Press of New Zealand

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 902, 20 February 1930, Page 10

Press of New Zealand

ASSOCIATION’S JUBILEE An Insatiable Public Special to THE SUN TIMARU, Today. HISTORICAL details concerning the United Press Association were given today at the Jubilee meeting, over which Mr. A. G. Henderson presided. Throughout his whole speech Mr. Henderson made reference to telegraph development in the Dominion and paid a fine tribute to the department’s service to the community.

When the association was established in 1879, he said, telegraph communication had been established north and south, connecting up the main centres of population. But it was only in 1872 that Wellington and Auckland were connected. Gisborne was isolated until 1875. Cable communication with Australia had been opened in 1876. The whole service, therefore, was still in its infancy. In 1879 there "were 3,543 miles of pole line, but only 195 telegraph offices, and the total staff of the branch numbered no more than 800. Transmission was entirely manual. There was no telephone service at all. In 1879 the telephone was being exhibited in New Zealand as a scientific novelty, but the first exchange in the colony, that at Christchurch, was opened only at the end of 1881. Last year there were 2,098 telephone bureaux and toll stations. There are now 62,992 miles of telegraph and telephone lines, of which 9,567 miles are exclusively for telegraph traffic, 48,916 miles for telegraph and telephone and 4,509 exclusively for telephone toll traffic. In 1879 all Press messages, association and special, numbered 87,593, of approximately 3,000,000 words, valued at £6,190. Last year the Press messages numbered 577,327, aggregating 98,000,000 words and bringing the department a revenue of £74,141, the increases in the 50 years being 559 per cent, in messages, 3,166 per cent, in words and 1,097 per cent, in value. The average number of words a message in 1879-1880 would be 40; in 1929 it would be 170.

There are now over 2,000 telegraph offices in New Zealand. Ten years ago there were more, but in the decade there has been a vast expansion

of the telephone branch, and the telephone communication has in very many cases taken the place of the telegram. At one time toll calls were actually grouped with telegrams in the department’s records. Since 1894, when separate records were commenced, toll calls by telephone have grown front 76,406 to 10,655.450, and the modest £I,BOO of revenue from this source has grown to £442,896 in the last year. “I have used the figures of the Telegraph Branch to indicate tile expansion of newspaper telegraph services,” continued Mr. Henderson, “because the association’s own office gives no indication of the volume of work handled. We started operations in 1879 with a manager and one assistant and eight paid correspondents. We have now a manager, four assistants and a typist, and 72 paid correspondents. In 1879 there were 4S subscribing newspapers: last year there ivere 65. Bat the volume of business has expanded in a measure out of all relation to the staff of the association. The cable business alone has grown in 40 years fi-ont 155,000 words to nearly 1.000,000 words. “In the 50 years our revenue has grown from £1,486 to £19,715 a year, and the expenditure ill like proportion. “Tile demand for news in our country is insatiable. The public wants all the news a nd the newspapers must supply it, and every year sees the opening up of fresh news sources. Recent years have seen, for instance, a remarkable development of commercial news. Sports and sporting are making constantly-increasing demands on the space of newspapers, and on the staff of the association. “Never, in my recollection, have economic and social problems been more eagerly or more widely discussed. Sfientlfic developments have a growing interest for all classes of people. These tendencies become more marked every year, and the newspapers, in consequence, must cover an ever-widening field. Whate;S£r interests the public concerns the newspapers, and the demands of the newspapers must be satisfied by this association.”