THE POSTAL UNION

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 56, 3 September 1938, Page 11

THE POSTAL UNION

HOW IT OPERATES

INTERNATIONAL SERVICE

The New Zealand Post Office accepts postal packets for transmission to every country in the world, and it is able to do this because of the smooth working of the great international organisation, the Universal Postal Union. The 84 countries who have signed the Postal Union Convention constitute—regardless of their political differences—one territory for postal purposes, and an article of the Convention reads: "Freedom of transit is guaranteed throughout the entire territory of the Union." What is termed a "closed mail" consists of bags of postal packets addressed to a particular country with the certainty that the principles of 4he Postal Union will cause every postal administration along the route to give the best of its facilities to expedite the journey by the most suitable route and means of transit. These services are paid for by New Zealand, but the mails are not delayed by a constant process of weighing. This only occurs once in every three years when, during a period of twenty-eight days, the particulars of the weight of all mails dispatched are recorded. Each mail during this weighing period contains a postal union form indicating full particulars of the weight and class of mail enclosed. The dispatch is also accompanied by a special route waybill which is eventually returned to New Zealand carrying a re- j cord in the shape of date-stamps and ! other entries, showing all the forms of transit utilised in getting the mail to its destination. While mails to England by the direct route show only one transit, there are a number of routes used regularly for New Zealand corre- > spondence involving as many as seven different handlings. A typical -mail of the latter class from New Zealand to Yugoslavia illustrates how the Postal Union works for New Zealand in remote parts of the. world. First, this mail goes-by sea to Sydney; next overland to Adelaide or Fremantle; thence to Aden, where it is transhipped for dispatch to Port Taufiq, near Suez. Next comes an overland transit to Alexandia under the direction of the Egyptian postal administration, which \ sees to its dispatch by sea to Piraeus, where the Greek postal administration attends to the seventh and final stage of the journey. Every postal administration which has assisted the mail on its way is entitled to collect a proportion of the transit charges from the New Zealand administration, and this liability is ascertained from the route way-bill. MUTUAL RESPONSIBILITY. The responsibility of New Zealand is to deliver a mail to the country of destination at its own cost. Delivery to recipients within the country is accepted as a duty of the postal administration of that country. New Zealand's Post Office will render similar service in connection with overseas mails, and the assumption is that these services approximately balance. However, this does riot work out in practice so far as United Kingdom mails to New Zealand are concerned, for they are practically double the volume of those dispatched from the Dominion to that country, the reason being the heavy volume of letters and printed matter, including periodicals, whichNew Zealanders receive from the Homeland. . 'New Zealand, correspondence for some countries is not sufficient to justify a "closed mail," and here the friendly services of other administrations overseas are rendered under the auspices, of the Postal Union. They receive from many sources the correspondence for countries more directly in touch with them, and they make up "closed mails." The Ceylon administration at Colombo takes the New Zealand letters for Aden, Abyssinia, Somaliland, Eritrea, Seychelles, and Madagascar, to include in its own mailbags to those countries. The Egyptian Port Taufiq is another postal "crossroads" which will see to the dispatch of all New Zealand mails for Asia Minor and all Balkan countries except Yugoslavia, which has its own "closed mail." Singapore postal administration renders a similar service in respect to Malaya, Borneo, and Indo-China. LANGUAGE AND FINANCE. With the whole world for its operating territory, the Postal Union requires for mutual discussions one common language, and this is French. There must also be a common basis of finance. When New Zealand postal officials receive a route way-bill of a mail which they have dispatched overseas, the varied date-stamp impressions tell a clear story of the points at which the bags have been transferred from one transit to another, and the entries indicate liabilities incurred by the New Zealand Post Office. These are settled on the basis bf a gold franc, of a declared degree of fineness and weight. The headquarters of the Postal Union are situated in Berne, Switzerland, and every five years there is a congress of representatives of the signatory countries at which New Zealand must always be represented and it exercises a full vote. The next congress will take place in April, 1939, at Buenos Aires.