INLAND MAILS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19371, 8 July 1937, Page 14

INLAND MAILS

REVIEWING CONTRACTS PACK-HORSE SURVIVES The periodical review of road mail contracts in the South Island is being nade by the Post Office. This involves arrangements relating to 250 contracts which form part of the great system of transport associated with .he distribution of mails within New Zealand. Including those not under contract, there are 1670 mail services in the Dominion and, in addition, there is the extensive use of the railway system, the backbone of mail transport. The road services are now so numerous that the post office spreads its review of them by taking approximately: one-third of the total each year, making arrangements in groups for the following three years. Opporunity is taken at each review to carefully investigate local requirements and the development of road transport so as to make the best use of growing facilities. General Policy The general policy is to utilise existing services including passenger routes, newspaper delivery runs, .■ream collections and even tradesmen’s deliveries where they are regular. Road transport of inland mails for the Dominion involves an annual expenditure of £150,000 on subsidies .o private operators. These mail contracts illustrate how completely the horse has been eliminated from transport services in the nonunion. For the last 12 years inM na'ls have been almost wholly transported by motor vehicle and rail, ..<v. oouvii island contracts now Under review show that the useful pack horse still does service ’"here indent and modern methods of transport are mixed in an interesting manner. Contrast In Services There is an air mail service from Hokitika to Haast and Okuru, but the pack horse comes into use on -die route to serve settlements which have no landing, ground. Following up the development of roading systems the post office mail services have been extended from Lumsden into Hollvford Pass, while consideration is being given to extending the Pembroke mail service from the head gf Lake Wanaka to the workmen’s camps on the road -now in course of construction over the Haast Pass.

These road services provide important links in gaps of the Dominion’s railway system. They also maintain the rural mail delivery system, now so well developed in the Dominion that there are 26,700 rural delivery boxes bringing post office service to the farmer’s gate.