OVERSEAS MAILS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 18954, 3 March 1936, Page 3

OVERSEAS MAILS

TO UNFAMILIAR PLACES

DIRECT CONNECTIONS

When overseas mails are thought of by- New Zealanders who are not, connected with the Post o(lice, the names of possibly not more than naif a dozen countries come to mind, hut the fact is that, direct mails from the Dominion are dispatched to no fewer than 28 countries. Letters are not forwarded indiscriminately in hulk; in nearly every ease they leave New Zealand sorted not only in respect to country of destination, but frequently in respect to the overseas city to which they are addressed. Mails for Britain are thus sub-divided and specially addressed to at least 30 places within that country. The result is that they reach their ultimate destination with the minimum of delay—the quickest means of transit arc taken, there is no stop for sorting en route, and no danger of letters for one city becoming mixed up with those dispatched for another. A mail hag for North London, for instance, is not opened until it readies the principal post ollicc in that area.

When there is sullicient correspondence to warrant adopting the system of carrying it in sealed hags addressed to the final destination this practice is always adopted, and the New Zealand Post'Ollicc has Us direct mails to many places quite unfamiliar to most of us. |i will lie a surprising fact to everyone outside the mail branch of the Post Cilice to know that has its direct, mail service with New Zealand. Correspondence for that, country is enclosed in mail hags addressed “Ljubljana.” a town which the writer of this article had never previously heard of. 11 does not appear on any except I lie most up-to-date map. KIND OF MAIL .JUNCTION

Is it because New Zealanders are highly partial to world travel that their Post Cilice lias to provide direct mails for so large a number of countries known to most people only by namef It was recently decided to exchange direct mails with Mombasa because the volume of correspondence between New Zealand and the Kenya Colony. Uganda, Tanganyika Territory and Zanzibar had reached such proportions as to cause inconvenience to tin Colombo Post Cilice which had hitherto received all these letters in its direct New Zealand mail, and had taken the responsibility for forwarding. Colombo facilitates the transport of all our mails for India, which go forward from that point by train and train ferry via I Hianushkndi to Madura (South India) where the bags are opened and disposed of. Colombo Post Cilice also handles a fairly large quantity of New Zealand mail for Abyssinia.

Port Tewfik. in Egypt, is another unfamiliar place where New Zealand mail appears in fairly large volume, for this is the point—a kind of mail junction — from which correspondence is forwarded to all Balkan States (except Yugoslavia). Ttirkev. Syria and Palestine. Cyprus and Malta.*

Now Zealand correspondence with China is sufficiently large to involve direct mails.