Money Orders

In Mandated New Guinea To the Editor

Sir,—One naturally hesitates, in these “hard times,” to agitate for any innovation where public service is concerned, that might require expenditure from the Administration’s coffers. Yet there is the small matter of extending the Money Order system to post offices in the Mandated Territory that would require but slight expenditure and still be a boon to many hundreds of the residents who are not domiciled in Rabaul.

As the position is at present, all Money Orders or Postal Notes received by residents may be cashed only through the Rabaul post office, as Rabaul is the only Money Order Office in the Territory. This naturally occasions considerable delay where often communication from outstations to Rabaul is every four or five weeks.

Should residents in outlying districts desire to remit money to Australia, then drafts may be obtained on the New Guinea Trade Agent, Sydney. Still, this is not an altogether satisfactory procedure where remittances are required to be made to places other than Sydney, or the amount is too small to warrant the issuing of a draft.

In July of last year I communicated with the Chief Postmaster in Rabaul on the subject and he replied: “Approval has been given for the extension of the Money Order to outstations. Some little time will elapse, however, before the latter approval can be given effect to.”

A “little time” has already elapsed: surely eleven months is sufficient to set the machinery in motion, considering that the approval has already been given for this public convenience to become operative.—I am, etc.

Gordon Thomas

Buka, June 3, 1931. ... ===