PENNY POSTAGE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2449, 13 March 1909, Page 3

PENNY POSTAGE.

AN AUSTRALIAN VIEAV

AA’hilst Australian visitors to New Zealand find some queer restrictions on every-day life resulting from the Labor laws, there is one unmitigated blessing which must excite their admiration in the penny postage (says the “Pastoralistr,’ Review”). Not only_ is the postage a penny to all parts of New Zealand, but also to Great Britain and Canada, and even unreciprocating Australia. The last fact it-takes some time to believe. The New Zealanders say, “If you choose to penalise yourselves by charging twopence on letters from the Commonwealth to the Dominion, you can do so, but we shall not cut oft our noses to spite our face,” and thus they ccnd their letters over to us for a penny. The effect that the penny postage has had in increasing the writing of letters is marvellous, and anyone who stays a short time in* the Dominion will soon find 'that the convenience is much greater than he could have believed. It is high time that the Commonwealth should copy that exampie of the Dominion. It is simply abfiurd to argue that what a small population like New Zealand can afford is not practicable in the much larger Australian one. Granted _ that distances are greater on the continent, still the community is larger. AVhat Sir Joseph AVard, to whom New . Zealand owes penny postage, has recognised, _ but what the Commonwealth politicians cannot grasp, is that facilities create traffic. No doubt, there, would bo loss to the revenue for a short time, and it h the business of the Post Office officials to defend their revenue and run no risks. But it is equally the business of the Ministers and Parliament to overrule the official view, and take the larger statesmanlike course in the sure and certain hope that it would justify itself immediately in convenience to the. public and eventually in revenue.