12,000,000 CALLS

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 142, 3 July 1937, Page 15

12,000,000 CALLS

Year's Service of Slot 'Phones COPPERS BY THE TON Public telephone call offices meet a publio need so thoroughly in the Dominiou that the total nuhiber of calls put through these handy slot machines last year eame close to 12,000,0(K>, representing a revenue of £51,026. There are nearly a thousand of these call offices, nearly all having the one penny in the slot machines, while a few deal with calls costing twopence and thteepence. The calls at one penny numbered 11,732,770. Contrary to the general impression, the Post Office does not regard the publio call office business as competitive to the residential telephone. Both classes have shown rapid increases in recent years. The revenue from slot telephones has developed as follows: — 1933 £38,274; 1934, £39,093; 1935, £41,686; 1936, £45,422; 1937. £51,026. As & oollector of copper coins the Post Office has no rival in the oountry, for it sells over £40,000 worth of stamps annually through its copperooin vending machines, in addition to its gathering of copper through publio call offices to the extent of nearly 114 tons per annum. The holdings of copper coins in the eommercial banks at the end of May amounted to £21,000, a figure exclusive of the amount in the hands of the publio. There is no danger of a copper-coin shortage through the large-scale operatiolis of the Post Office because regular clearances of the coin boxes are conducted at frequent intervals, the money promptly going back to circulation through the medium of the "banks. Every public call office is numbered and the collectkms recorded fio that the extent of its service to the public may be gauged. These figures sometimes show that additional publio call offices in the same neighbourhood are justified. The Post Office programme for extensions of this useful service provides for at least another 55 public call offices during the current years.