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1925. NEW ZEALAND.

POST AND TELEGRAPH DEPARTMENT (REPORT OF THE) FOR THE YEAR 1924-25.

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

To His Excellency the Right Honourable Charles Fergusson, Baronet; General on the Retired List and in the Reserve of Officers of His Majesty's Army ; Doctor of Laws ; Knight Grand Cross of the Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George ; Knight Commander of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath ; Companion of the Distinguished Service Order ; Member of the Royal Victorian Order. May it Please Your Excellency,— I have the honour to submit to Your Excellency the report of the Post and Telegraph Department for the year ended 31st March, 1925. RECEIPTS AND PAYMENTS. The business of the Department continues to be satisfactory. The excess of receipts over expenditure was £473,193. The amount of income from postages is less than that which obtained during the previous year. The reduction was expected, as during the whole of the year the reduced rates of postage were operating, as against only six months for the previous year. However, as work increases, it is confidently expected that the increased volume of business will result in the revenue from postages soon reaching the amount obtained in the previous year. TELEPHONE SERVICE. The expansion of the telephone-exchange system is one of the most distinctive features of the year's operations. Altogether, twenty-one new exchanges were opened during the year, and to these and other exchanges throughout the Dominion 13,304 new connections were made. This is the greatest number of new stations connected during any year since the inception of the telephone-exchange system, and is more than three times the number of applicants who were awaiting telephone connection at the beginning of the year. The number on the waitinglist at the beginning of the year was 4,086. Notwithstanding the large number of new connections made during the year, there are still 3,622 persons on the waiting-list. Telephone-exchange service, which up to recent years was regarded as more of a luxury than a necessity, has fast become one of the greatest public utilities, and with all classes of the community there exists an insistent demand for telephones. The development of the country exchanges has undoubtedly been greatly stimulated by the present rating system, various attractive features of which, from the viewpoint of the country subscribers, are the liberal

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