INLAND MAILS

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 85, 4 January 1919, Page 6

INLAND MAILS

INCREASED COST OP CARRIAGE,

Owing to,the high cost of running all horse-drawn and motor vehicles, the cost of carriage of inland maile In eonie of the districts not served by the railway has increased very much in.recent years. The result has been that the Postal Department has had to pay for the'carriage of these mails much more than the revenue derived from them. In these circumstances the Department is'trying to induce settlers, in some of the districts to make a larger subsidy to the services than they had been in the habit of paying, but the Minister says that the settlers in some of the districts are not. showing willingness to pay the increased subsidies. ( The Minister says'that it is not suggested that these.increased subsidies should be demanded from these eettlers in the back-blocks who .wire trying to carve homes for themselves out of the, wilderness, but the Department' considered that well-established farmers in prosperous districts should tte prepared to pay a reasonable proportion' of the actual cost of delivering their mails when those inaijs were being delivered at a heavy loss. The demand of some of these settlers was that the extra cost should be passed on to the general public.