Messrs. W. H.. Everett and Son, of Salisbury-square, have received the following letter from the Post Office on the subject of the complaints they have made in our columns as to the loss and delay of newspapers etc., posted by them in the course of their business to different parts of the world:
"With reference to your letter of 24th of March, adverting to communications which you had addressed to "The Times" newspaper on the subject of the loss and delay of newspapers sent by you to your customers abroad, I am directed by' the Postmaster-General to state that there is, in his opinion, no justification of the charges which you bring against this office of ' pilfering' and of intentional concealment of delay. As regards newspapers and periodicals said to have been lost in the post, there is no reason whatever for supposing that any missives posted by you in wrappers properly secured have "not been forwarded to their destination, or that any, of which the torn wrappers only have been delivered, have been wilfully abstracted. So faras the delay of your newspapers is concerned, there can, it is feared, be little doubt that these were among other papers which have had to be held over here from time to time in consequence of extreme pre: sure of work. It will be obvious to you that in cases of such pressure, if it is impossible to dispatch all the correspondence in time, preference must be given to letters over printed matter. It is, of course, unfortunate that any portion of the mails should be left behind. It is not, however, always possible to estimate the extra force which will be required to deal with extra work; and there is a further difficulty in the fact that the rate -of increase in the work gradually tends to exceed that which it is possible to apply to the space at the Postmaster-General's disposal. But steps are being taken to provide both additional space and force estimated to be fully adequate to the requirements of the case; and it is hoped that from deficiencies in that respect, at any rate, no further delay will arise. It is perhaps worth while to observe that if, as you appear to desire, the same elaborate System of date-stamping applied to letters were also used for tinted matter, the risk of delay would e not diminished but augmented by the increase of the time needed for handling each article. The adoption of your alternative suggestion that a special Stamp should be applied to printed matter held over would obviously tend to increase the general pressure of work, Nevertheless, the _Postmaster-General will carefully consider whether, upon the whole, it is desiravie to adopt it."
In reply Messrs. Everett wrote "You place a limit on our charge of pilfering' which our letters do not warrant. 'We stated that magazines, &e., posted by us, were never received' but did not say where they vanished, which, they having
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.