BY AIR MAIL

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 50, 27 August 1938, Page 10

BY AIR MAIL

FMPIRF VI AT RATF

AUSTRALIA STANDS ASIDE

LETTERS BY THE TON

It is inevitable that in these first months of the operation of the air mail service misunderstandings and misconceptions will arise, but the air mail will settle down to something just as simple as any other mailing system. It must, because between Great Britain and New Zealand there is no other letter mailing system; every letter goes by air, at a penny halfpenny a halfounce. So also, letter mail to India and South Africa goes by air today, except across the Tasman, and this last gap will be bridged by flying boats in a few months' time, though not before January of next year. Then all letters for Australia will go by air as well. There have been several references in cables from Australia to the "fivepenny" air mail to England, and, still more confusing, to the penny halfpenny air mail from England to Australia, and naturally the questions arise: Why fivepence from Australia to England and a penny halfpenny from England to Australia, and why fivepence from Australia to England and a penny half-penny from New Zealand to England, a greater distance by 1200 miles? The New Zealand letter writer seems to be on a win, and so he is. The Empire air-mail plan, put forward first about three years ago, was for an "all-up" rate for letter carriage, in which surcharges as they had been applied in the past should have no place at all. From England one long chain-of service was to stretch through Alexandria, India, the Malay States, and Australia to New Zealand, a branch chain running south from Alexandria to South Africa, with the penny halfpenny letter rate applying all along the Empire air routes. AUSTRALIA DECLINES. Everyone agreed except Australia, and the reason for the refusal of the Commonwealth to come in was that the internal surface rate in Australia (by train or steamship) is 2d, and the internal air-mail rate is fivepence. Had the Federal Government agreed to a scheme which would have carried letters 10,000 miles to England, and greater distances to South Africa for a penny halfpenny, the Sydney business man would have raised Cain over his twopenny letter to Manly. He would certainly have asked himself and the Government why and what! The Government would have been forced by public opinion to reduce internal postal rates, and as Australia does very well indeed from the twopenny and fivepenny internal rates the Government was not willing to pass up good revenue. So Australia stayed out of-the all-up scheme and stuck to. a surcharge plan; Australian letters which carry a fivepenny stamp go by air and those which don't still go by surface mail, though all letters from Britain to Australia arrive by air at the all-up rate.

. Later, when the /T.E.A.L. (Tasman Empire Air Line) service starts, the same will hold between Australia and New Zealand. Letters from New Zealand to Australia will go by air for a penny halfpenny, but the answers will come back with fivepenny stamps on them. The Empire air-mail plan has no parallel outside the England-South Africa-India-New Zealand agreement, but if it succeeds in service and in revenue to the contracting Governments and to the operating companies then international interest must be aroused, for letter post is surely international in scope and service. That, however, is still ahead, and for the present the Empire air-mail plan is far in advance of all foreign schemes of air-mail carriage at heavy surcharge rates. The long-term contracts drawn up provide for fifteen years of operation, with reviews of the arrangements between Governments and operating companies as to subsidies, etc., at three-yearly intervals. Messages from Australia refer to tons of New Zealand air mail carried across the Tasman by boat and loaded on Qantas Empire flying-boats: nearly two tons, as compared with under a ton of outward Australian five-penny mail up to August 18; on August 23 nearly a ton (21051b) of New Zealand penny ha'penny mail for the flying-boat Centurion and only 2881b of Australian five-penny mail. But, said the Australian Minister of Defence (Mr. H- V. C. Thorby): "I am not impressed," and he added that at present the aerial mail service from Britain to New Zealand was being used extensively for the sending of circulars and other advertising matter. What Mr. Thorby did not comment upon effectively was that it is in the outward maH, from, New Zealand to Britain (not from Britain to New Zealand), that the comparison with Australian five-penny air mail is so striking, nor did he say how he Icnew what was in the sealed mail bags for New Zealand. HOW MUCH AIR MAIL? No one can say today with certainty how the use of air mail services will develop, but post offices can give a close approximation of how it should develop, unless new factors come in to upset calculations, as they probably based on 1937 and previous years suggest that letter mails will be carried over the Tasman for England, Australia and other Empire countries round and about the world like this:— t« Treat Britain 49 tons per annum To Australia >.. • 5* tons per annum To other Emplro countries _4 tons per annum Total outward air mail 107 tons per annum FroS other Empire countries_4 tons per annum Total inward air mall 147 tons per annum This outward and inward mail is not spread over the year evenly. Approximately one-fifth of the year's letter postings to Britain were last year crowded into three weeks of November, and 12 per cent, of the letters for Australia were rushed away between December 6 and 20, to reach addressees in time for Christmas. Something like the same Christmas rush held for inward mails. . However, outside the Christmas rush, the average total weekly outgoing letter mail from New Zealand last year was 1.8 tons (40321b), and the average total inward mail was 2.47 tons (55411b), with the Christmas peaks rising to 8.45 tons outward and 11.6 tons inward in the second week in December. It is interesting to note that inward mails are considerably heavier both from Australia (60 tons) and from Great Britain (83 tons) than outward mails (54 tons to Australia and 49 tons to Britain), so perhaps there is something in what Mr. Thorby said (when remarking that he was not impressed) about circulars and advertising matter from Britain, though that does not by any means explain why outward-bound New Zealand air-mail bags should fill a ton compartment in the Centurion while the Australian bags were stowed easily, as it were, in the broom cupboard. That fivepenny charge seems to have more to do with it. All these tons mean lots of letters:

there are 22401b to the ton, and the average run of letters is 40 to the pound, so anyone can work it out, nearly a hundred thousand letters to the ton. It is probable that more and more letters wiij be written, for when the Tasman gap is bridged, in perhaps six months' time, a large proportion of business that is done today by cable will find the through air niail fast enough, and quicker communication will make for closer contact 'between all correspondents along the air-mail route. A letter which will bring an answer in three weeks is more likely to be written than one to which the answer will come next month, some month, or not at all. But that does not necessarily mean that the weight of air mail will increase correspondingly. At present air-mail paper and envelopes are a household mystery, and letters are still being written on lightweight cardboard and creased over to fit into cartridge-paper envelopes, eating up the half-ounces readily. Airmail paper is still business paper; it is not yet socially correct, but everyone will use this tough, light paper as the air-mail idea is accepted, and -the tonnage may not, after all, go up.