SPECIAL REPLY CARDS

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23583, 10 March 1942, Page 4

SPECIAL REPLY CARDS

ISSUE TO PRISONERS OF WAR

WARNING AGAINST USE BY RELATIVES

(P.A.) WELLINGTON. March 9. A warning to relatives of prisoners of war not to make use of any special reply cards or special labels sent to them by British or Dominion prisoners in enemy hands was issued by the Postmaster-General (the Hon. P. C. Webb). He said that according to advice received from the British Post Office these cards and labels had been issued by camp authorities in Germany to prisoners who had been told that unless letters to them were written on the cards, they would not be delivered, and that parcels not bearing the special labels would not reach them.

Mr Webb said the issue of reply cards and labels to prisoners was understood to be intended as a method of rationing the number of letters and parcels sent to prisoners of other nationalities. An assurance had been received through the Swiss postal administration thai the restriction did not apply to British and Dominion prisoners, and relatives in New Zealand were therefore advised not to use the cards or labels, notwithstanding anything that prisoners might say in their letters. Advice received from the British Post Office indicated that the German camp authorities had been suitably instructed in the matter, and it was hoped that the issue to prisoners of these cards and labels would be discontinued.