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No. 161. The Secretary, General Post Office, Wellington, to the Deputy Postmaster-General, Sydney. Sir,— General Post Office, Wellington, 30th April, 1901. I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 17th instant, forwarding amended copy of the ocean mail-service time-table issued by your office. I note your remark that, according to the time-table issued by the agents of the Oceanic Steamship Company, the day of arrival in London of the mails vid San Francisco is shown as Friday instead of Saturday, while the mails from San Francisco are time-tabled to arrive at Auckland on Monday and at Sydney on Thursday. The arrivals at Auckland and Sydney, as mentioned, have been accepted by this department, as will be seen from the last issue of the " New Zealand Post and Telegraph Guide." No advice, however, has been received of any change of the day of arrival at London. I have, &c, The Deputy Postmaster-General, Sydney. W. Gray, Secretary.

No. 162. The Secretary, General Post Office, Wellington, to the Resident Agent for New Zealand, San Francisco. Sir,— General Post Office, Wellington, 30th April, 1901. I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 28th ultimo, enclosing correspondence with reference to the failure of a bag of mail to connect with the " Sierra" on her last voyage. The Mail-agent reported that the bag was noticed to be missing when the mails arrived at San Francisco, but, though there had been more than one delay to the mails on the overland journey, it was not reported that a bag from London had been left behind. When, therefore, it did not arrive by the 6.45 p.m. train, which brought some delayed New York mails, the Mail-agent concluded that a mistake had been made in the waybill. After proceeding to sea, however, it was ascertained beyond doubt that a bag of letters had gone astray. The San Francisco office was advised from Pago Pago, and it was expected that the missing bag would reach here by the " Sonoma," which it did. I have, &c, W. Gray, Secretary. H. Stephenson Smith, Esq., Resident Agent for New Zealand, San Francisco.

No. 163. The Hon. the Postmaster-General to the Secretary, General Post Office, London. Sir,— General Post Office, Wellington, 3rd May, 1901. Adverting to my letter of the 4th ultimo [not printed], reporting that a bag of letters from your office for New Zealand was missing from the mail shipped by the " Sierra " on the 7th March, I have now the honour to inform you that, as anticipated, the missing bag came to hand by the following mail. The bag had been missent by the New York railway authorities. I have, &c, W. Gray, for the Postmaster-General. The Secretary, General Post Office, London.

No. 164. Messrs. Henderson and Macfarlane, Auckland, to the Secretary, General Post Office, Wellington. Oceanic Steamship Company (American and Australian Line), Sir,— Auckland, Bth May, 1901. ****** Table of sailings : We enclose herewith a copy of the time-table now in force, from which you will see that the mails arrive in London on Friday. We understand they reach there late on Friday night. ****** Yours, &c, Henderson and Macfarlane, General Agents. The Secretary, General Post Office, Wellington.

No. 165. The Hon. the Premier to the Agent-General. Sir,— Premier's Office, Wellington, Bth May, 1901. I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 13th March last, giving the result of your representations to the Imperial Post Office in favour of utilising the San Francisco route two weeks out of the three for correspondence for this colony.