F.—l

10

Dead and Missing Letters. The proportion of dead or unclaimed letters, letter-cards, and post-cards to the total number delivered within the Dominion was 0-5 per cent. 228,258 letters (including letters addressed to soldiers and registered letters) were opened and returned to writers by the. Dead Letter Office ; 36,395 were returned unopened by the. Dead Letter Office to other countries ; 97,343 (including those addressed to soldiers) were reissued ; 34,523 were destroyed, the senders not being known ; 265,143 were returned by Chief Postmasters to senders within New Zealand ; 38,792 were returned unopened by Chief Postmasters to other countries : a total of 700,454, compared with 840,470 in 1919. Other articles numbering 5,143 were returned by the Dead Letter Office to foreign countries ; 3,005 were returned to senders by the Dead Letter Office ; 118,280 were returned to senders by Chief Postmasters ; 26,900 were returned by Chief Postmasters to other countries : a total of 153,328 compared with 112,528 in 1919. There were 5,465 letters and 2,858 letter-cards posted without addresses ; 25,461 letters were wrongly addressed ; 99 bore libellous addresses and were intercepted ; 26 letters were discovered to bear previously used stamps ; 8,063 registered letters were dealt with in the Dead Letter Office ; 3,473 newspapers and 3,268 books and other articles were received without addresses, but many of these were subsequently applied for and delivered ; 29,632 newspapers were returned to publishers. There were 6,132 inquiries made during 1920 for postal packets alleged to have been posted and not delivered. In 3,621 of the inquiries—more than half of the total number—the investigations made by the Department resulted in the missing articles being traced or accounted for. These may be summarized as follows : — Number of Traced Cases. Result. 805 .. .. .. .. Sender responsible for delay. 1,302 .. .. .. . . Addressee responsible for delay. 355 .. .. .. .. Post Office responsible for delay. 1,159 .. .. .. .. No delay, or responsibility not fixed. 3,621 Prohibited Correspondence. During the year 452 letters addressed to persons or firms for whom the transmission of correspondence is prohibited under section 28 of the Post and Telegraph Act, 1908, were withheld from transmission. Register op Newspapers and Magazines. Twenty-three newspapers were registered for transmission by post, and eleven were removed from the register. One magazine was registered, and six were removed from the register. Registration of Magazines. The Post and Telegraph Amendment Act, 1919, provided for the registration of a magazine under the principal Act in such manner and subject to such conditions as may be prescribed by regulations thereunder. Regulations made accordingly were gazetted on the 4th June, 1920. In the regulations a magazine is defined as under : — " A magazine is a publication, with or without advertisements, which contains information of a public character, or articles relating to literature, sciences, arts, politics, religion, sport, or some special industry. It must have a legitimate list of subscribers, except in the case of Government publications. It need not be printed or published in New Zealand, but shall be published in numbers at intervals of not more than three months, except in the case of Government publications issued at less frequent intervals not exceeding twelve months. The title and date or month of publication must be printed on the cover (if any), or, in the absence of a cover, at the top of the first page, and on every detached page or piece of paper issued as part of the magazine." Postage-stamps. New Zealand " Victory " stamps overprinted for use in Samoa were issued and placed on sale in July, 1920. In August, 1920, pictorial sets of stamps of the denominations _d., Id., l|d., 3d., 6d., and Is., for Aitutaki, Niue, Penrhyn Island, and Rarotonga, were brought into use. The designs of the same denominations are identical in the four sets. During the year the New Zealand Id. stamp overprinted " Aitutaki Tai Pene " was superseded by a similar stamp overprinted " Aitutaki " only ; and the 2|d. stamps of the pictorial scries of 1898 overprinted for use in Niue and Penrhyn Island were superseded by stamps of the King George series overprinted " Niue " and " Penrhyn Island " respectively. Owing to the alteration in postage-rates the 4id. and 7i-d. stamps are not now required. When the present stocks are exhausted these stamps will not be reprinted. Consequent upon the increased rates it was decided in August to impress postage on supplies of newspaper-wrappers and letter-cards as under : Newspaper-wrappers, Id. universal stamp ; lettercards, two Id. universal stamps. A l|d. post-card was issued in September, the die used being that used, for the old lid. lettercard. A new die for post-cards and a 2d. die for letter-cards are being obtained.