POST OFFICE SERVICES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 April 1939, Page 9

POST OFFICE SERVICES

WIDE SCOPE OF ACTIVITIES. BIG REVENUE FROM PENNIES. A telegram addressed to a passenger in the “Queen Mary, somewhere between New York and Southampton,’ was handed in recently at Wellington Post Office; it was delivered 26 minutes later. This record was not a chance happening, said Mr W. L. Butler, when speaking at the Masterton Rotary Club’s luncheon this week, but could be repeated if a message became available for transmission any evening just before the shortwave commercial station at Awarua made daily contact with the liner. A 24-hour safety service was maintained by the Auckland, Wellington and Awarua commercial radio stations, Mr Butler said. All calls associated with shipping were made on the 600metre band, though this band was not necessarily used for messages after communication had been established. An average daily log from Awarua filled 25 sheets, each sheet holding 35 entries.

“In the case of distress signals from any ship near the New Zealand coast,” said Mr Butler, “Awarua sends out a warning to stop transmission on the 600-metre band so that the channel can be cleared for communication with the ship in distress. However remote the call recorded in New Zealand, the operators follow it up to ascertain if it is acknowledged from a nearer station or a ship able to give prompt assistance.

“The Post Office collects more than £50,000 in penny calls from the public callboxes of the country each year,” said Mr Butler. “New Zealand is the only country in the world that provides a penny-in -the-slot telephone service. In Australia and Great Britain it is twopence in the slot, in Canada and the United States 2id, and in South Africa 3d. Eleven slot phones were placed on the new Wellington Railway Station; in the first nine months six \of them averaged £5O each and the total revenue for nine months was £450, all in pennies. Incidentally, stamp-selling machines in New Zealand bring in more than £40,000 a year.

“You may ask where this revenue goes. More than 30,000 penholders are required . annually to replace those worn out and missing on the public desks in the Post Offices of the Dominion. More than 1,000,000 sheets of blotting paper are needed, as well as 120,000 pen nibs.

“On the stores side orders of more than £BOO,OOO in value are*required for store stocks, and the P. and T. stores purchase for other departments of State material valued at £187,000,” Mr Butler said. . “The department uses more than 26,000 yards of canvas each year and about 5000 mailbags and 1500 big square parcel / bags are made in New Zealand yearly. The stores test the materials supplied to them; for instance a three-inch strip of 16oz flax canvas resists a strain of 9801 b on the warp before breaking. “New Zealanders posted more than 262,980,000 letters and packets last year, and the yearly total of all packages and also deliveries in New Zealand amounts to more than ’547,690,000. Letters returned to senders maintain a steady flow of about 400,000 a year. Dead letters—that is when neither the sender or intended recipient can be traced —keep up an annual average of more than 23,000. Each person in the Dominion writes an average of 92 letters a year.”