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No. 119. The Secretary, General Post Office, Wellington, to the Resident Agent for New Zealand, San Francisco. Sir, — General Post Office, Wellington, 4th December, 1900. I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 31st October last, dealing, among other matters, with the delay to the New Zealand mails in their transit across the United States. I am obliged for a perusal of the railroad mail-service reports, which are returned herewith. Yours, &c, W. Gray, Secretary. H. Stephenson Smith, Esq., Resident Agent for New Zealand, San Francisco.

No. 120. The Secretary, General Post Office, Wellington, to the Resident Agent for New Zealand, San Francisco. Sir, — General Post Office, Wellington, sth December, 1900. I shall be obliged if you will be good enough to forward me regularly the time-tables of the trains running across the United States of America, particularly those which carry the New Zealand mails. I have, &c, W. Gray, Secretary. H. Stephenson Smith, Esq., Resident Agent for New Zealand, San Francisco.

No. 121. The Resident Agent for New Zealand, San Francisco, to the Secretary, General Post Office, Wellington. Sir, — San Prancisco, 12th December, 1900. Since I last had the honour of writing you I have received the following cable from you: "Ask Spreckels arrange despatch 'Mariposa' from Auckland December 27"; which I now beg to confirm. * * * * # . # On receipt of the cable I at once communicated with Messrs. Spreckels and obtained their consent to the despatch of the "Mariposa" from Sydney on the 27th December, or two days earlier, which I trust will meet your wishes in the matter. I have again to direct the attention of the department to the accommodating spirit in which Messrs. Spreckels have met the wishes of the Government. The first steamer of the new service, the s.s. " Sierra " will, on account of an accident on the Southern Pacific line near Ogden, be delayed possibly until Thursday afternoon. This is quite unfortunate, although as some six bags of letters of the United States portion of the mail are reported delayed the detention will, in all probability, enable a connection to be made by this delayed portion. lam not as yet advised of the cause of the delay to the United States lettermail. I have, &c, H. Stephenson Smith, Resident Agent. The Secretary, General Post Office, Wellington.

No. 122. The Hon. the Premier to the Agent-General. Sir, — Premier's Office, Wellington, 20th December, 1900. I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the Bth ultimo, enclosing copy of correspondence with the Imperial Post Office, showing that arrangements had been made to despatch mails from London for New Zealand vid San Francisco on the 10th idem, and every third Saturday thereafter. I learn from the printed notice you enclosed that the London Office is giving preference to the Suez route for two weeks out of the three. The table which I send herewith [see also No. 29] will show that when the new boats are running on the Pacific there will be no gain, but rather delay, in using the eastern route for correspondence posted during the week preceding the departure of the San Francisco mails. I shall therefore feel obliged if you will represent the matter to the Imperial Post Office, and ask that only correspondence posted during the week following the outward mail via San Prancisco should be sent by way of Italy, the use of the Federal line during the two other periods being restricted to specially addressed articles. As will be seen from the table, there is no certainty that the second weekly mail by way of Suez will anticipate the San Francisco despatch, while it is possible that when the Pacific service gets into proper working order the mails by that route may arrive from one to three days ahead of the second mail vid Suez and Australia. I have, &c, J. G. Ward, for the Premier, The Hon. W. P, Reeves, Agent-General for New Zealand, London,