A CREDITABLE PUBLIC DEPARTMENT.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 284, 25 July 1888, Page 5

A CREDITABLE PUBLIC DEPARTMENT.

So much of a disparaging nature is said from time to time of the New Zealand puhlic service, that it is only just that the virtues whirh can be fairly placed to their credit shall not be left unrecorded. For our own part, we believe that the administrative departments in New Zealand would all compaie very favourably in economy and efficiency with those of the neighbouring culonies. This statement is undoubtedly biue of the Postal and Telegraph Department. These servieesstand con jpicuous among the public departments of Australasia as the only ones that return a sub stantial balance of revenue over expendituie. We find from Mr Hay ter's Statistical Sear Book that the loss on the postal and telegraphic services in Victoria in 1885 Avas £109,427, and in 1886 the loss was greater, representing a total of £112,266. The report of the Postal and Telegraph Department for New Zealand, on the other hand, proves that la.st year the revenue was £40,973 in excess of the expenditure, e^ en after all the mail subsidies had been taken into account. The proht for the previous year was only £14,167, but the leport explains that great savings have been made, particularly in the cost of conveyance of mails by sea. In addition to these earnings the Department has to be credited with performing gratuitous work for the Government to the value of £102,170, which, if added to the cash profit already iefeired to, makes up total earnings in excess of expenditure amounting to the sum of £145,144. The results above recorded cannot but be considered in the highest degree satisfac Cory, more especially when it is known that they have not been achieved by curtailing the public facilities. On the contrary, through political influences, teley raph offices have been established in districts which were not entitled to them, and which are a serious drain on the general revenues of the Department. The profit has been made simply by economical administration. Artemus Ward's emblem of bliss, "an easy billet in a Post Office," would not be realised in New Zealand. Officers have to turn out at hours that would send half the men in Civil employments on strike, and are frequently kept twelve hours on duty at a stretch. The average rate of pay ruling in both branches of the service is also considerably below the rate& prevailing in the neighbouring colonies, and economies are practised in every direction. It is a well-established commercial principle that custom is> largely legulated by trade facilities, and judged by this standard, the New Zealand Postal and Telegraph Department appears to advantage. It carries more letters per head of the population than any other office in Australasia, the number being 65 62 as against 37*62 in Victoria, und 42*27 in New South Wales. Last year in the New Zealand Department, 39,377,774 letters, p >sted and delivered were dealt with ; 1,835,394 telegrams of all codes were transmitted ; 38 offices were established, 2 reopened, and 11 closed. The total number of offices open at the end of 1887 was 1,118; 23 inland mail services were established, and the total number in existence at the end of the year was 600. The length of telegraph lines increased by 100 miles. At the end of the year there were 4,646 miles of line and 11,375 miles of wire. The business of the telephone exchanges did

nob increase in the same proportion as in the previous year, when there was an increase of 287 subscribers. At the end of last year there were 2,042 subscribers, an increase of 112. £1,312,151 Is 5d was de posited during the calendar year in the Post Office Savings Banks, and the amount standing to the credit of depositors on the 31st of December last was £1,713,084 18s 8d The amount of savings-bank funds invested on the 3lBt of December last was £1,740,705 10s. That the transaction of the enormous business represented by these figures re quhes a vast and complex organisation need hardly be said, and the credit which belongs to Mr W. Gray, the official head of the Department, and the stall' under him, for the efficiency of the service, will not, we are sure, be withheld by the public. Any public officer is encouraged in the faithful discharge of his duties by a word of well-earned praise, more especially at a time when ib has become too much the practice todecry theCivil Service, as though they were drones living at the cost of the rest of their fellow-countrymen. A fair consideration of the return which the public receive from the ,C 270,635 voted on the estimates for the Postal and Telegraph Departments, may albo suggest to the minds of some financial reformers that if the cost of the public service is great, the work to be done is the reverse of small, and it is work of a practical, highly responsible, and necessary kind.