Big Sum for Buildings Anther £2,000,000 has been set aside for new sites and buildings connected with Post Office work throughout the country. More than 100 major building schemes will be started, it is hoped, this year, including 38 new post offices or combined post office and telephone exchanges, 23 separate exchanges and some dozen large garages. Liverpool and Glasgow are having large central automatic exchanges installed.