GOVERNMENT PRINTING.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVI, Issue 2, 7 May 1913, Page 2

GOVERNMENT PRINTING.

AN OVER-CROWDED OFFICE. A contract, involving the expenditure of about £SOOO, has been let to extend the Government Printing Oltice in Wellington, says the Wellington correspondent of tho Dunedin Star. The additions are mainly for machitm room and lavatories, and represent only a small part of the scheme originally planned to meet the congestion of work in the office. It is 14 years since a part of the building was renewed in brick. Since then the increase of work has been enormous. It hat; been shown by the staff arrangements. Six years ago a night staff of machinists was only employed during the time tho House sat. A year afterwards, this extra machining had to go on lor two months after the session, while during the last three years night and day staffs have had to be employed all the year round. Probably tho public do not realise the great variety and extent of the Government Printer’s activities. Scarcely any printed stationery is imported for tho New Zealand Government service; it is all turned out by the Wellington office. All the stamps and postal notes and railway tickets by the million come from the same busy, over-crowded office. No fewer than 8) millions of railway tickets were printed there last year, an increase of 700,000 on the preceding jear. When the statutes of New Zealand were consolidated in 1908, the Government Printer was thus provided with a £6OOO order, which kept his printing machines going throughout the whole 24 hoars for several months.