FARMERS AND THE TELEPHONE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3099, 23 January 1909, Page 4

FARMERS AND THE TELEPHONE.

Whatever doubt may be entertained , in the cities as to the benefit of the telephone, there can be none as to its advantages in the country, and one of the first needs of the isolated settler in New Zealand is a cheap telephone system such as is at the service of American and Canadian farmers. Mr Edwin Hall, secretary of the Auckland A. and P. Association, who has just returned from a visit to the States and Canada, says that one of the questions put to every witness by President Roosevelt's Country Life Commission, was, "Do the farmers in your neighbourhood receive from the United States postal service, the service they should reasonably expect?" Whatever may be the Cjmmission's report on this aspect of American country life, there j is no question that farmers in the United States enjoy privileges in regard to cheap telephoning that would be a boon to many a New Zealand settler. To take one example,a farmer told Mr Hall that in his district the local councils erected the system, and provided farmers with telephones for £3 per annum, and £1 of this was paid to the Government to give the farmer the use of the long-distance rur.k lines. This man happened to be a Canadian, but a farmer from Texas and another from Oregon, who were present, agreed with him that all the [ farmers in their district had tele- . phones, the charges being much less , than in New Zealand.