PACIFIC MAILS.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17939, 6 December 1923, Page 8

PACIFIC MAILS.

AGENT APPOINTED FOR MAKURA Mr T. Joll, supervisor of the Auckland mail room, has been appointed mail agent on the Makura, which will sail for Vancouver from Auckland on December 11th. Agents on the Pacific mail boats were first, introduced in the ''GO's, when there was a line of steamers running between Panama and Wellington, and were maintained until 1307, when the practice was discontinued, owing, it is understood, to a new subsidy arrangement with the lines running via Suez. The old order has now been, reverted to, with a view to accelerating the distribution of mails. As showing how the postal business h.-ie advanced, it is interesting to learn that the mail for New Zealand via Pacific in 1907 averaged from 800 to 900 bags of letters ; now the average is between 17CO and 2000 bags. Under these circumstances it is considered hardly possible for the one agent and his assistant to sor; the whole of a mail on the run down from Vancouver; but it is expected that they will be able to get through the letter mail (which will save anything between five and fifteen hours in the delivery of mails to the various towns), leaving secondary mail matter —papers, books, and parcels—to be sorted on arrival. Later, agente are to be appointed to the Wellington-San Francisco mail boats.