COUNTRY TELEPHONES.

Taranaki Daily News, 19 January 1922, Page 4

COUNTRY TELEPHONES.

During a period of a good many years the various Governments of the Dominion have been very jealous of keeping the national services in their own hands', specially in the case of railway, postal, telegraph and telephone facilities. Now, owing to money shortage, it has occurred to Ministers to -hand over to local bodies the work of providing telephonic communication where needed in the backbloeks. This is a direct shirking of a manifest duty. If the Government cannot raise sufficient money to expend the present State services, how will it be possible for local bodies to do so? In all probability this new departure will be regarded as a confession of weakness on the part of the Government. The Minister admits that if the Government could spend a million a year it could not catch up with the demand for telephones, and thereby proclaims how deplorably this service has been neglected in the past. Those settlers who are in a position to provide telephone communications for themselves will doubtless make the necessary arrangements with the local bodies of their respective districts, but in the majority of cases it will be found that the local bodies will'decline to embark on the scheme, nor can they be blamed for taking that course. If the Government is in earnest over this matter and would supply the necessary material, there is no doubt the settlers would do the rest, and be only too glad to get the benefit of the telephones, for which they have waited so long, but even then the concession will be nullified if it is accompanied by the usual number of regulations and restrictions that are inherent to the departmental system. It is one thing to place a measure of this kind on the Statute Book, but, quite another matter to make it a success. Very close scrutiny of the provisions will be necessary before local bodies or settlers will make use of them.