AIR PROBLEMS

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 68, 17 September 1936, Page 10

AIR PROBLEMS

AUSTRALIA AND N.Z.

PURPOSE OF CONFERENCE

The Prime Minister (the Rt. Hon. M. J. Savage) stated today that the New Zealand Government had invited the Australian Government to send a representative to Wellington to take part in a general discussion nn aviation problems with Mr. F. G. L. Bertram, the representative of the British Air Ministry- The conference would discusst aviation problems generally, including the proposal to establish- an air-mail service between Australia and New Zealand.

Mr. Savage said that so far he had not received an official reply from the Australian Government, but he took it that the report from Canberra that the Commonwealth Minister of Defence (Mr. Archdale Parkhill) would visit New Zealand was correct.

The outstanding difficulty in coming j to an agreement between the Imperial authorities and the Commonwealth on the attractive proposal to carry all first-class mails by air between Britain, Australia, and New Zealand without surcharge has been the charging of a higher rate of postage within Australia than is proposed for the long air route. Internal postage in the Com- j monwealth is a minimum of 2d per 02, j while the Imperial scheme provided! for the same letter charge as in the \ United Kingdom of ltd.- Recently a I new organisation was established in [ Sydney, with influential commercial i backing, to agitate for a reduction in j postal charges. . j