PANEL ENVELOPES

Dominion, Volume 15, Issue 25, 24 October 1921, Page 7

PANEL ENVELOPES

NEW POSTAL REGULATION. A cable message was published last week stating that tho Post Office of tho Commonwealth of Australia, in pursuance of a regulation made last year at the Postal Union Conference o-f Madrid, had issued a regulation providing that, from tho beginning of 1922, correspondence would not be accepted enclosed in envelopes with an-open panel space, or with a transparent space on t‘he front, to enable the address on tho enclosure to be seen.

The New Zealand Postmaster-General announces that tho Postal Union regulation referred to prohibits tho acceptance of articles in envelopes entirely transparent, or in envelopes with an aperture in front through which tho address is read; but it provides for tho acceptance?" of. articles in envelopes with a transparent panel. Tho transparent panel must form an integral part of the envelope, and must bo parallel to the longest side, so that the address of . the addressee appears in the same direction; and it must bo placed so as net to inter, fere with the application of the post office date-stamp. The panel must also bo sufficiently transparent for tho address to bo perfectly legible, even, in artificial light, and it must take writing. At present articles arc accepted in envelopes made of transparent paper; but, under tho "Postal Union amended regulations, they cannot bo accepted after the end of the year. In New Zealand the experience is that n groat deal of time is lost in the sorting of mails, owing to the difficulties experienced in handling letters enclosed in envelopes having in front a transparent pane] through which tho address is read. Envelopes in which the transparency is not sufficiently clear aro frequently used, and many articles come undeV notice in "which tho full address cannot be seen, owing either to careless folding or to the. use of envelopes with too small a, transparency. There are also many cases in which the addresses pro difficult to read, owing to their being written faintly. In many cases also the transparency cannot ho written on. After tho end of this year, envelopes with panels that are insufficiently transparent, or that cannot be written on, will not bo accepted.