UNDER-PAID MAIL

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23320, 13 April 1939, Page 15

UNDER-PAID MAIL

OVERSEA PROTESTS NEW ZEALANDERS' NEGLECT CHECKS MADE BY POST OFFICE The Post Office has been advising the public for eight months about the disappearance of penny postage to all overseas countries except Australia, but it has discovered through disappointing experience that a proportion of the public takes no notice of those announcements, it was stated yesterday. Nothing short of a penalty brings the point to mind, but the penalty, which is double the deficiency in postage, has to be collected from the overseas recipient. The London correspondent of a New Zealand newspaper recently dealt with the subject of understamped letters from New Zealand. "For so many vears New Zealand has enjoyed the privilege of the penny post for letters to England," he said, that correspondents in the Dominion are understamping their letters, to the aggravation of recipients here, who are mulcted with double the deficiency. Moreover, understamped letters are subjected to delay in delivery."

Penal Rates Operating The correspondent added: "At Christmas time people are inspired with the spirit of goodwill) and they merely murmured. But this warm-hearted condition cannot be expected to extend for ail undue period. The objections are being made in a louder voice. Out of consideration for those who might not have noticed the first announcements of the change to the lJd "all-up" rate to Empire countries (including Fiji and Tonga), the various postal administrations decided to waive the penalty of double the deficiency for six weeks following the inauguration of the service on July 20, 19<io. Then the penal rate commenced to operate. As penny postage to the United States of America had been replaced by a rate of 2id an ounce the usual deficiency was IJd, and the penal rate 3d.

* Comparative Returns In the case of English letters the penal rate was usually Id, although neglect of the half-ounce rule frequent It necessitated a further penalty of 3d," which was double the ordinary rate of lid a half-ounce. Constant reminders and possibly some protests by correspondents at the other end have reduoed the numbers of underpaid letters sent overseas, but recent checks at Wellington ana Auckland, where the bulk of these mails are finally handled, show the deficiencies to be as follows, the figures for Auckland being shown in parentheses: —Empire countries, 6 per cent (8.4 per cent); United States, 23 per cent (22 per cent); foreign countries, except United states of America, 8 per cent (10 per cent). It has been noticed that the bulk of the short-paid correspondence for the United States is from private persons, and that in connection with Empire countries the deficiency figures have been increased by failure to recognise that Tonga and Fiji are included in the l*d "all-up" scheme.