GOVERNMENT PRINTING DEPARTMENT.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XVI, Issue 169, 18 July 1881, Page 4

GOVERNMENT PRINTING DEPARTMENT.

The report of the Government Printer j gives a good idea of the extent of the department under his charge, and 'shows how it | ' ha 3 gone on growing year by year until it ' now affords employment for a large nnmber ' of hands and turns oni; many thousand pouns' worth ff woik. The building which , wht n itu- G.is'ernri sijt cou.mence ! to do iis owji'rii-I'ing wa- but a numeral le 'ittie shanty now consists of no less than 47 rooms, 27 of which are usrd by the printing department, 15 by the stationery 3tore, and the remaining five by the lithographic branch of tbe Surrey Department. Four of ihe apart ments are usei ns crapcsir.g room?; two of them, 30 feet in wid;h hy 40 feet long, by the time hands; one. 25 feet by 50, hy the piece hand*; and tht* fourth. 15ft by 20, by the apprentices. The Hndiug-rocms are equated ups'.aire. and comprise four work-rooms, two store rooms, and a quire-room. Two cf the w rk rooms are allotted to the younar womtn, of whom about eighteen are generally employed in foh.ing, stwir-g, gathering, and collating shceis. Tluy are kpt separate from the workmen, are proviled with a private entrance to the building, ar.d are under th^ superintendence vl a forewoman. The quantity of work ex«cut'.-d i;i ths binding branch is considfiable, and represented in value £6555 10s 5d for the year 1880. All the oostly-h.'und ace >unt-hooks, registers, recordbook?, &c., for che various departments are executed here-, ninny of which were formerly imported from England. With pardonable pride Mr Didsbury refers to the eulogium passed upon the wcrk of his office at Sydney. He says : — * The specimens of bookbinding forwarded to the Sydney Exhibition were highly eulogizr-d in a report on the took binding exhibits. Referring to the New Zealand Court, the report states that per hap 3 tee finest collection cf colonial book.biuding is that of Mr G Didsbury, of Wellington. This includes eleven volumes ot the Transactions of the New Zaa'aod Institute, plainly but tastefully bound ; a large ledger, bound in Ruma under bauds. Alth ueh these fail to rival the magnificent display of commercial bookbiuding be'ooging to Messrs Watc-rlow and Sons, id the British Court, they approach so closely in many respects that, the time cannot be far distant when the skill of the English handicraftsmen will be found more than rivalled by the colonial woikmen." In the stereotype and electrctype branch, the woik of manufacturing a new set of duty stamps was completed last year, and a very considerable saving in cost has been thus effected when compared witn the amount paid for the postage stamp plates procured from Messrs De La Rtif and Co.. of London. Tbe printing and issuing of rai' way tickets for all the linf-s in the colony is also performed in this branch, und r the superintendence of the it reoiyper. The number of *t i tii>ns for which tickets are prii t3 i is 432, a ( d the number of tickets printed and issued during 1880 was 1,773,800. A Btep in the right di<« ction h»s beeu made by introducing into the dej a tmentn New Zealand productions and manufactures whenever practicable, the following, among others, having r cently been brought into use : — Grey coal instead of Newcastle (consumption about 130 tons per annum); Wellington madp .candles (aboat 100 hundre.i boxes per annum), for issue^from Sratiore.-y Store ; Catterbur. twine (about £300 worth annually); Poriru^i glue (about half a ton annually); printers' lye-brushes, scrubbing-brushes, and brooms .from Lower Ilutt Brushware Factory ; Wellington trott. r-oil supersedes the English neatsfoot and salad oil. Arragements are also b ing made for procaring our supplies of parchment (of which about £500 worth is annually imported) from a Blenheim manufacturer, wh':. has lecently started this branch of industry. Tbe samples submitted by him nre quite equal to tbe Eoglish-made parchment, and the price is reasonable. Totara timber has recently been brought into use for blocks for mounting stereo-plates, for which we have hith°r : o imparted Sydney cedar. Sevfral riescrip'ions of printing material and tools required by tbe department are now manufactured on the premises by the engineer, such as broad brass-bottomed galleys, column ?■ alleys, braes-tippsd shooting sti, ks, ard compositors' nippers. In tbe niinufaeiure of galleys New Zealand totara is found quite t=qua! to the cedar generally nsfd in England for that purpose. The manufacture of envelopes, of which about 1,750,000 are annually imported, has been nnder consideration Oue portion of the report r«fers to the "Lyttelton Gaol Printing Ofße," where '• printing, ruling, and bookbinding are carried on under tbesuperintsndence of an intelligent printer'^ warder, who hassuccreded in instructingthe piisonf ra under his choree to beccme tolerably [efficient craftsmen. The stereotyping and paper-ruling sre perf armed by a long-sentence prisoner whoso former avocation was that of a schoolmaster, and who undoubtedly evinces considerable aptitude for the work he is now engaged in." The amount of work dene in tbe gaol appears to be steadily increasing, jodging from tbe returns given for tbree months, namely, January, £102 ; February, £!03; March," £116. The management of the stationery stoic is referred to at Home length, and it appears that by a stricter Bupervision of the supplies sent out to the different Government offices, a considerable saving bas been effected, the value of the annual orders sent to England having been reduced In three years from £12.904 to £7883. The number of hands employed in the various offices r-f tbe department varies considerably, and ths return of «ach raonth of last year showß that it ranged from 110 to 163, the larger number, of course, beicg at the time Parliament was in session. The value of tfae work done last year is act down at £25,580, acd tbe returns for advertisements in tbe Gazette, sale of publication, &c, trough* the credit side of the account up to £27.755 ; while the total cost was £17,742, lraving a balance to credit of £10.013. The cost of printing and binding Hansard, of wbich 101.142 copies were issued, was, last year, £2722, the correction of the proofs of members' speeches involving a considerable amount cf labor, 2711 hours having been devoted to that purpose. As the various brauches of the department increase in nnmber and ihe amount of work becomes greater, the cost, of coune, becomes larger. In 1876 tbe value of tbe printing and binding was £18 480, and in 1880 it was £25,580. but 1877 was the most coitly ye»r,as tben it is set down at £27,122. The public however, have tbe satisfaction of knowing that the whole of the work is remarkably well done, and tbat with Mr Didsbury at the bead and Mr Costall second in command there is no occasion to fear a falling off in efficiency or an unnecessary increase in expenditure.