POSTAL FACILITIES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23055, 4 December 1936, Page 8

POSTAL FACILITIES

TO THE EDITOR.

Sir,—This letter is written not with the object of finding fault with the work carried out by the Postal Department, but in order to suggest one way in which an improvement mav be made in the facilities we at present enjoy I refer to the collecting and despatching of letters from the suburbs at week-ends. To those who live outside the central area and find it very inconvenient to go to the Chief Post Office to post letters, the facilities for despatching mail matter between Saturday afternoon and Sunday evening are not, in my opinion, adequate for a city of the size of Dunedin. For instance, should one post a letter for say, Christchurch, at either a suburban cost office or in any pillar box, between the times mentioned, it would not be collected until 10 p.m.. or after, on the Sunday evening: and then, I am informed, would be received at the mail room of the Chief Post Office too iate for despatch by that evening's mail which goes forward by the express leaving Dunedin at 1120 p.m. Consequently, it is not despatched until Monday, and is therefore not delivered in the northern town until Tuesday. In Christchurch better facilities are provided. From my own experience there I know that a ietter for Dunedin posted on Sunday afternoon in a pillar box situated a mile or more from the Chief Post Office is collected that same day and despatched by the night express, being delivered in Dunedin on Monday morning. I would respectfully ask our Postmaster-general to see chat facilities at least equal to those obtaining in Christchurch are granted to his own city, and would make this suggestion, that a collection be made over an area of, say, two miles radius of the Chief Post Office, at 9 p.m., instead of 10 p.m„ on Sundays. On the assumption that this process of collection would take up till 10 p.m. to complete, it should have ample time to make up the mail for despatch by the evening train. But if this suggestion is not. practicable, no doubt the postal officials can evolve some scheme whereby an improvement can be made over the conditions now obtaining.—l am. etc.. ...... Suburbanite.