"HELLO, THERE!"

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1776, 14 June 1913, Page 20

"HELLO, THERE!"

THE TELEPHONE IN RURAL LIFE. WHAT IT MEANS. . A COMMERCIAL AND SOCIAL CONVENIENCE. One of the reasons, mid perhaps tho Snost human one, raised in objection! to fann life, particularly by thoso who have had any lengthy experience- of city life, with its myriad distractions, is the prosbeet of being cut off from those intimatoii>usines9 and social associations which, fbfter all, form a considerable part of our Jlives. To thoso brought up in tho counr ftry, remote from' town or' railway line, She comparative isolation of their, situation ia natural. To them the silence of the bush, and tho.buTble of the stream is as ordinary and conventional,.and maybo. gust as- satisfying, as the aiternoon tea-'ttum-theatro-going: existence of city hotftiouse plants," but to tho average person—' lir.au or "woman—used to the ways of tho Jcity, town, or even settlement, the prospect of a life devoted to converting primitive country into fertile farm lands and femiiing homesteads is not always an alluring one. Man i 9 ft social animal. He like? to bs in close touch with his kind, (to exchange ideas ou current topics; to fossip on every subject under the euu; to eel and know that he is not cut off from Jlother men. Admitting that even tho .numerous dis|traotions v of a busy farmer's;life do not fcompensato altogether lor the loss of that Intercourse and tho many social amenities common to communities, it is suggested that ho might with pleasure and . profit turn his attention to devising ft means of improving bis social lot by calling in the nid of science. In some cases it 'is not, of course, feasible for th 9 settle!.; to avail •himself of the telephone's usefulness, as character of the country in its primiV, 'live state may present almost insuperable -'difficulties to the'erection and maintenance of lines, or the-distances between .holdings bo too great to be spanned by {wires, except at an unwarranted cost. jßtill. with the subdivision of largo areas tof cleared or partially cleared land by small farmers—a policy which is being tvigovously pursued by the present Govern-' Jnent—opportunity will arise for farming pommunitics to be brought into much closer touch one with another, by menus of She telephone to the mutual benefit of all concerned.' ■ I Even if such telephones are not co.'mect■fed with a system that speaks to tho big Vortd (a trunk line), the establishment of euchi a local centre at one© removes a rery great number of the inconveniences attendant on rural life. The centro of a Community system of telephones may, for ixample, bo a .village where the country store exists, and the coach-horse 3 ore «ven a blow, and that point would naturJlly be the exchange, as it would bo the tfocal post office. It would mean to all ionnocted with the system that tho farmer jwould be able to get into touch w:th the joearost doctor in a minute or two, instead of having to saddle or harness up .and travel miles of indifferent roads in any sort of weather. The storekeeper (would be within call, and should any Emergency■ arise, a fire, accident, ilutd, or /'.any of the hundred emergencies wHcb do (happen in the country, aid could be suminoned in a minimum amount of time. Sense and Sentiment. The idea of private "community" telephone systems is no new one. It is perhaps seen at its best in America, vhere e. telephone "fixing" arrives almost simultaneously with the fencing wiro, but there the conditions are ideal. Most of the country is open, grass land, there are-vast territories of flat and undulating land, and settlement is pretty close in the eastern and middle-west States, anyhow. There ero many -private- lines in New' Zealand, property-owners having realised the value

W being able to' "get into touch." _ That, however, is hardly what the wiiter is peeking', to convey, regarding tho uulity of the telephone in conntry life. The particular case is where a big estate is cut up into, say, a dozen of twenty sin all farms, all within a few miles of nno snlother, yet, as things exist at present, it may take those people years to Establish anything, like an intimate friendship one frith the other, as with the. never-ending fwork of tho small farmer, ho is apt to (hesitate before harnessing up to travel iover five or ten miles of new road. But. limit that community together with teleIphone wires, and life takes another aspect. 'New interests are stirred up, friendships We formed, and the steel thread, which stretches away from the varnished box [in the corner of the room becomes a. Hive wire" to your neighbours' homes end hearts. The Practical Side, No man in New Zealand knows more about telephones than Mr. T. Buckley, 'Chief Government Electrician, to whose sympathetic ear an appeal was made for some practical hints on what might be called tho "community telephono system." •He at once made it abundantly clear that such a system was impracticable in New Zealand bush country, even though the lioldingu wero fairly close together. "It is altogether unsuitable for our bush .(country," said Mr. Buckley, "in the first place, because tho wires could not be stretched without clearing a track through the bush, and then there would "always bo the danger of tho line being broken through a falling tree. Wo generally make a point of making a clearing a ohain wide whon taking a line through bush country. In fairly open country *he idea is feasible enough." _ AYould you advocate the wires being carried on fences? • "No, I certainly should not. You may get a scratch service that way, but it would never be altogether satisfactory. A : ohoap sorvico is always a bad service, and I would never advocate doing any telephone work cheaply. The fence-posts may be used to support scantling-poles that suspend the wires, but even that lfl not. so satisfactory as erecting your own P, "\s for the poles, steel rails and hardwood timber, even totara, would be too sxpensive. Silver pine makes good pota, gnd birch is not to be despised-it lasts | well in the ground, and would probably bo cheaper than anything else. Use xuld also bo made of isolated trees if ■ ihey-perg -ponvemontty/ disposed, an J

every case the insulators should be especially attended to. There have been case 9 where country telephones have been suspended, on trees,.by. staples or eyelets, nafurally with -unsatisfactory results. I remember one case,-,where tiw tree grew, over the wiro, and'Whon the .Department's officers were asked to discover why • tlie service was so bad itwas. found that tho faulty wire (on ;a pnvato line) was buried in the tree, the flap 01 which inada a.good conductor to-earth. "The wire costs roughly «Jos. a mile, I should say that, erecting your own post 3» telephone wires (not more than.' tvvo) could bo put up at a cost of from A J to JCIS a mile, according to the charactei of the country/''

Cheap and Nasty. "America is a great place for the-tele-phone," said Mr. Buckley, who visited that' country a year ago. "They have hundreds of these little systems among tho farming communities, but,, pt course, the place is more closely settled theio thanhore.. They'usually start by oaeu farmer putting in so much into a fu.id, and with the money they instal the cheapest kind.of system they know. It may work all right for a time-good enough, so to speak-but when it goes wrong'and. money is 'required for maintenance, they, get t&ed, and sometimes the whole thing falls into disuse. As far as I could gather, 'there were hundreds going Mat 'lay, and hundreds of others starting every day "there.'That's why I should suggest good material and sound methoil» -it makes tho cheapest telephone in tho long ruin. And then, when the lime comes to connect up with a permanent Government line (if that is not (lone initially) there will be no trouble on account of poor material and workmanship. Our experience on connecting up with private'lines has not always been a pleasant one. Complaints are made about the service being defective, and invariably the fault exists on the private section of the line. . . Form Associations. "I think that the idea of connecting up tho farms by telephone is a good one under favourable conditions. It could be done bv forming small telephone associations, to which each famtfr would subscribe so much for a start, and a small annual siim to cover the cosf of maintenance. ihe mistake in America seemed to be that tne farmers thought the first cost was the only 'cost,- and-that fence- wires were good enough. '■ That is not the class of ecrvic« to be advocated'in New Zealand. Avoid the cheap and .hasty always in telephone There' is, of course, another point of view to that held by Mr. Buckley, whose standard means, in brief, the perfection, of efficiency. There are those who might, not be able to run to the cost of.aje rvice such as that advocated by the Chief Electrician. There are those who might have a few cdils of fencing 'wire to spare, which can be rigged up cheaply and strongly enough on scantlings attached to fenceposts. The insulators could be bought very cheaply, aud so two homesteads a mile away could be brought into communication at a comparatively tnning C Mr W- E. Morris (secretary of the Post and Telegraph Department), an official who believes that the man on tho land should bo given all tho facilities possible to bring him into closer touch, said that here were many private lines in all parts of New Zealand _ usually connected with a post office. When the Government lines were used by owners ot private lines the ordinary bureau charges were made, but where the owners had their own little exchange at some central-ly-situated homestead; and ■ spoke to one another without tho aid of a Departmental bureau, the case was different. It was entirely a private and exclusive business. There were such private exchanges which were an immense benefit to settlers. A case'in point was Carswcll's private exchange, which connects up the .stationholders between Masterton • and the East Coast. This exchange, which has at present no fewer than forty subscribers, is a private concern. It has two trunk lines, running into Masterton, so that not only can the settlers for miles round communicate with one another by tinkling a bell, but- they caii" communicate with anyone in Masterton, and can send telegrams from that office-by using one of the two trunk wires which traverse the distance between the exchange and the Masterton' Post and Telegraph Office, on payment of the ordinary bureau charges.

A still larger scheme is that of the Kaipara Telephone Club, near Dargaville, which has about 150 subscribers and a permanent staff to run its exchange and also to erect lines and connect up new subscribers. \ Last year the Pnparoa Settlers' Club started its system with about 85 connections, and these are already being added to. There are also, some growing systems about Te Kuiti. aud in various parts of Hawke's Bay, Taranaki, and elsewhere; There is plenty of helpful literature i available, got up in such clear and aiin- ' pie form, that any man of average intelligence can, with its aid, erect liis own line and connect his own instrument, so that his actual cash outlay can Uiub be reduced to a minimum. \ From the foregoing it will be readily grasped that no community of settlers need bo altogether, cut off one from the other- Life in tho country would be a deal less louesomo with a "Hello I" instrument within reach.