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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 66

Postal Business

Postal Business.

The total number of letters, newspapers, post-cards, and book packets received during the year 1884, for delivery in New Zealand, may be seen in the following table :—
Where from. Letters. Newspapers. Post-cards. Book Packets.
United Kingdom 657,024 270,881 1,679,001
Australian Colonies 459,398 57,455 535,579
Other places 91,128 32,088 189,852
From places within the colony 18,030,240 1,169,179 561,652 5,121,164
Totals 19,237,790 1,529,603 561,652 7,525,596

Compared with the returns of the previous year, letters increased 4.97 per cent., post-cards 351, book packets 20.73, and newspapers 816. This shows a considerable increase on the work of the previous year; and the work of the department, compared with former years, continues to advance in a proportion greater than the increase of population would seem to warrant, showing that the facilities for communication between the different parts of the colony are being annually improved.

The average number of letters posted in proportion to the estimated population was 28.39 to each person, the average in 1877 being 1451. The increase of post-cards, since their introduction in 1877, is very marked.

page 93

There were 969 post-offices open on the 31st December, 1834.

In the transaction of money-order business, 183,052 orders were issued during the year for £572,683. The money orders issued in New Zealand for payment in the United Kingdom, Germany, the United States, Canada, and the Australian Colonies were £11,825 in number for £142,219, and 11,293 orders for £15,108 were issued in those countries for payment in New Zealand. There was accordingly a balance of £97,110 remitted out of the colony by means of money orders.

Besides the usual postal and telegraph money orders the convenience of the public has now been further provided for by the introduction of the system of transferable postal notes for small sums.

The telegraph was used during the year for the transmission of 16,496 orders, amounting to £61,735.

Postal communication with the United Kingdom is principally by way of San Francisco and by the New Zealand Shipping Company's Royal Mail steamers. Each of these services is four-weekly, thus affording alternate fortnightly communications. The average number of days within which the mails were delivered from London during the year was, viâ San Francisco to Auckland, 38.31 days; to Wellington, 4038; and to Dunedin, 41.62 days. The average passage homeward by the direct mail steamers was 39 days 6 hours, and 42 days 18 hours outward.

A considerable amount of correspondence also goes by way of Melbourne and Point de Galle. This route, however, takes longer than the San Francisco service.