RURAL TELEPHONES

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2566, 14 September 1915, Page 9

RURAL TELEPHONES

COLLECTION OF DDES.. The Dominion Secretary of the Now Zealand Farmers' Union has received tho following reply from the Post and Telegraph Department to the. Dominion Conference resolution respecting the collection of telephone subscriptions on party lines: — , "1 have tho honour to refer to "your ■letter of the 17th ultimo addressed to the Chief Postmaster, Wellington,, conveying a resolution asking -that the Department collect subscriptions from individual to party telephone lines; and to inform you that the Postmaster-General regrets that tho request cannot be considered favourably. "I am to point out that tho rule under which subscribers to a party lino are required to appoint one of _ their number to act as their agent in, all dealings with the Department was made iu order to minimise correspondence, to facilitate the collection of subscriptions, and to. prevent loss. It was the habit of subscribers in turn to disclaim liability for the subscriptions of signatories who had moved away.

"When one of tile party fails to pay liis subscription, the other subscriptions must be raised bo that the full amount due may be recovered; and to attempt to do this after, say, four or five had paid would cause endless confusion and much dissatisfaction and friction. If the holder of an exclusive connection does not pay his subscription the connection oan bo cut oif, but this could not always be done in the case of a party line, unless all the members of' the party refused'to pay.. Many party lines consist of considerable lengtlhs of private wires which connect with departmental wires at distances of from ono to three miles from exchanges. The Department would not have tho right to cut off a defaulting subscriber's connection with the private portion of the line; and if any other members of the party had already paid, the connection could not be cut off at the exchange. Party lines are arranged for by a number of individuals acting by mutual agreement as one body, and tho Department can only deal with them as'a whole. The Department is unable to dictate to party line subscribers whom they shall a-dmit to or whom they shall exclude from the service."

Man-eating tigers at 1 © the exception rather than the ••rule. Mr. l r al>ert de Incey, a member of the Te Horo family of that liaine, has joinod the Field Artillery and is in camp at Claremont, Tasmania. He expects to be leaving for the front almost immediately. -