RURAL MAIL SERVICE.

Taranaki Daily News, 21 October 1921, Page 7

RURAL MAIL SERVICE.

NEW SYSTEM NEXT YEAR. The new system of rural deliveries, which Will come into operation on January 1, will remove several anomalies in the postal service. Hitherto the rural deliveries of postal matter have been made at a considerable loss to the State. Some farmers have been able to secure a daily delivery for as little as £3 a year, whilst others have paid as much as £3O or £4O annually; others again have paid nothing. That system has always been considered unsatisfactory, but the spur to change it has been wanting until the present financial pinch. The Post and Telegraph Department has decided that one means of effecting economies is to levy a flat rate on all farmers in rural districts, who receive their mail every day, of £2 per annum. The farmer who. does not pay his £2 will ’be notified that his mails lie at the nearest post office—only that and nothing more. An officer connected with the service put the matter yesterday in this way: “The merchant, firm, lawyer, or agent in the city pays the Department £1 10s a year for a Post Office box, and has to cleat it himself, whilst the farmers are only being asked to pay £2 a year for daily deliveries, sometimes in remote country districts.”