CABLE DELAYS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20618, 20 November 1941, Page 4

CABLE DELAYS

SOLDIERS’ MONEY COMPLAINTS PREVALENT Complaint is prevalent among relatives of soldiers serving in the Middle East concerning delays which have occurred in the transmission of letters and cables between New Zealand and Egypt. A case concerning which details were submitted to a pressman to-day was that in which a Gisborne soldier had asked his relatives to send him money to finance a leave trip then available to him. The first advice to his relatives was* the receipt of an air-mail letter which had taken three weeks on the journey, and which contained reference to the prior dispatch of a cable asking for the money. The amount was not referred to in the letter, and assuming that the cable had gone astray, the soldier’s father arranged to forward £5 sterling at once. This was done, and when inquiry was made at the bank as to how long the money would take to reach the soldier, the sender was informed that about 48 hours would be sufficient. A week after the receipt of the airmail letter, the cable was delivered, having apparently taken four weeks to transmit from the Middle East to Gisborne. The soldiers’ relatives then learned that the sum required was £lO, and in view of the fact that so much time had elapsed, they were in a quandary as to whether they could send the balance in time for it to be of service on the leave trip. The matter of the cable delay has been submitted to Base Records for explanation.