The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. MONDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1911. POSTAL REFORM.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 94, 4 December 1911, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. MONDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1911. POSTAL REFORM.

1 lie despatching of the Christmas mails from the principal Australian ports to the Old Country this year has been a wonderful evidence of what penny postage means for the people, and should have been comforting indeed to Mr Hennikcr Heaton and other advocates of postal reform. Melbourne sent away nearly 500 bags of mails containing more than 150,000 letters, and bundles of parcels and newspapers which no one apparently had the courage to count. This was a fine teat for the Victorian capital, hut Sydney, of course, did considerably better. The New South Wales mail comprised 244,975 letters, and the precise guardians of Sydney’s reputation have announced that the letters weighed considerably over two tons. Last [ year, when the postage was twopence, Sydney sent out by the corresponding mail only 137,191 letters, little more than half the number despatched this year. In previous years, the postal officers say, Christmas messages to friends at Homo were confined very largely within the limits of postcards, which cost only one penny for postage, but this year the number of postcards has dwindled to something quite insignificant Commenting on these remarkable figures, the “Lyttelton Times’ ’says : —This is striking evidence of the way the introduction of penny postage has been appreciated by the people of the Commonwealth during the past few months. The Federal authorities took a long time to make up their minds to the change, but since it was made they have had no cause to regret it. Their experience of the system of popularising the post office has been similar to that of our own Postmaster-General, to whose far-seeing, tireless advocacy of the

•ailse of reform our neighbours owe a very great deal. When Sir Joseph Wav i visited Sydney on Ids way to the [»• penal Conference tire Federal antin'id I ics were discussing tiro penny postage proposals, and he found an oppcntrinity to urge them to adopt a systei t like his own and predicted its ultimate success. It will Ire as gratifying to hint as it is to the Federal Postmaster-General to know that posfc.’l reform is proving not loss satisfactorv m Australia than it has done in our own country.