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Accounts with individual balances of over £lOO total 23. Most of these will be closed during the current year as they refer to deceased depositors whose estates are in the course of being wound up. The remainder, most of which have only small amounts at credit, belong to depositors whose present whereabouts, despite searching inquiries, are unknown to the Post Office. School Savings-bank The School Savings-bank scheme, operated in conjunction with the Post Office Savings-bank, has the socially important objective of encouraging the thrift habit among school children. Regularity of banking is aimed at, rather than the occasional banking of substantial sums, and it is still better if the regular deposits come from the depositors' own earnings. Upon leaving school more than half of the depositors transfer their accounts to the Post Office Savings-bank. Satisfactory progress has been made during the year. The pre-war practice of arranging visits to schools by an organizer has been revived and this has stimulated interest in school banking. The continued goodwill of the teachers has also been invaluable in furthering the objects of the scheme. There are now 1,350 schools participating in the scheme, and during the year there were 672,489 deposits of a total value of £119,586. Money-orders, Postal Notes, and British Postal Orders The number and value of money-orders issued, postal notes sold, and British postal orders sold and paid during the year are shown in the following table : Number. Value. £ Money-orders .. .. .. 952,214 10,855,648 Postal notes .. .. .. 2,460,762 1,119,667 British postal orders sold .. .. 37,857 17,904 British postal orders paid .. .. 36,875 28,272 Suspension of Overseas Money-order Services Consequent on the devaluation of sterling in relation to the dollar, money-order services with overseas administrations were temporarily suspended on the 20th September, 1949. Generally, the suspension was for a single day, but in some cases a longer interval elapsed before the new conversion rate could be ascertained and service restored. MISCELLANEOUS BUILDINGS AND LAND The Post Office has on hand a large programme of building works. The buildings required include new post-offices (at several Wairarapa towns, for example, Post Office activities have been conducted in make-shift premises since the 1942 earthquake), telephone-exchange buildings, workshops buildings, line depots, &c., many of them urgently needed to provide accommodation without which the efficiency of essential services inevitably suffers. What can be done to satisfy this need depends, of course, upon conditions in the building industry generally and the resources in money available to the Post Office for building purposes.

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