The Akaroa Mail.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume V, Issue 456, 3 December 1880, Page 2

The Akaroa Mail.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 3

In another column will be found some correspondence touching the obnoxious and unjust impost of an additional 6d on every telegram sent to and from Akaroa. The correspondence consists of a vain attempt on the part of our representative to obtain fair play for this place in the matter of this impost, and a reply by the Hon. Mr Hall, which for cool, sneering insolence and total disregard of fncts it would bo hard to parallel. The language applied by MiHall himself to a political opponent, though far from gentlemanly, would, we fear, be only too applicable to the document in question.

With regard to the insolence displayed in this precious document, it pervades the whole of it, but culminates in the last paragraph. Mr Hall " regrets " that his admirable and patriotic endeavors for his country's good " do not, in this particular instance,meet with your approval." In the same tone of sincere commiseration your very particular friend is so sorry to hear that all your bill 3 were dishonored on the 4th, and of the manner in which you came by that bruise on the face.

But dismissing the tone of the communication as being really beneath notice, let us come to some of the facts (?) hy which the hon. g nfclenai attempts to justify the punishment for political contumacy, which he is evidently delighted to have it in his power to indict on Akaroa.

We have before us a return of the revenue and expenditure at certain telegraph offices. The offices in question showed an excess of expenditure over receipts, and the famous edict inflicting an additional charge of 6d on all messages sent to and from them was shortly afterwards promulgated.

, Since then this additional charge has been abandoned at many of the offices, in many cases it would be difficult to say on what grounds, but we shall confine ourselves to the three offices referred to by the Commissioner of Telegraphs, viz., Akaroa, Temuka, and Oxford. With regard to the first, it

figures in the return as follows :—(We omit shillings and pence) —Telegraph revenue £175 ; tekgraph expenditure £203 ; excess of expenditure £28 ; excess per cent. 16—per message (nearly). Mr Hall says that by amalgamation of office?, he has saved £171 per annum, and yet has the assurance to inform us that this " leaves still a considerable excess of expenditure over revenue." That is, we start with a deficiency of £28. We effect a saving of £171, and we are still left with " a considerable excess of expenditure over receipts." We have heard of some wonderful juggling with figures, but really this beats anything that has ever yet come under our notice.

But perhaps Mr Hall would say, if this view of the case were pressed upon him, that the deficiency he alludes to is on the two services, postal and telegraphic we would rejoin—in the first place this is a new issue entirely. The extra sixpence was imposed ostensibly because the telegraph revenue was less than the telegraph receipts. This deficiency we have shown has vanished, and yet the impost is continued. Rut we go further and aver that on Mr Hall's own showing the telegraph revenue (without the extra sixpence) is sufficient to cover tho expenses of both departments. The return we have already referred to was for nine months, and the telegraphic revenue at Akaroa for that period was £175.

Mr Hall is evidently not great at figures, but if he asks the first small boy he comes across to work it out, he will find that this is at the rate of £233 per annum. Now, under the last Appropriation Act the salaries (postal and telegraphic) for the Akaroa office were set down at £386. Of this sum MiHall says he has saved £171. We believe that this saving is independent of the ten per cent, reduction on the larger sum. But omitting this consideration, we then find that the salaries now payable in the two departments amount to £21 f>, or absolutely less than the sum collected for telegrams alone prior to the imposition of the extra charge.

So much for Akaroa. Turn we now to tho two offices referred to by the Postmaster-General. "At Temuka and Oxford it (the extra charge) has been abolished, because the cost of the combined offices is within the revenue collected there." Wo venture to assert that even a New Zealand Minister

driven into a corner has seldom given utterance to a statement showing a more utter disregard for facts than the above. At Temuka tho telegraph expenditure amounted to £187, and the receipts to £321, leaving a deficiency of £134 over 70 percent on the receipts and about 1 Id a message. The office was not so expensively worked as that at Akaroa. The postmaster only received £40 as such, and was a practical telegraphist. At Oxford the telegraph receipts were £68, and the expenditure £154. The excess of expenditure over receipts was £86, equal to one hundred and twenty-five pet-

cent on the receipts, and ls7da message,

And yet Mr Hall would have us believe that though he could not wipe

out a deficiency of £28 or £35 per annum at the Akaroa Office by reduction amounting to £171, he could yet get rid of a deficit of £168 per annum at Temuka and £113 at Oxford, the combined salaries at the former place being £336, and at the latter £261.

We repeat that a letter more damaging to the reputation for candor of any public man has seldom, if ever, been written than the one on which we have commented. We have only one retractation to make.

We wrote "Mr Hall would have us believe," &c. It is probable that that honorable gentleman, however great his contempt for Akaroa and its belongings, still cannot take us for complete idiots. He probably is well aware that his figures will not bear handling, but there runs through the whole document a vein of ill-disguised insolence which seems to say " I don't care a particle for your opinion as to my veracity or fairness. I've got the power to punish you and I mean to exercise it." We think this letter to our representative demands a forcible answer from his constituents. We are convinced that Akaroa has nothing to hope from any sense of justice on the part of the present Government, but we think the Postmaster-General should be informed in the most emphatic manner that the Akaroa people are not misled by his palpable sophistries, and know how to estimate the treatment they are receiving from him and his colleagues at its true value, and to remember it too.