OVERSEAS MAILS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18998, 20 October 1923, Page 10

OVERSEAS MAILS.

EXPEDITING THE DELIVERY SORTING AGENTS TO BE REINSTATED. (Per United Press Association.) WELLINGTON, October 19. - In order to speed up the delivery of mails, the Postmaster-General has decided to reinstate the mail sorting agents on the ’Frisco and Vancouver steamers. This system as a measure of economy was dropped during the war. “We hope to arrange matters in connection with the mail agents for the next outgoing trip of the Niagara,” stated the Post-master-General. “It is our endeavour to put the scheme into operation in the shortest possible time, but the companies, of course, require to make arrangements, for accommodation of the mail agents. Another important policy in connection with Hie overseas malls, especially the mails for TTTe South Island,- is that we are negotiating with the company with the object of endeavouring to hasten the forwarding of malls south right down to Invercargill at once, instead of their having' to lie over in Christchurch ,on, Sunday. For very many years prior to 1917 the mails from tho United Kingdom and the United States of America despatched from Vancouver and San Francisco were sorted on board the mail steamers by officers of the New Zealand Post and Telegraph Department, who travelled as mail agents on the boats, and it is now proposed to revert to this quicker •method of dealing with the mails. Arrangements will shortly be mad© for mail agents to be carried on the Vancouver and San Francisco, steamers, and as a result the moils from aboard them will be, delivered to the people of New Zealand much more expeditiously than at present, when tho mails for places like, say, Hamilton and Palmerston North, are enclosed in bogs addressed to Auckland arid Wellington respectively, and on arrival in New Zealand have necessarily to be sorted before being despatched to their final destinations. Under tho mail agents’ system all correspondence for the cities and the larger towns of New Zealand will “bo subdivided on the mail steamer, and the correspondence will in many cases be available to the public approximately 24 hours, earlier than at present, and at the point of arrival in the dominion of the vessel carrying the mail agent the correspondence will, be available within a few hours. The system is. of course, merely an extension of that which is now in vogue on the Main Trunk express trains throughout the dominion which give such excellent results in regard to the expeditious manner in which urgent and important correspondence is handled. ■''On a ‘recent trip tho R.M.S. Maunganui arrived at Wellington at noon and hod a mail' agent been on board he would have had the northern portion of the mail prepared’ for" despatch by the Main Trunk express which left 45 minutes later. Owing,--however,'to the absence of a mail agent and the consequent necessity for sorting, being carrm'tl out after the mails had been landed, it w.as not possible to arrange for their despatch by that train. The new system will for the future .reduce the delays caused by such occurrences.”