CLOSING OF MAILS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 85, Issue 9, 11 January 1941, Page 4

CLOSING OF MAILS

NO PUBLICATION OF TIMES STRAIN ON CENSORSHIP 50,000 LETTERS A WEEK.

Information that it has been decreed that notification of the closing of mails for Australia is no longer to be published was contained in a letter received by the Auckland Chamber of Commerce from the chief postmaster at. Auckland, Mr. R. G. May. The reason why the closing times of Tasman air mails are also not now published was also contained in the letter. The ban against publication of closing times of mails, of course, also applies in Wanganui. Mr. May wrote that the department took seriously its duty to. the public to advertise mail closing times. Its policy was never to advertise unless it could guarantee a connection for correspondence posted prior to the time announced. In this it had been given the full co-operation of the censorship authorities, but with the introduction of the air mail rate of 9d to soldiers overseas the volume of air mail for Tasman despatch had increased to such an extent that the censorship authorities found it necessary to ask the Post Office to cease advertising a closing time. It was found in practice that at least half the total volume of air mail letters was being posted on the day ol the closing of the mail, and it was no longer possible to guarantee that correspondence would make the connections advertised. The difficulties faceo by the censor could be appreciated from the fact that in a recent week 56,000 letters were despatched by Tasman air mail.