MAIL DELAYS.

Taranaki Daily News, 4 February 1921, Page 5

MAIL DELAYS.

POOR SUEZ SERVICE. DELAY ON THE CONTINENT. NO WEEKLY STEAMERS YET. By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. Received Feb. 3, 7.50 p.m. London, Feb. 2. Business men are complaining at delays in connection with mails carried by the Orient steamers fronr Australia, instancing the Orvieto’s mails, which arrived at Toulon on Sunday and were incompletely delivered this afternoon. The Post Office informs the Australian Press Association that the Orient mails necessarily occupy one, and frequently two days more than the P. and 0. mails, owing to the use of Toulon instead of Marseilles. The resumption of transhipment at Italian ports is impossible in view of the coal and railway position, though the Italian Government is eagerly seeking a renewal of the former contract. On the other hand the P. and 0. Company gains twenty-four and sometimes forty-eight hours through the use of its own Limited Indian Express from Marseilles.

The Post Office requested the Orient Company to use Marseilles, where, though unable to regularly catch the Peninsular Limited, it could always obtain more rapid through transit of mails to London. The Orient Company, which has omitted the Marseilles call for ten years, is unwilling to resume calling there on the grounds that it is an unsafe port in bad weather. The Orient Company emphasises past delays and risks at Marseilles, but shipping and business circles scout the danger, in view of the P. and 0. Company’s experience. The Orient Company declares it is not prepared to renew the Marseilles call merely in order to counteract the. French railway deficiencies, and emphasises the necessity of the Post Office pressing France to arrange to attach mail coaches to the expresses from Toulon to Marseilles. It is impossible for the mail fleets at present, to resume the pre-war weekly service, but a minimum fortnightly service, with occasional intermediate boats, has been arranged. Bv way o-f an illustration of the condition of the export trade to Australia, owing to the financial deadlock, a six' thousand ton steamer sailed for nine ports and onlv secured 2300 tons of cargo. There are other recent cases equally bad 'or worse.—Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn.