PENNY POSTAGE SUCCEEDS.

Gisborne Times, Volume V, Issue 84, 17 April 1901, Page 4

PENNY POSTAGE SUCCEEDS.

It is exceedingly satisfactory to know | upon the authority of the Postmaster- j General that the Penny Post has been established without burden to the colony. We may not have the postal revenue surplus which might have been accumulated at the expense of letter-writers, but there is ,£20,000 to the good on the March quarter only, and the business which this implies has not yet received the full benefit of the reduced-postage impetus. For ton years, New Zealand has dallied with Penny Postage, and it is now found that it need never have been feared. This result should encourage those who so strenuously advocated postal reform to continue the good work. Wo can afford to make our Universal Penny Post the most perfect in the Pacific, at well as the cheapest, by taking the steps necessary to put the ’Frisco mail service upon a permanent and improved footing. Nor is this all. We can be assured, from our experience with cheap postage, that cheap cable rates would be equally successful. A Shilling Cable to London should be the goal, and should be instituted ns soon as the Pacific cable is laid and the consent of the co-operating States obtained. The cable is so little used by the general public that we could hardly expect a reduction in rates to he so immediately justified. But this is only because the existing monopoly has debarred the public from becoming accustomed to cabling. Once the spell were broken, a Shilling Cable would bo as successful as a Penny Post.—Auckland Herald.