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It is not generally known that specialist diplomatic officers at embassies and high commissions overseas can be drawn from government departments other than the Ministry of External Relations and Trade, formerly the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Thus several departments have long been able to send official mail overseas through the diplomatic bag to or from relevant posts. If, for instance, the Labour Department wished to send its diplomatic attaches copies of the latest manuals on immigration regulations they could use the diplomatic bag. If an agricultural attache at a diplomatic mission wished to send back a report on the latest foot and mouth information the relevant material could be sent to New Zealand in the bag. This service is not associated directly with the Post Office or with various delivery services in Wellington for mail between government departments.
Diplomatic mail sourced from these departments has to be financed by them as part of the "user-pays" system. Before the advent of "user-pays", official mail sent through the diplomatic bag was marked with a rubber stamp - for London mail in the sixties this was a rubber date-stamp "High Commissioner's Office". This was, essentially, an official "paid permit" stamp. However, since 1987 the introduction of the "user-payspolicy has brought the institution of charges from the Ministry to other governments departments for this service.
Foreign Affairs decided to follow the example of courier firms and issue pre-paid labels. The labels were introduced on 30 January 1988. They bear the words "Ministry of Foreign Affairs" above the New Zealand coat-of-arms, the value and the words "Diplomatic Mail" (figure two). The come in five denominations - $1 blue, $2 green, $5 orange, $10 yellow, and $20 red and were designed by Peter Snell Scasbrook and printed by the Ministry. They are finely rouletted and were printed on an offset Gestetner using A5 Xerox paper already backed with gum arabic. They are printed 15 to a sheet in books of 75, side-stapled, with instructions on the inside of the cover. The cover carries the coat of arms and a serial number for each book. The labels are in three rows of five per sheet and they are cancelled with a rubber stamp which spells out the word CANCELLED in letters 9mm high. The word itself is 75mm long so clearly they mean business - it actually stretches across most of three of the labels (figure two).
In 1989 the Ministry for Foreign Affairs changed its name to External Relations and Trade and this was eventually reflected in the labels (note the two types of the $20 above). The labels were still in use in August 1998.
References: New Zealand Stamp Collector,
69/2 June 1989 p90 (Labels from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, D.E. Hurley)
Captain Coqk, Journal of the Christchurch Philatelic Society Sept
1998 p92.
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