MAIL SERVICES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18997, 19 October 1923, Page 4

MAIL SERVICES.

Mr Massey had an effective argument ■to his hand when he protested at the Economic Conference against the delays that occur in the transmission of mails between New Zealand and Great Britain. Ho had himself completed his journey to the Old Country in the space of twenty-seven and a-half days. It is nothing for the mails to be from thirtyfive to forty days on the voyage. Mr Massey’s quick passage, the outcome of the facilities that were afforded him for rapid travelling, shows the ready possibility of greater expedition in the transmission of oversea mails provided that a close connection is established at the terminal ports on both sides of the American continent. It is disappointing that, despite the progress that has been made in shipbuilding, the mail services between New Zealand and the United Kingdom are no improvement upon what they were years ago. Indeed, the position is worse than it was. The records of the Post and Telegraph Department show that letters from New Zealand to Great Britain and vice versa were delivered more quickly in past years than is the case to-day. This is an unfortunate state of affairs; and Mr Massey is doing well to give it his attention. But when he returns to the Dominion he will, if he looks into the matter, find that the domestic arrangements for the transmission of the overseas mails are far from creditable. The distribution of these mails from the ports at which they arrive is, in the experience of the South Island—and the further south the worse that experience becomes, —associated with a most dilatory and exasperating procedure. We have referred on more than one previous occasion to the disability which is thus imposed upon those parts of the South Island to which the oversea mails come straggling down from the north in a casual and haphazard manner, a driblet arriving one day and another a day or two later—all illustrative of a process most leisurely and unsystematic as well as inconvenient for the public. The situation is rendered so much the worse by the philosophic attitude of the responsible authorities regarding the connection between the ferry steamer at Lyttelton and the mail train leaving Christchurch for the south. A case in point happened yesterday. Because the Wabine did not arrive at Lyttelton till fifty minutes after the departure of the express from Christchurch passengers and mails for the south must perforce remain in Christchurch for over twentyfour hours, and cannot reach Dunedin till a late hour to-night. Passengers proceeding to Southland are thus prevented from reaching their destination before Saturday night, being involved in a delay of forty-eight hours. All this inconvenience could have been avoided if the mail train had been bold back for a sufficient time—apparently a little more than an hour would have sufficed—to enable passengers and mails to transfer to it. Experience has- shown that it is possible for the train to make up as much lost time as this on the journey south. The Postal authorities can surely not view occurrences of this kind with equanimity, but there is little evidence of any energetic attempt on their part to ameliorate the situation. In former days there was a progressive Postal Department in New Zealand, which worked, as it should work, in co-opera-tion with the Railways Department, and it wa.i its regular practice to employ a special train for the conveyance of mails from abroad, if the ordinary trains did not happen to serve the purpose except at the cost of delay. The Railways Department is probably immovable and is certainly not responsive to suggestions for the improvement of its service, but we put it to the new permanent head of the Post Office that he might well signalise his assumption of responsibility by restoring the postal service to the degree of efficiency which characterised it twenty years ago.