The Nelson Evening Mail. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 9, 1879.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 85, 9 April 1879, Page 2

The Nelson Evening Mail. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 9, 1879.

For some time past there have been numerous and growing complaints of the inability of the Telegraph Department to keep pace wit!) the large?}' increasing deunuds made upon it, and from our own experience we can assert that these complaints are not without foundation. { )VLt messages from Wellington do occasionally reach us within the hour, but this is quite an exception. Frequently they occupy three hours in transmission, and it very often happens that those which are put in at the Welliugtou office by two o'clock do not come to hand in time for publication on the same day. We attach no blame to either manager, operators, or messengers in our local office, nor do we believe that it is to be fixed upon any one particular office, but it is clear that there is something radically wrong in the general management. 80 long as the department is a financial success the general manager appears to be perfectly contented. If he can show a good balance on tlie right side he seems to think that everybody ought to be satisfied. But they are not Dissatisfaction is expressed on all sides, and unless a very marked improvement is manifested within the next three mouths the Parliament will have to take the matter up and institute an enquiry into the whole working of the department, keeping before them the fact that what the public want is efficiency and despatch, even though in attaining them additional expense has to be incurred. No one who is not in the habit of perusing the newspapers publiihed iv the various partfjkf the colony would credit how frequent aJSHb complaints that arc made on this fIH^H but it in a fact that they have bejjflHß numerous that the Government sQHH representatives of the people can no is^9 ignore them. As a sample, we qHH the following from ;the Wanganui Herald^t " While it was a comparatively small depart^ merit and but little used by the public, Dr. Lemon managed to get aiong pretty well, although not an electrician, and having no previous experience of ei'.her telegraphy or administration. Since the department has assumed its present large proportions, and the public have grown to use it to an enormous extent, the deficiencies in the administration have been rendered painfully evident. Dr. Lemon, iv fact, starts his system of management on a fundamentally wrong foundation. He seeks to make the department pay. In his report, he takes credit to himself for this. Nothing could be a greater' mistake. The Telegraph, like the Tost Office, is a Government monopoly which is permitted for the convenieuce of the public, and the revenues of each should be systematically expended in increasing the conveniences offered to its customers, the public. Efficiency, not profit, should be aimed at. Dr. Lemon does not see this. On the contrary, he " screws " the department, and levies on the public in order to get a crc.iit balance. The rate of transmission on the New Zealand lines is, we believe, far below that usual on rno3t of the Australian lines, and where there is a press of work on the latter, new and improved instruments such as Wheatstone's automatic have been introduced. These instruments, however, cost money, and would necessitate the employment of competent and experienced officers. Dr. Lemon prefers to muddle along with the old instruments, which can be worked after a fashion by ill-paid, half educated boy.s, who put up with the bullying to which they are continually subjected, until an opportunity of getting something else to do occurs, when they gleefully send in their resignations, their places being supplied by a fresh batch of cadets, who practise telegraphy, writing.and spelling at the expense of the public. 'If there was a competant electrician at the head of this department we believe that an enormously increased amount of work could be got out of the present wires, and that it would be found unnecessaryifor some time to come to incur the heavy cost of putting up extra wires. Failing a reform in administration, however, this expense will have to be incurred, for Use public cannot much longer submit to the delays and inconveniences to which they are at present exposed. Mr Fisher, the Commissioner of Telegraphs, has not done anything very notable since he joined the Government, but if he would only thoroughly reform and reorganise the Telegraph Department, resolve that the idea of making it pay shall cease to be the ruling motive, and insist on the employment of thoroughly competent men, paid proper salaries, and treated iv a proper manner, he would certainly distinguish himself, and earn the gratitude of the public. An idea, however, prevails, that Mr Fisher confines his action as Commissioner of Telegraphs, to approving the decisions of Dr. Lemon."