Nominal Fee Covers Wide Scope Of Rural Delivery Service

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 10, 6 January 1948, Page 5

Nominal Fee Covers Wide Scope Of Rural Delivery Service

In reply to a request from Federated Farmers of -N.Z. that the Government should abolish the rural delivery fee, the Postmaster-General comments:

“I would remind you that for the payment of his annual rural delivery fee of £1 or 10s, as the case may be, the country resident receives more than the mere collection and delivery of his mail matter. He virtually has a post office at his gate. He is able to purchase there, stamps, money orders and postal notes. The rural mail man also for a consideration, frequently collects the settlers cream, delivers his bread, his miscellaneous parcels and his newspapers and, in many cases, were it not for the payment made by the Post Office, the services enjoyed could not be provided. It can be said that for the nominal annual fee which he pays to the Post Office, the country dweller receives full value. It might be mentioned, too, that the rural delivery fees were fixed as long ago as 1922, and that, notwithstanding increased operating costs, they have remained unaltered.”