OFFICIAL ROMANCE

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22491, 27 August 1938, Page 21

OFFICIAL ROMANCE

Circular

(specially written fob thjc press.)

[By Y. R. F. HUGHES.]

THE postage rate has gone up. As you distastefully lick the necessary extra halfpenny stamp, you

decide that you will give up writing to Great-Uncle William. That extra halfpenny on the monthly, letter will soon mount up. Let's see: on a yearly basis, a halfpenny a month for 12 months is . . . sixpence. Well, perhaps you can afford to send the letter as usual, after all. Besides, you begin to work out the exchange rate on money from England. As Great-Uncle William's sole remaining relative, you are certain of a neat little packet, unless he leaves his money to found homes for inebriated auchesses or brokendown weight-lifters. Yes, stand that extra sixpence a year! It may show a profit. . . . The reason for the increase, of course, is the new air mail scheme. This has only just come into operation, and many are still unaware of the new rates. They should obtain the chart, issued by the Post Office, on which the charges are set out. But you who have already received the chart—have you read it fully? Or have you merely glanced at the line about the postage increase, and fretfully stopped there? The whole card is full of interest. Take a look at the most interesting section of all. Here are alphabetically listed the countries and places in the world served by, or part served by, the new air scheme. Countries and places one has never heard of before. Places with names like sandwich fillings; short names, unpronounceable names. How many have heard before of Oman, Gambia, or Reunion? Kuwait sounds Eskimo; yet it may be in Borneo. The Cameroons are better known, and not more than two women out of five will be vague enough to be sure that they are a radio band combination.

Such is the prosaic quality of the official mind that Alaska and Afghanistan, surely the most widely different of countries, are placed side by side! Guatemala and Nicaragua give good practice to spellingbee competitors; and for those who think that pearls are found only on the north Australian coast, a word about Bahrein will not come amiss. This Persian Gulf island has pearl fisheries to the annual value of between £IOO,OOO and £500,000, and is also remarkable for the freshwater springs that issue from the sea bed. All these places are listed as accessible by post for far less than the price of a packet of cheap cigarettes. You simply write the address and affix the stamps; and the postal staffs do the rest. The letter may not arrive to-morrow, or even next week', but, it isn't far new, and it won't take long—even to Tibet for 2£d. This most inaccessibly remote and jealously guarded of countries may be contacted by post. That is, if you can think of someone there to write to! And why not the Dalai Lama, the only person one hears of there? It would be worth a few stamps to be able to mention, offhandedly that the ruler of the Roof

All in a Post Office

of the World is your correspondent. The address is, "Dalai Lama, The Potala, Lhasa*, Tibet." You can imagine your letter being flown across Australia and the islands, trained across India, trotted by pony through the guarded passes of the Himalayas, bumped by wiry Tibetan mule or. long-haired yak over the snowy plateaux, past the monasteries perched on the mountain sides, till it reaches the magnificent Potala, a few miles from the squalid, holy Forbidden City. At last, after thousands of miles, from tropic heat to eternal snow, by aeroplane at 200 miles an hour, by yak at 20 miles a day, at long last, you can picture your letter being handed to a yellow-robed lama. And then you can picture it being handed back unopened, to travel the whole reverse journey; for just now there is no Dalai Lama, or if one has been found since the last news came from Tibet, he will be a child too young to read.