POSTAL FACILITIES

Taranaki Daily News, 24 January 1918, Page 4

POSTAL FACILITIES

To make country life, more attractive, and the settlerß more contented with their lot, is one means of arresting the drift townwards of our population. To this end, the Government, it must be confessed, has done a good deal in recent years, particularly through the Postal Department, which has provided facilities that have brought districts even a long way back into daily contact with the outside world. Just the other day we received a letter from a settler in Taranaki's hinterland; in which he stated that life there was endurable only because of the daily mail service. It is a boon that can be appreciated only by people who have lived in the back districts. To withdraw a daily postal service after it is once instituted is very hard upon—indeed, cruel to—country settlers. This is threatened in the case of the settlers on the Inglewood—Purangi road. When tenders were called for the service in December, those by car delivery were considered too high. An arrangement was made for one month only, and fresh tenders are being called. In the past the mail subsidy has been exceedingly reasonable—so much so that every contractor, we are told, has dropped money on the service—and it is only to be expected that in these times of high prices motor proprietors should ask for an increase in the amount of the subsidy, The settlers have been asked to supplepent the Government subsidy by guaranteeing a further sum. This is unjust, because the settlors are already handicapped by heavy transit charges, and the extra war imposts. People living in these back districts deserve every consideration at the hands of the Government, and certainly should not be penalised. After all, we don't wish the Postal Department to make big profltß so much as to efficiently serve the public and assist in the development of the country. The State should not look at a proposition like the one under discussion as involving only pounds, shillings and pence; it should regard it as a duty to help the district to the utmost of its ability In any case, it can afford to drop money on a service that is essential to the welfare of country settlers, seeing that it can recoup itself any losses in more favored and more thickly populated districts, In the cities there are several mail deliveries a day, telegrams are delivered at all hours, messengers are to be had for the calling up, telephones are everywhere, etc.; but in the country, for whose welfare the Government affects such solicitude, the settlers are told that unless they "part up" and subsidise the Government, the daily postal service will be discontinued. This kind of thing is not consistent with the Government's professions of helping the back settlers; on the contrary, it is manifestly unfair, and against the best interests of the country, the life and prosperity of which depend upon production. We trust the matter will be fully and strongly represented to the Government, with a view to the retention of the inestimable boon of a daily mail service for settlers who are, by reason of their many handicaps, entitled to the most favorable treatment that can be accorded them.