OVERSEA MAILS.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVI, Issue 13, 29 December 1925, Page 6

OVERSEA MAILS.

DR. THACKER’S CRITICISM. A REFUTATION. Wellington, Dec. 29. On his return from England and America a few days ago, Dr. Thacker criticised the mail facilities, staling that mails via Vancouver took 35 to 40 days to reach London, whereas if the passenger ship was speeded up it could reach it in 27 days. Mr. A. T. Markman, Secretary of the Post Office, said to-day that Dr. Thacker’s statement was not according to facts. He produced records to show that the average time the mails took to London was 29 days via San Francisco, and via Vancouver the average over two years was 31 days. The longest time via Vancouver this year was 33 days, and the shortest 29. The longest via San Francisco was 31, and the shortest 27. There was no value in Dr. Thacker’s suggestion to use an air mail between San Francisco and New York, as although the continual passage took only 36 hours by air the mails would be delayed at New York waiting for the fast mail steamer which the mails now regularly caught the day after arrival at New York. The present timetable had been all worked out and it would he absurd to expect the Canard line to arrange the movements of their ships to the convenience of New Zealand mails.