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1895. NEW ZEALAND

POST AND TELEGRAPH DEPARTMENT (REPORT OF THE) FOR THE YEAR 1894.

Presented to both Houses of the General Assembly by Command of His Excellency.

My Lord,—- General Post Office, Wellington, 13th July, 1895. I have the honour to submit to your Excellency the Eeport on the Post and Telegraph Department for the year 1894, with the usual statement of revenue and expenditure to the 31st March last. I have the honour to be, Your Lordship's most obedient servant, J G. Ward, Postmaster-General and Electric Telegraph Commissioner His Excellency the Governor of New Zealand.

EEPOET The revenue shows a fairly satisfactory increase. The telegraph receipts, however, fell short of the estimate, a result no doubt attributable to the commercial depression which prevailed throughout the colony during the year The circumstance is the more noticeable from the fact that the telegraph traffic of the previous year was abnormally high. A decided improvement in the telegraph business has set in since the beginning of this year, due to a great extent to the increased traffic in telegrams in connection with the marked revival in the gold-mining industry in the Auckland-Thames District. The following statement shows the revenue and expenditure for the financial year ended the 31st March, 1895 :— Bevenue. £ s. d. Expenditure. £ s. d. Stamps used for postage (estimated) 210,000 0 0 Salaries 185,509 6 5 Money-order and postal-note commission Conveyance of mails by sea 29,648 14 4 collected in the colony 12,871 2 0 Conveyance of inland mails 28,707 1 0 Money-order commission received from Conveyance of mails by railway 307 2 6 foreign offices 526 7 6 Money-order commission credited to Private box and bag fees 4,955 5 0 foreign offices 1 205 5 9 Postage from foreign offices 1,500 0 0 Maintenance and repairs to telegraphMiscellaneous receipts (postal) 17 584 16 6 lines, and miscellaneous 48,100 19 8 Ordinary and Press telegrams . 85,388 811 Cable subsidies 6,492 11 8 Telephone exchanges 21,552 12 10 Miscellaneous receipts (telegraph) 3,071 2 0 299,971 1 4 Balance of revenue over expenditure 57 478 13 5 £357,449 14 9 £357,449 14 9 The revenue was £12,773 2s. 6d., or 3-71 per cent, more than that of the previous year The expenditure increased by the sum of £6,266 lis. Id., or 213 per cent. The revenue was equal to 10s. 5-|d., and the expenditure to Bs. 9d., per head of the population of the colony The value of official correspondence for the year is estimated at £59,074 10s. 2d., and Government telegrams £26,050 7s. sd. The value of these services, for which no payment was received, was therefore £85,124 17s. 7d., a sum equal to 23-81 per cent, of the cash receipts. The balance of revenue over expenditure was £57,478 13s. 5d., as against £50,972 ss. the previous year If to the former sum be added the value of Government telegrams and the estimated value of official correspondence, the balance in favour of the department for the year is increased to £142,603 lis. The work performed by the department gratuitously for other branches of the public service must not be understood to be confined to the free transmission of letters, &c, and telegrams, as it includes many other descriptions of business of very large proportions. 25,823,967 letters were posted and 27,344,369 delivered—an increase of 79,222 and 1,003,665 respectively Inland parcels posted numbered 149,150, an increase of 1,091 over the previous year

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