MAILS ACROSS THE PACIFIC

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21974, 24 December 1936, Page 17

MAILS ACROSS THE PACIFIC

EMERGENCY ROUTES BEING USED [THE PBESS Special Service.] WELLINGTON, December 23. One of New Zealand's important and regular outlets for overseas mails disappeared with the discontinuance of the San Francisco service. The difficulty was further accentuated through the American shipping strike causing disruption of the Matson service to San Francisco. The post office has consequently had to do a great deal of special planning to give prompt dispatch for United States and Canadian mails, and it is using unusul routes. The Rangitata, which left Wellington on December 17 for Great Britain, via Panama, carried mails for North America, which will be transhipped at Balboa to an American line running to New Orleans on the East Coast. From the latter point the distribution will be by rail throughout the United States and Canada. Further mails will be dispatched to the United States and Canada by the Hororata leaving Wellington this week for Great Britain via Panama and Boston, and by the Australind leaving New Zealand today for Panama and New York. The excellent regular direct services between New Zealand and Great Britain via Panama are giving the necessary facilities for frequent dispatch of the present heavy weight of mail matter. Inward English mails are maintaining heavy volume, the Rangitane reaching Wellington on December 17 with 1426 bags of mail and 349 parcel receptacles, and the Niagara has just landed at Auckland a heavy consignment of 2180 bags of mails and 602 bags of parcels from England and America distributed as follows:—Auckland, mails 762, parcels 231; Wellington, mails 761, parcels 253; Taranaki, mails 90; Christchurch, mails 328, parcels 97; Dunedin, j mails 196, parcels 21, and Invercargill, mails 43.