POSTAL ANOMALIES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1716, 18 January 1905, Page 65

POSTAL ANOMALIES.

(From Our Special Correspondent.) LONDON, December 2. What is to happen when the exists ing Australian mail contracts with, the P. and O. and the Orient Companies expire at tlie end of next January ?, Apparently no one knows, for no arrangements have been made for carrying on the mail service. Unless something is done, and done promptly, the mercantile community may 7 have to put up with a fortnightly, instead of a Aveekly service of mails—a backward step which avou ld be distinctly harmful to Australian interests. The Orient Company, it appears, find that it does not pay them tO' carry Australian mails on the present mail subsidy, and so far : lie Australian Government has not succeeded in obtaining a suitable tender from any other company. The Imperial government meanwhile has fixed a contract with the P. and Q. Company 7 to carry mails to and from Australia for three years for a subsidy to be paid by tlie Imperial Government alone; but this is only for a fortnightly 7 service. The Australian Government propose to fill the gap caused by the expiry of the Orient contract by shipping the mails on the alternate weeks at “poundage rates,” as payment by weight is called. Such an arrangement does not seem likely to produce satisfactory results. Linder the existing contract the shipping companies are obliged to adhere strictly to time-table dates, and heavy penalties are exacted if the contract is violated in any way. On a poundage system the Government would have no such hold over the companies, and there is no guarantee that the service will not be irregular and uncertain. The postage rates between Great Britain and Nexv Zealand contain many anomalies, some of Avhicli have existed for years. Tlie charges made for posting colonial newspapers in the United Kingdom are a glaring instance. The Post Office will convey a NeAv Zealand weekly newspaper to London for a penny, yet to send the same paper by post from Ludgate Circus to Fleet street, a few dozen yards away, would ccst another threepence. Trade newspapers, made up chiefly off advertisement matter, can go to any part of the United Kingdom for a halfpenny if they are printed and published in this country, but a colonial paper has to go by letter post, at the rate of 4oz a penny. To put the colonial newspapers on the same footing as the English would surely assist materially in advancing that mutual knowledge of one another’s requirements and views ivliich makes for sympathy and closer union between Mother Country and colonies.

Another existing handicap is the inability to send small parcels by tho fast mail routes to the colony except at letter rates. One must either be prepared to pay 6s 8d a lb for letter postage or send the parcel round by the Cape, which means a difference of four weeks in delivery at the other end. These matters were brought under the notice of the costal authorities a few 3 T ears ago without any result, but the present Postmaster-General might be disposed to look more favourably upon a suggestion in the direction of reform.