TELEGRAPH CHARGES

Waipukurau Press, Volume XXX, Issue 190, 20 August 1935, Page 5

TELEGRAPH CHARGES

FLAT RATE FAVOURED BY HASTINGS BUSINESS-MEN Among the executive of the Associated Chambers of Commerce there is a consensus of opinion that the Post and Telegraph Department should revert to the former flat rate charge on telegrams, said Mr. Haskell Anderson, of Napier, while speaking at last evening’s meeting of the Hastings Chamber of Commerce as the Hawke’s Bay representative on the Associated Chambers executive. The department, he believed, would obtain much revenue, and would serve the convenience of the public better. The present system was merely hindering traders, and in the far south and the far north, where business people were far away 'from the main trading centres, the charge on the mileage system worked unfairly. As a result of the present system, he added, business people were using the telephone service to a greater extent, and to find out the true posi-

tion in the matter of telegraph revenue, it would first be necessary to find not whether the revenue from toll services had increased. There had been a very slight increase in the

direct revenue from telegrams. Mr. W. H. Wood remarked that the Post and Telegraph Department should follow the principle adopted by the Railway Department in respect of non-paying railway lines, and should either close down* telegraph

lines that were too expensive to keep in operation, or should tax the whole

community for them rather than over-charge those who used the profitable lines.

It was resolved to write to the Associated Chambers of Commerce suggesting the desirability of reversing to the flat rate charge.