DOMINION MAIL BUSINESS.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 877, 25 July 1910, Page 4

DOMINION MAIL BUSINESS.

ITS RAPID EXPANSION. Speaking at the annual roailroom "social" on Saturday evening, Mr. D. Robertson, Secretary to the Post and Telegraph Department, reviewed the changes that had occurred since he joined the service in ISSI. When he arrived in Wellington in that year there were only 16 officers, all told, in the Chief Post Office. Now there were 223. It was amazing to look back only a short, time and note the progress of the Department and the increase in the number of officers. In lhSl fhi' Department handled nine million letters and collected a revenue of .£121,000. Last year 151,000,000 letters were handled, ana the revenue totalled £515,000. Postal business proper, in that short time, had increased sixteen or seventeenfold, while the revenue had scarcely increased fivefold. It was very evident that a Teat deal more work was being done for the same money. They could not do it if it were not for the organisation afld improvements in the service, and, whut was liettor still, the general improvement in the work of both men and officers. Each man hod to do a good deal better than when the ■speaker and bis contemporaries were youngsters. In the Wellington postal district in 1575 something lite a million and a quarter letters were handled, and in 1903 about seventeen million. The revenue in 1875 was .£51,000 and in 1903 it had risen to ,£82,000. Last year 35 million letters were handled in the Wellington district alone, and the postal revenue totalled .£139,000. These 35 million letters did not represent all the work that had been done. At least 70 million letters must have passed through the Wellington office during the year. Continuing, Mr. Robertson stated that the number of post offices open when ho joined the service (1881) wajs 571. Now there were 2191, and the number was very vapidly increasing, particularly in the North Islaud. In INS 3 the whole staff numbered 878 officers, whereas now there were 4076, a small army in itself. They might look forward to a constant development. He did not think people would ever give up the penny letter. The amount of parcel-post business carried out by the Department had. increased 150 per cent, in two years. The paiccl-post 6trvice 6eemed particularly suited to the wants of their people. The number of letters per head of population was much higher in New Zealand than in any country of the world. He hoped that some day the same might be .said about the parcels. Concluding, Mr. Robertson 'remarked (hat in going so far hack for his statistics, he probably had not shown how rapid the development had been in recent, years. But the business of the Department had doubled in about five or sis years. let them hope it would double again in the nest five or six years. They would be then able to go to Parliament and ask for a little more recognition than they were getting at present, although they were doing remarkably well.