UNPROFITABLE TELEGRAPH STATIONS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume III, Issue 9, 1 October 1880, Page 2

UNPROFITABLE TELEGRAPH STATIONS.

From a contemporary we learn that the new rule the Government have adopted with reference to unprofitable telegraph stations is this: If the postal business at a combined post and telegraph office leaves sufficient profit to cover the loss on the telegraph business, no extra charge will be made, and the shilling rate will be reverted to. This rule is a marvel of ingenious tinkering. What basis is to be adopted — the previous year, or the previous quarter ? If at the end of a quarter Dr. Lemon finds a station has made a profit without including the extra sixpences, is he going to return the public their money ? or if, on the other hand, he finds at the end of a quarter that some station has suddenly dropped down amongst the non-paying ones, is he going to send his messengers round uttering the magic word " Collect !" at the door of every one who has sent a telegram during the unprofitable quarter? The "extra" business is foolish in the extreme, and before long the General Manager of the Telegraph Department will be only too glad to find some other excuse for placing the whole of the stations again on the shilling basis, for we regard this new rule as only an excuse to get a number of the non-paying stations back to the old order of things. "When the returns are made up, it will doubtless be found the 50 per cent, increase has, contrary to expectation, resulted in actual loss to the Telegraph Department, as many instances have come under our uotice in which persons who would have telegraphed at non-paying stations if the charge had keen a shilling, put their telegram and their money in their pocket on learning the cost was eighteenpence. It would have been more dignified if Dr. Lemon had said to the Government, " I'm not so 'cute

as I thought I was ; this extra charge has turned out differently to what t expected* You had better alter matters back to the old thing at once." It will certainly come to that in the end, though in deference to Dr. Lemon's brilliant abilities as an administrator, it may be just as well to let him gradually bring his department round again. Meantime, however, a large section of the public are deprived by high charges from using the telegraph service, and the telegraphic revenue of the Colony is without doubt being materially diminished.