INLAND AIR MAILS

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 182, 30 April 1936, Page 13

INLAND AIR MAILS

Experimental Stage Disappointing MINISTER DISCUSSES POSITION "There is no doubt that the initial inland air-inail service has been disappointing,” said the Postmaster-Gen-eral, Hon. F. Jones, in an interview last evening, “but it is perhaps a bit too early yet to be discouraged. The experimental stage must be tried and passed before any final decisions are made, but the position at the moment suggests a discontinuance unless better support is given to the service. “It is too early yet to make a statement as to the expenditure involved, or the losses that have been incurred in carrying out the experiment so far,” continued Mr. Jones. “No definite financial arrangements have been made, but something will have to be paid to Hie airways company that handled the mails. As I have already stated, the Post and Telegraph Department has no agreement with Union Airways concerning the time-table. Only a tentative arrangement was made for three months on tlie understanding that if business at the end of the period warranted it a contract would be made.” Tlie Minister mentioned that while he was in Christchurch the other day complaints had been made to him that the new time-table detracted considerably from the benefit of the air mail, in that it had been previously possible to post a letter in Christchurch by noon for delivery in Auckland on the following morning. It was now necessary to have letters posted by 9 a.m. This meant that it was impossible to reply immediately to correspondence received in tlie morning. The same difficulties applied to letters for ■Wellington, which might as well bo posted by tlie ordinary mail in the evening. Correspondence for Dunedin would be similarly affected, as it had to be posted by 10 a.m. Tlie Minister said that the alteration had been made after representations by business • people in Dunedin, who wished to have the aeroplanes leave earlier so that letters posted in the morning would reach Wellington the same afternoon, and enable a reply to catcli the aeroplane from the north the next morning. The letters to be posted in the morning would probably have to bo written the night before, as iu Christchurch. i Mr. Jones said he did not anticipate any difficulty for the overseas mail service from the recent decision of the Union Company to withdraw two ships from the Pacific service. There was the shipping from Vancouver and the Matson Line from San Francisco, and there was the proposed new air service, though he did not yet know whether this would lie used for mail. The whole question was bound up with that of subsidised shipping.