DEFICIENT POSTAGE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 October 1938, Page 9

DEFICIENT POSTAGE

OVERSEAS MAIL PROBLEM. The large number of overseas letters which are being despatched from New Zealand marked with deficiency surcharge which must be collected from the recipient indicates that a section of the public still fails to realise that there has been an important change in postage rates. The Empire air-mail scheme with its three halfpence “all-up” charge to all Empire countries, except Australia (which remains temporarily at a penny) has not yet meant the abandonment by some letter writers of the old universal penny postage, for they still pay a penny, leaving the recipient of their letters to meet a deficiency charge of another penny, this being double the short payment. Further checks on the position have been taken within the last few days by the Post Office, which found that in Auckland where, at the moment, a larger volume of correspondence was being handled for overseas, short-paid letters which should carry the threehalfpenny rate totalled 9 per cent, in respect to the United Kingdom, 20 per cent for Canada, 30 per cent, for Fiji and 10 per cent for Tonga. In Wellington, where the check included South Island overseas mails, 10 per cent of the United Kingdom letters, 7 per cent of the Canadian, and 7 per cent of the Fijian and Tongan letters were short-paid. The change from a Id to 2Ad in the rate to U.S.A, seems hardest to completely achieve, for the Auckland check showed 16 per cent of deficient postage and Wellington 32 per cent. In respect to other foreign countries, the proportion of letters which failed to carry the 21 d stamp were 8 per cent in Auckland and 1 per cent in Wellington.