EMPIRE AIR MAIL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 August 1938, Page 6

EMPIRE AIR MAIL

NEW ZEALAND SERVICE INAUGURATED ♦ — DISPATCH BY WANGANELLA. DELIVERY IN GREAT BRITAIN IN FORTNIGHT. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. A most notable development in connection with the overseas mail communicatidns of the Dominion commenced last night with the despatch by the Wanganella, from Wellington of approximately 122,000 letters, weighing 3,0561b5, which, under the new Empire air mail scheme, will be carried by air via Sydney and Singapore to England in a fortnight, instead of the usual 28 to 30 days of the surface transport •nails which have served New Zealand for many decades. This air mail will reach London on the same date as a mail despatched by the fastest surface transport route eleven days earlier. The prospect of having to wait at least two months for an English reply to a New Zealand letter has ended and this remarkable speeding up of the mails is being provided by a nominal increase in postage charges, penny postage having been, superseded by a charge of three-halfpence for the halfounce letter. SHORT-PAID LETTERS. Though the change had been heralded by months .of discussion in the Press and was finally described in detail through every medium of publicity, the Post Office discovered to its intense surprise that 20 per cent of the letters posted for the first despatch were short-paid. Every household in the Dominion was furnished with information regarding the new mail arrangements, but the habits of years were evidently not to be changed by a publicity campaign of a few weeks. Even business firms were -offenders. Another feature of the new- mail arrangements has been the disappearance of penny postage to the United States, the international rate of 21d per ounce now prevailing. This, too, has been overlooked by large numbers of correspondents, who are throwing on the recipients of their letters the obligation of paying double the deficiency. OFFICIAL GREETINGS. To mark the distinctive occasion, yesterday’s mail, which went forward in the blue bags which have superseded the large canvas bags used for surface transit, included a special satchel of black leather, embossed with .he New Zealand emblem of the Silver Fern and an inscription referring to the despatch of the first mail under the Empire scheme. The satchel contained letters from his Excellency the Governor-General to his Majesty the King, from the Prime Minister of New Zealand to the Prime Minister of Great Britain, the Minister of Defence to Sir Kingsley Wood, Secretary of State for Air. from the PostmasterGeneral to Major G. C. Tryon (Post-master-General of Great Britain), from the Prime Minister to the New Zealand High Commissioner, London, and from the Director-General of the Post and Telegraph Department to the DirectorGeneral of the British Post Office. A RAPID EXPANSION. Also connecting with the Empire air service despatch from Sydney on August 9 will be Friday’s mail forwarded from Auckland by the Mariposa. Even under the handicap of the air mail surcharge of Is 6d per half ounce which prevailed until a few days ago, the great advantage in speeding up mail communications by using the Empire air route was being increasingly appreciated. When the service commenced in 1935, the average monthly despatches from New Zealand were 9,817 letters. In 1936 this average rose to 17,470, with a total for ■.he year of 209,647. Last year showed a further big advance to an average monthly total of 27,039, the year’s business amounting to 324,470 letters. This year there was a faster expansion of the use of the service on the high surcharge basis, the monthly average rising to 31,273, although the period did not include any rush time for correspondence, such as is experienced early in December. It is anticipated that the monthly despatches will exceed 180,000 letters, but the postage to Empire countries and Egypt, instead of being Is 6d, will be threehalfpence per half ounce.