ENGLISH MAILS. AN AUCKLAND COMPLAINT.

Evening Post, Volume LXXV, Issue 23, 28 January 1908, Page 8

ENGLISH MAILS. AN AUCKLAND COMPLAINT.

SAID TO BE NOT JUSTIFIED. A complaint of Auckland business men of the irregularity of the mail service via Suez was the subject of enquiries made in Wellington this morning by an Evening Post representative. A Press Association message from the North stated that "haphazard arrival of English mails via Suez has lately been causing no end of inconvenience to Auckland business people. Since the of the 'Frisco service the Suez mail has been largely requisitioned, ,but the inconsistencj' of the arrivals in Auckland has been the cause of general complaint. A weekly seivice exists between Lqpidon and Sydney, but the transhipment of New Zealand mails has been more or less irregular, and' in mercantile circles the inconvenience has been' considerable. The Zealandia, last night again failed to bring an -English moil." So far as tho fact of the Zealandia missing the mail is concerned, tiie statement quoted is coTrect, but, to use the words of a Wellington merchant, 'This is another Auckland screech." The mails via Suez have not arrived haphazardly ; as a matter of fact, they have arrived regularly in Auckland on Sunday ojr Monday morning early for some months past, with the exception of just before Christmas, and on the present occasion. . Tho Melbourne-Sydney mail train being probably delayed, and the fact that the Wimmera was leaving for Wellington soon' after the Zelikmdip. sailed for Auckland, probably influenced the despatch of the latter vessel to time, and ths transfer of the mails to the steamer immediately leaving for Wellington. If th© mails arrived in Auckland in time to catch tho steamer leaving Onehunga on Sunday afternoon, they reach Wellington on Monday evening. As it is, they will reach Wellington to-morrow. Tho delay, however, is not a regular thing by any means, according to enquiries at the Postal Department.