I

1902. NEW ZEALAND.

POST AND TELEGRAPH DEPARTMENT (REPORT OF THE) FOR THE YEAR 1901.

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

My Loed, — General Post Office, Wellington, 23rd June, 1902. I have the honour to submit to Your Excellency the Eeport of the Post and Telegraph Department for the year 1901, 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. Waed, Postmaster-General and Electric Telegraph Commissioner. His Excellency the Governor of New Zealand.

REPORT. The results of the year are probably the most noteworthy in the history of the Department. Notwithstanding the introduction of penny postage, the gross revenue, which might have been expected to show a serious drop, is only less by £15,262 than for the previous year. The postal receipts, instead of being much below those of 1900, as might have been anticipated, have reached within £35,761 of the 1900 figures. The expansion of the telegraph business, referred to last year as remarkable, shows no signs of lessening; and the popular sixpenny telegram, although its increasing numbers have resulted in a sharp rise in the expenditure on salaries for additional telegraph staff and for telegraph maintenance, bids fair shortly to produce a balance of revenue over expenditure, instead of a deficit, as has been the case for so many years. Since the introduction of the sixpenny telegram in 1896 the number of forwarded ordinary and urgent telegrams has more than doubled in the six years—viz., from 1,701,524 to 3,521,986 —an increase little short of phenomenal. That the penny post, which involved the handling of close upon thirteen million additional letters, has been successfully introduced and carried on while the increased expenditure for postal salaries is only £6,468 may fairly be credited to careful management. As, however, the reserve capacity of the postal staff at many of the second-and third-class offices is probably near exhaustion, further increase in the volume of work will prove to be more costly in proportion than that already overtaken, and an increased expenditure on that account may be looked for. The following table shows the revenue and expenditure for the year ended 31st March, 1902 :—

i— F. 1.

Item. Postal. Telegraph. Total. Receipts. Stamps used for postage (estimated) Money-order and postal-note commission Money-order commission received from foreign offices .. Private box and bag fees Miscellaneous receipts Paid telegrams Telephone exchanges £ s. d. 232,523 0 0 20,837 4 5J 705 2 2 6,405 4 11 20,626 5 9 £ s. d. 10,352 17 4 141,581 2 7 55,542 4 9 £ s. d. 232,523 0 0 20,837 4 54 705 2 2 6,405 4 11 30,979 3 1 141,581 2 7 55,542 4 9 Balanoe of expenditure over revenue (Telegraph) 281,096 17 3J 207,476 4 8 4,939 6 4 488,573 ] 11 J Totals £281,095 17 3J £212,415 11 0 £488,573 1 11J