Bundaberg Mail and Burnett
Advertiser (Qld.),
Monday 24 July 1899, page 2
Gin Gin. From a correspondent
… The
takings of the Railway Department have proportionately increased, so that now
the line from Bundaberg to Gin Gin and Watawa pays well.
With all
this achieved and prospective advancement, how is it we have so sadly
retrograded in our postal arrangements? Until a year or so ago we had a post
office here always presided over by a courteous official who was never
unwilling to perform the functions of his office. Now we have a little room at
the railway station to represent the post office. The crowds who go at night or
in the afternoon to meet the mail train fill most uncomfortably the portion of
this little room allotted to them. Rut more than half of them have to strain
their heads through the door or the side window to catch their names when
called out. The crushing and pushing remind one, in a small way, of King-street,
Sydney, at election time, or when the result of a cricket or football match is
expected. Papers go astray, telegrams are not forwarded, and dissatisfaction is
common. The officer here says there is, properly speaking, no post-office here;
he is a railway man. His assistant is also a railway man, not a telegraph
messenger. I should add that the puny post office and the railway office too,
are locked up every day from 1 till 2, the officer and his assistant both being
absent therefrom for dinner. Is this not a violation of the Public Service Act?
Mr Caldwell, our latest post-master, properly so-called, was a very courteous
gentleman, and would have been very glad to stay here, but unfortunately
circumvention by somebody effected his removal to Bundaberg, and we are left
lamenting. Unsatisfactoriness in our postal matters affects not only everybody
here, but those also in Bundaberg and other places with whom we do business.
Those latter people should unite with us in urging both our members of
Parliament to regain for us what we have lost in postal matters. I hope, Sir,
you will see the force of my arguments— I have not exceeded the truth — and if
you give us in your columns the benefit of your advocacy, we may succeed in
rising from the slough into which we have fallen.
