The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. TUESDAY, JULY 24, 1888. POSTAL RETURNS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1900, 24 July 1888, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. TUESDAY, JULY 24, 1888. POSTAL RETURNS.

The figures m the Postal Report laid before the House show an increase of £5148 m the receipts for the financial year over and above the amount received last year, and altogether £311,608 was received, and the expenditure totted up to £270,635, or an alarming decrease of £21,657. The revenue was £40,973 m excess of the expenditure, arising from an abnormal decrease m the expenditure under the head of conveyance of mails by sea, which amounted to no less a sum than £18,669. Many economies have also been carried out during the year. The gratuitous work for the Government was as follows : — Free correspondence, £71,965 ; Government telegrams, £30,205 ; making the total earnings £213,790, or £143,144 more than the departmental expenditure. The sum of £22,984 was spent on telegraph extension. • There were 39,377,774 letters dealt with and 1,853,394 telegrams. Ihirty-eight offices were established. The total offices open was 1118. Twenty two inland mail services were established, and the total' is now 600. The length of telegraph lines has increased by 100 miles, there being now 4646 miles of line and 11,875 miles of wire. Telephone subscribers number 2042, an increase of 112. Last year the increase was 287. With reference to the new agreement between the Imperial Post Office and tho principal Australian colonies for the maintenance of a subsidised weekly mail service between the United Kingdom and Australia by the Peninsular and Oriental Company, the report says : — So far as the new arrangements affect New Zea land they are favorable. The colony has only to defray the cost of the homeward mails, and our payments for this year should bo considerably less than one- half of the amount paid m 1887.