COMPLAINT ALREADY INVESTIGATED

Wanganui Chronicle, 2 October 1947, Page 6

COMPLAINT ALREADY INVESTIGATED

SOME PARCELS MAY BE TAMPERED WITH /P.A.) Auckland, Oct. 1 Complaints that an Auckland firm was sending parcels to Britain with labels which did not accurately represent the contents were investigated some time ago by the Mayor (Mr. J. A. C. Allum). He said as the result of inquiries he then made he believed the cause of the criticism had been removed. However, if Mr. Jordan’s statement referred to parcels sent from Auckland since then, he would certainly look into the matter again. “I want to make it perfectly clear,” Mr. Allum said, * that the complaints which I investigated did not relate to any of the firms which are household words to a majority of Aucklanders who send parcels to Britain. In addition to parcels packed in my own home I have been responsible for many hundreds of parcels sent to Britain by the firms to which I refer. I have never had a single complaint about the parcels which they have packed. The contents have always been strictly according to label. “It should also be said,” Mr. Allum continued, “that when I took the matter up with the firm concerned I received an explanation fpr the discrepancy. I was informed that, through variations in supply, it had not always been possible to include a particular item, as ordered, in the parcel. However, I was assured that when this happened the firm either refunded the money for that item or sent it separately to Britain when supplies again became available. “There is another aspect which has only recently come to my attention,” Mr. Allum said. “From letters I have been receiving from friends and relatives in England I am very much afraid there is a certain amount of tampering in Britain itself with the contents of parcels before they are delivered. For example, one parcel we sent recently arrived with an item which was not in it when we packed it at our home. “I have no doubt this tampering is being done in England,” said Mr. Allum. “I have reason to believe that internal mails in England are also suffering.”