PUBLIC OPINION

Waikato Times, Volume 94, Issue 14770, 8 October 1921, Page 6

PUBLIC OPINION

As expressed by correspondents, whose letters are welcome, but for whose views we have no -eanonsihility. o e RURAL MAIL DELIVERY. d . a (To the Editor.) Sir, —Please spare me a little space to ventilate a grave injustice to the s farming community. On reading over *’ the new rural delivery regulations, one wonders why the old system, which v was the result of many years’ experiy encc and which has given so much a satisfaction to farmers, is to be aban'r doned in favour of a new and untried e endlessly expensive system. Under 0 the old system a circuit which produced c sufficient revenue did not need to make r any cash contribution- If the revenue i, was not quite sufficient, settlers paid e a little; if the revenue derived was - smaller settlers paid more, the Postal t Department subsidising the circuit. In - backlying districts, where roads arc i, long and bad and houses few, the de1. livery is run at a loss, which appare ently is made good by revenue in s towns, and the nett result is to exit tend a real benefit to settlers, struggling e under great difficulties on unimproved t sections, miles away out in lonely disc tricts. Now, the new regulations seem to be specially designed to prohibit 1 settlers on backblocks from receiving s a real necessity—constantly in touch 1 with doctors, stores, etc. The big city r firms, sellers of manures, seeds, building and fencing material, and farm ) machinery of all sorts, are. dependent , on the farmers for [lie very existence ij of their business, and it is only right that a portion of the surplus revenue the post, office derives from the volum- ] inous correspondence of these big firms f should be spent ,in extending a real 1 necessity to outlying settlers, to Ih’ t, benefit of the firms as well as the , settler.' The Government and the press ■ of New Zealand have been stressing » the urgent need for increased produci tion, for developing the .idle unimprovi ed lands. When a man and his family , can expect to bo buried alive- —no rhai 1 , no ,’phone, in backblocks. what, induce • 1 men! is there for settlers to take up , the back-of-heyond land? One of the new regulations states that there must he four families to the mile or no service will be provided without special arrangements, meaning special payments. Where they do have the foir boxes to the mile the' settler has x i pay £2 a year, four mails a week, in circuits where the revenue has met all expenses. It is ridiculous to expect four boxes to the mile;, that is very close settlement. In real backlying districts one box to two miles is much more like it, and are the settlers to be cut off from ready communication with doctors, stores, etc., by this senseless new regulation? Anyone living inside town boundaries where there is every convenience will have the'r mail delivered twice- a day free of all cost. People who live Beside the post office are waited on with their mail, town- I people whose day’s work is done when 5 o’clock comes. A farmer, whose work is never done, who must he up at daylight and working hard till dark, has got to go and get his mail himself or pay, even When on a circuit where Urn revenue covers, all expenses. T’arrhcrs do not object to paying when, it is necessary to make up a deficiency in revenue. These new regulations pen T ! alisc the farming community, and are - most unfair and unjust, besides being I uncalled for and unnecessary—l am. i ° tC '’ ,T. B. CHAPMAN. . i