PASSAGES TO ENGLAND.

Press, Volume LV, Issue 16430, 25 January 1919, Page 9

PASSAGES TO ENGLAND.

•■■ ■ ♦ -.—- INVERSION OF STEAMERS. LITTLE ROOM FOR CIVILIANS. ' The hopes of hundreds of people anxious to get back to England have recently been deferred by tho information, received in Auckland a few days ago, that several largo steamers due to loave New Zealand shortly would take only a very limited number of first-class passengers, having been requisitioned to carry homo troops from Mesopotamia (says tho "Herald"). With war at an end, it was confidently expected that shipping conditions would soon return to normal, and that longdelayed overseas voyages would shortly be possiblo. In this expectation, large numbers of intending passengers —the majoritv women anxious to return to England to rejoin relatives—have hastened to book passages by the first available steamers. Several large vessels, including the Ruahine, Corinthic, Athenic, lonic, and Tainui, duo to arrive here via Panama within the next two or three months, were heavily booked up, and the disorganisation of arrangements has caused much disappointment. These steamers, which wore to have returned via Panama, have now been diverted to the Suez route, and will embark returning troops at Bombay, the base for the Mesopotamian forces. No other Panama sailings are as yet in sight, and even if thoy were, the disorganisation of shipping ivhien will most probably result from demobilisation would make it impossible to guarantee passage by any particular steamer. A number of people urgently anxious to return to England are now trying to obtain passages via Canada.