FAST MAIL FOR EUROPE

Hawera Star, Volume LI, 3 June 1932, Page 6

FAST MAIL FOR EUROPE

■FROM N.Z. IN 25 DAYS. DESPATCH NEXT WEEK. A specially-addressed mail for Great Britain, Ireland and the Continent of Europe, to be dispatched from Auckland by' the Oceanic Steamship Company’s liner Mariposa next Tuesday, is expected to reach London in 25 days. If the mail arrives as scheduled this will be the shortest time taken for letters to reach England from New Zealand by the ordinary overseas mail routes.

The Mariposa will leave Auckland at j 5. p.m. next Tuesday, and will arrive at Los Angeles on June 21. After being taken across America by express train, the mail is to connect with the North German Lloyd liner Columbus, which will leave New York on June 26 and reach Plymouth on July 2. Although the mail will be British, it will be in foreign custody from the time it leaves Auckland until it reaches England. The usual time taken to forward letters from New Zealand to London is from 28 to 30 days. A recent mail sent from Wellington, via San Francisco, by a Union Company liner which left on April 19, reached London on May 17.

The mail service between New Zealand and England has not been improved to a great extent, for the Union Company’s formersteamer Monowai made a fast trip from San [Francisco in 1894, and landed her mail in New Zealand 3! days after its dispatch from London. lit was a record which remained unbeaten for a long period. An isolated exception occurred 31 years ago, when the mail reached London in 26 days. In August, 1901, the Spreckels Line steamer Ventura raced across the Pacific in record time, but owing to delays at the American port she missed the regular mail train. Mr Spreckels arranged for a special tram to take the mail, and it performed its task so successfully that the mail reached London 26 days after leaving Auckland.