DOMINION’S POSTAL SERVICE

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 117, 15 February 1928, Page 12

DOMINION’S POSTAL SERVICE

RECORD OF EXPANSION “SECOND TO NONE IN THE WORLD” The remarkable growth of the Post and Telegraph Department in New Zealand in the space of 87 years was described by the Secretary of the Post Office (Air. G. McNamara) in an address at the Rotary Club luncheon yesterday. . It might surprise them, he said, to learn that the New Zealand postal service had its birth at Kororareka in 1840, and that the little post office there was controlled from New South Wales. Stamps were first issued in 1855. and in those days full advantage was taken of the option to make the receivers of letters pay upon delivery. To-day the Post and Telegraph Department had a staff of 10,000 trained officers who worked all round the clock in shifts, and yet, despite irregular hours and meals, the wastage from sickness only amounted t° five davs per year per man. Describing the wide ramifications of the Department, he explained that the financial transactions during 192 b amounted to 250,000,000, w’hilc those for 1927 totalled £157,000,000. It had been heartening to the Department to be told by overseas visitors that the New Zealand Post and Telegraph service was better than that of any country in the world,. Some people had an idea that the Post Office had an army of officers who had very little to do, but he could assure them that there was plenty of work to keep everyone more than busy. Each year 20,000 letters were posted with no addresses on the envelopes, and 10,000 registered letters each year were unclaimed. Mail agents were employed on overseas steamers, which enabled letters to be delivered before the boats reached the wharf. New Zealand had always been in the forefront in automatic exchange work, and one of their latest improvements had been to eliminate rust by freezing and washing the air for the exchange room. Another forward move had been the installation of the multiplex system of telegraphy, which enabled four messages to ’be sent each way over the one wire. In countries where this system had been installed it had always been necessary to secure engineers from the manufacturers, but the work had all been done in New Zealand by their own. engineers. Air. Murray, the inventor of the system, who had. recently visited the Dominion, had informe'd him that he was amazed at the efficiency of the service. They were proud of their penny postage system, and meant to retain it, but people must not expect a reduction in telephone rates, as the Department had to be run on businesslike lines. The New Zealand Post and Telegraph Department, he added, kept in touch with all that was being done in other countries,.and if anything good was discovered it would be adopted here.