OVERSEAS MAILS.

Press, Volume LVI, Issue 16985, 6 November 1920, Page 9

OVERSEAS MAILS.

DISSATISFACTION WITH SERVICE

Irregularities in the arrival of oversea mails in New Zealand, and also in England, is a matter that is causing serious inconvenience to business people. The mails arrive so irregularly that nobody knows when the next or.e is likely to come. Generally, a mail is either'very small indeed, covering two or three days, or else it is an accumulation of three weeks' mail matter. The Pacific steamers run almost together, and this lessens by nearly a naif the usefulness of tho Pacific connexion to the New Zealand public. A representative of "The Press" yesterday mentioned the matter to a number of business people, and in every instance was assured that drastic changes were necessary if the mail services were to give satisfaction. Mr TV. J. Jenkin, chairman of tho Canterbury Industrial Association, said that anything that could be done to improve the present conditions should be done at once. He knew of circumstances where goods from England had 1 reached the Dominion fully six weeks before the documents. Business people ; simply had no idea when mails were arriving. He related a case that camo under his own experience. A short ] time-ago a line came to hand without the necessary documents. As there was an immediate demand for the line in question, he sokl it at what he thought | was a reasonable figure, but when the 1 invoices arrived some time later, they j disclosed the fact that he had made a | loss on tho sale. Numbers of business [ people were suffering in a _ similar fashion. Industrial difficulties imposed ' quite enough trouble on business people without this additional handicap. If it was a fact that the Government had failed to renew the mail carriage contracts, ho considered it a disgrace. It appeared that they were not studying commercial people as they should. Mr Jenkin.was of the opinion that tho Industrial Association and the Chamber of Commerce should bring the matter very forcibly before the Government, with a view to getting an improvement effected as soon as it could be arranged. The manager of a large c9mmercial house gave instances of various lines arriving without documents, which -meant, he said, that trade was held up. Tho company's staff was constantly being put to inconvenienco in the matter'. A letter from the company's" London house received yesterday, and dated the 23rd of September, stated that no New Zealand mail had been received since tho 9th of that month. Mr F. E. Jones, chairman of the Imnorters' Committee" of tho Canterbury Chamber of Commerce, said ho was' in full accord with the complaints made. He had drawn attention to the matter when he returned to New Zealand last year from America. Ho posted letters in Toronto on December 23rd, and remained in America till the end of January, when he left by the Moana. The letters did not get to Cliristchurch' until a month after his arrival. There wero many reasons which made for such delays. Strikes was one. Another was that mails made up in Canada for tho Vancouver steamer might happen to miss connexion with the vessel, in whicn case it never seemed to occur to the authorities to send tho packages by rail to catch tho boat at San Frantisco. They preferred to hold them at Vancouver for three weeks, or a month, as the case might be, until another steamer "arrived. This could easily bo obviated by ■ the postal authorities taking the trouble to find out from tho Union Company what the date of departuro was from either port. It was particularly annoying when a shipment coming from New York via the Panama Canal beat the mail, which would be sent from East to TVest with the idea of saving time. In such a case it would have been far better to send the papers on by the boat carrying tho shipment. Documents sent from abroad to New Zealand frequently reached their destination after the duplicates, which were posted somo time afterwards, got there. The last overseas mail received by the firm with which Mr Jones was connected, arrived by tho Niagara, on. October Bth. What was badly needed, concluded Mr Jones> was a fortnightly service between the Dominion and San Francisco and Vancouver respectively. During tho war tho- mail services had got into a bad state, and they urgently needed reorganising. 1 The reporter was told by the Assist-ant-Postmaster that the last two inward 'Frisco mails included no English matter, 173 bags of which, however, arrived by the Paloona at tho Blufi from j Melbourne, and reached Christchurch on Thursday night by train. English mails were beginning to come again ' via Australia, the P. and 0. and Orient I Lines, which had suspended running I during tho war, having resumed their Australian services. It appeared that English mails for tho Dominion were sent by the first boat leaving for these shores, the routes including those of Vancouver. San Francisco, Panama, and Suez. The following steamers were duo shortly with overseas mails: Tofua due at Wellington from San Francisco, on the 9th inst., v;ith 1035 parcels and 4 .bags of mails; lonic, due ftt Wellington. from London, on the 21<l inst., with a mail from the United Kingdom; Remuera, due at Wellington about the 13th inst., with a mail from the United Kingdom; Tahiti, due at Auckland from Vancouver, about tho 11th inst., with gOO bags of mail, of which about 700 will probably be from the United Kingdom. The irregularities in tho service were due to the fact that during tho war the contracts for the carriage of overseas mails expired, and up to the present have not been renewed.