[?]peeding Cook Is. Mails
p. 71 · Read in the full issue
Ommonsense
[?] Ould Help In—
L MANGAIA, Cook Islands, cor respondent reports an extra ordinary situation that exists lere in regard to mails.
Usually any vessels calling at that land from overseas touch at arotonga before departing from te Group. But recently a vessel ading pineapples sailed directly to ew Zealand from Mangaia. Local isidents figured that mail for arotonga would reach there, via ew Zealand, quicker than by any her expected direct link between ie two islands.
But the Post Office would not :cept mail via New Zealand. The ooks have their own postage amps. Officialdom said that such ail would have to bear NZ stamps t the trip back from New Zea nd to Rarotonga. No NZ stamps ere available. The residents were •epared to double-stamp their mail ith Cook Islands stamps so that ie Treasury would not lose out i the deal. But no, the Regula- Dns did not provide for any un >ual arrangement like that. So ie mail remained in Mangaia vaiting a direct boat.
Much earlier, an even more per exing situation existed in regard Cook Islands air mails. After
NZNAC ceased its land-plane ser vice to Rarotonga, the New Zea land Post Office refused to accept air mails for Rarotonga—even though TEAL was calling at Aitutaki, 140 miles away, and there were frequent, though irregular, small-ship con nections between the two islands.
Inquirers in Auckland were told that there was no sea connection — though everyone in the Cooks knew to the contrary—but it was months before the Post Office admitted its error, or made inquiries to confirm that shipping connections did exist and that the air-mail route via Aitutaki could be a much speedier one than the surface mail connec tion during the hurricane season.