To the Editor of the "Norrt-Curwa Dary News'
Sm—The complaints in: Via Smerm's letter to you are fully justified but their tone is perhaps a bit too meek to stir the postal authorities out of what can only be described as a very sound sleep. The unfortunate writer of the present letter is also in receipt of the "new" Siberian mail but is still waiting for all items which should have arrived during the first four weeks of local hostilities and which in his case must include various cheques and money orders besides ordinary mail. Are these mails being placed in an anti-war museum in order to discourage our grandchildren from embarking upon any "positive policy" or, if not, are we at least allowed to learn what their fate is to be?
Furthermore it is difficult to understand why the outgoing European mail should be dispatched via Suez or via Pacific if it is possible to deliver the incoming mail via Siberia and Japan, Perhaps the route Dairen-Nagasaki-Shanghai has been declared a one-way street by the Japanese as no, other explanation can be seen. It takes anything from 4 to 6 weeks for matter to reach Europe via Suez or via Pacific which under present tirdumstarices is quite as good as no connection at all. The air mail, of course, is still working, but after paying approximately $3 to the Post Office for just one batch of mail at least one writer feels that something ought to be done about it immediately and that the public has a right to demand that normal connections be restored as far as possible under existing circumstances. The writer might add that he is a newspaper correspondent and that therefore his mail is not exceptionally heavy. For business houses, however, the expense caused by the present state of affairs must run into hundreds of dollars.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.