D.—l

are now under consideration. At Auckland the need lias been eased temporarily by recent additions and alterations at the Supreme Court, but more accommodation is required at the Magistrates' Court. At secondary centres—Nelson, New Plymouth, and Thames—courthouses are due for replacement, and at Napier improvement of existing facilities is required. Estimates and plans for these works are at present under consideration. At Blenheim a new courthouse is in course of construction, and at Whangarei a site has been acquired and plans drawn up to provide a new courthouse in place of the existing leased building, which is inadequate now that the Supreme Court has been established. Considerable attention has been given to the improvement of heating facilities and acoustics at a number of courthouses in the past two years. It is difficult to provide proper ventilated heating in all places, particularly in high-ceiling courtrooms, but improvements effected during the last year are steadily overtaking the need for reasonable comfort. The Auckland, Hamilton, and Masterton Courts have been treated with acoustic tiles with marked improvement, and the Timaru Court is at present under consideration. Prison Buildings and Works. No capital expenditure has been involved during the year on the erection of prisons. _ The decrease in the number of prisoners has necessitated the mechanization of certain industries. Police-stations. police-stations to replace buildings which have become unserviceable were erected at Waitotara and Woodville, new office and lock-up at Wairoa, and offices at Patea and Waikouaiti. Extensive additions to the police-station at Invercargill were carried out to provide much needed office accommodation. A house and land were purchased for a police-station at Maori Hill, and a site for police purposes was acquired at Port Chalmers. Many of the police-stations throughout the Dominion are old places, are getting beyond repair, and are quite inadequate to meet present requirements. It will be necessary to replace them at an early date, and provision in this direction is being made 011 this year's estimates. Post and Telegraph Buildings and Land. The erection of new post-office buildings at Albury, Charleston, Porangahau. Rangiora, and Thornbury was completed during the year. An additional story was built 011 the newer portion of the General Post Office building, Wellington, and a substantial addition was made to the Cambridge Post-office building. ' Other buildings completed during the year were residences for the Postmaster at Pahiatua, and the caretaker at Wellington-Radio ; a large garage at Auckland ; garage-store-line buildings at Dargaville, Hawera, Kaikoura, Takapima, and Wyndham ; also a building for carrier-current equipment at Kaikoura. Minor additions and alterations were effected at a number of offices. Several buildings and sites 110 longer required were disposed of, while a number of sites for future buildings were acquired. The former post-office building at Rangiora was demolished to make way for the new building. At the end of the financial year, the following buildings were in course of erection : Awarua-Radio (residence for Superintendent), Belfast (post-office and quarters), Dunedin (chief post-office), Greymouth (power and battery building), Hamilton (automatic telephone exchange, addition), Maungaturoto (post-office), Mayfield (post-office and quarters), Napier (automatic telephone exchange), New Plymouth (garage, store, line, and workshop buildings), Omakau (post-office and residence), Oturehua (residences (2)), Pahiatua (post-office), Rotorua (garage, store, and line building, battery and power building, &c.), Te Awamutu (garage, store, and line building), Thames (chief post-office), Waikari (post-office and residence), Waimana (post-office and quarters), Wakefield (garage and line building), Wellington (Lyall Bay, cable-repeater building).

XXIX