THE TELEPHONE AND SETTLEMENT.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9072, 24 April 1908, Page 4

THE TELEPHONE AND SETTLEMENT.

There can be no doubt that the telephone is a great aid to settlement, though our Government does not appreciate the fact to the extent it should. In back districts, where it would not pay to establish telegraph offices, the telephone, which involves little cost in working, serves

the purpose uf bringing the settlers into touch with the outer world an in this way encourages j It is bad enough to be cut off from the centres of life for portion of the year through lack of roads, as is the case in the winter, but to be left utterly isolated in the matter of communication is not a thing which the back-blocker can long tolerate, nor is it calculated to induce men to go upon the land. Settlement in many parts of both North and South Islands is retarded by the absence of means lo reach the doctor or the buyer of produce with rapidity. America understands and meets this trouble in a way that gives an object lesson to New Zealand, but unhappily gives it in vain. A recent writer in a Chicago daily paper points out that in the outlying country it is the telephone that is making settlement profitable. He states that it does away with 90 per cent, of the hardships of pioneer life, as it brings I settlers into rapid toach with each other, and also brings them in touch with the markets. It has abolished the loneliness of farm life, increased the social features of country life, and has increased settlement ' manyfold by placing all the people in the country in close relationship. Here is a matter which the Post-master-General might give some thought to. If the extension of the telephone extends profitable S3ttlement, the cost of installing it is surely but a secondary consideration. If the country gains largely it is not of much import that a Government department loses a little.