§ Mr. Tinkerasked the Postmaster-General whether he will make a statement on the delivery of mails from overseas as there are many homes concerned over the long intervals between letters they get from relatives serving in every branch of the Army, Navy and Air Force and it would be helpful to all concerned if the causes of delay were made known?
§ Captain CrookshankSo far as surface mails from H.M. Forces overseas are concerned, the lack of speedy and regular services is due primarily to the effect of war conditions on sea communications. As regards air mails, the governing factor is the amount of aircraft capacity which can be made available for mail transport having regard to the heavy loads of military traffic requiring urgent conveyance; this capacity is not sufficient to enable ordinary air mail letters from the Middle East and countries beyond to be carried all the way by air to this country, and this relatively heavy type of communication, together at times with the light-weight letter cards, can be given air transmission only as far as a port in Africa, the remainder of the journey being by surface route. Variations in the air service, in conjunction with war-time shipping conditions to which I have already referred, result unfortunately in irregularity of arrivals and in widely varying intervals between arrivals. On the other hand, airgraph mails are invariably brought all the way to this country by air, and although arrivals may be irregular owing to operational causes, airgraphs are preferable in point of speed to other forms of air mail service.