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brought to completion during the year was the Te Kuiti post-office building, and the only large buildings under construction at the end of the year were the post-offices at Feilding and Balclutha. The Feilding building is nearing completion, but the Balclutha one is not expected to be finished until .after the end of the next financial year. Although progress 011 major works was not great, a number of small buildings were provided, some in new materials and others by adapting surplus Armv-type buildings. The manifest impracticability of erecting new buildings 011 a large scale rendered necessary in some cases the securing and adapting of existing premises to meet requirements for the time being. This was successfully exemplified in the opening of a post-office in an old building in Manners Street, Wellington. The provision of transit housing for departmental officers was on a smaller scale than in the previous year, due principally to the most pressing cases having already been dealt with and also to ex-service buildings being not so readily obtainable. The work of providing permanent residences for Postmasters was steadily maintained by the Housing Division of the Ministry of Works. The following summary gives the results of the year's activities:— New buildings completed: post-offices, 1; telephone exchanges, 5; for radio purposes, 2; line depot and workshops, 2; Postmasters' residences, 21. Major additions and alterations carried out: post-offices, 9; other buildings, 3. Provided from surplus buildings: temporary post-offices, 6; auxiliary postoffice accommodation, 2; telephone exchanges, 3; transit flats, 19. Most of these undertakings were arranged and supervised by the Department 's own staffs, while in several cases the actual construction work as well was carried out by Post Office workmen. Details of the Department's building and land transactions during the year are as follows: New buildings completed: rural automatic telephone-exchange buildings at Albany, Becks, and South Hillend; an emergency power-generator building at Awarua Radio ; a temporary carpenters' and body-building workshop at Christchurch; a radio-station building at Mount Eden; an automatic telephoneexchange building at Riccarton; a store-garage building at Taihape; a postoffice at Te Kuiti; a building for money-order and savings-bank purposes at Upper Hutt; a temporary telephone-exchange building at Waipukurau; Postmasters' residences at Addington, Brightwater, Carterton, Fairlie, Forbury, Glen Eden, Grey Lynn, Karori, Moray Place, New Lynn, Northcote, Onehunga, Sydenham,- St. Albans, St. Heliers, Taihape, Te Aroha, Te Papapa, Tirau, Tuakau, and Whitianga. Additions and alterations were made to the post-office buildings at Russell, Silverdale, and Wakefield, and to the line depot at Christchurch; alterations were made to the post-office buildings at Picton, Port Chalmers, Taneatua, and Waikouaiti; to the old line depot at Kaikohe; to an old departmental building at Palmerston North to provide accommodation for the Telegraph Engineer's office staff; and to residences at Greymouth and Oamaru to provide transit flats (four). The premises in Manners Street, Wellington (formerly known as the " Waldorf Building "), which were purchased by the Department in 1944 as the site for a future building, were converted during the year into a commodious post-office in order to provide mid-city post-office facilities for the public and also to relieve congestion in the chief post-office.

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