Reports from Hongkong state that starting on Aprit 10, air mail transit time by Imperial Airways between the Colony and London will be substantially reduced. The present time is eight days and a recent schedule provided for a redue~ tion to seven days, but this has been drastically changed and the new plans are for a reduction fo five and a half days between the two points, which approximates the goal of air mail time] which inspired the establishment of the route. Eight days to London has been of great advantage to Hongkong, but Shanghai has not profited 0 much even when there was direct air mail service between Shanghai and Hongkong. With' only a weekly air service to England and two train services a week across Siberia, in many cases the advantage has been small in view of the comparative times taken for transport of mails with the frequency of the Siberian service overweighing the infrequency of the air service. Since the air service to Hongkong was suspended trid only a steamer link existing to bridge the gap in communications, the advantage to Shanghai has been even less. In certain cases now the speeding up of the service from Hon Kong {0 the new limit, with careful calculation steamer mail despatches from Shanghai, ought to be an Improvement even on the original direct air mail from Shanghai. Incidentally, it further reported that in: four months' time the new 25-ton flying boats will be operating out Fongkong which will add to passenger amenities fon Imperial Airways.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.