"Mystery"

Fiji-Australia Air-Mail

The air-mail postage between Austra lia and Fiji is one of the post-war mys teries of officialdom. Letters arriving in Australia and NZ from Fiji bear postage of lOd. Letters posted in Svdney for Fiji by air-mail must pay 1/6. The “PIM” asked the Australian Post Office “Why?” But the answer was; “We are not authorised to make any statement upon postage rates obtaining in other countries.” They admitted that it cost nearly twice as much to post from Syd ney to Suva, as from Suva to Sydney, but “they have no idea why it costs so much less to mail the same letter in Suva.”

The solution to the mvstery we found in the “Fiji Times.” It costs lOd. to send a letter air-mail from Fiji to Aus tralia via NZ. But it costs 1/6 to send it direct from Fiji to Australia (by Qantas).

We again ask, “Why?”

Mr. W. W. Bolton, MA, of Papeete, Tahiti, has now reached his 88th birth day; and, in a recent letter, he says that he is “still happily going strong.” He celebrated his 87th birthday—and the end of the war in Europe—with a 40-miles hike, in one day.