ANNUAL REPORT.
The year under review again provided the Postal Department with many problems accentuated by labour disputes and strikes. Inadequate accommodation was further aggravated by storage of offloaded transit mails from other Administrations for China, due to the disruption of services with that country, and my thanks are again due to all members of the Staff for their loyal co-operation and highly creditable work in trying circumstances.
Staff.
(a) POST OFFICE.
Mr. J. H. B. Lee proceeded on leave prior to retirement and his place as Postmaster General was taken by Mr. L. C. Saville.
Mr. E. Thorndike, of the General Post Office, London, was appointed Assistant Controller of Posts and arrived in the Colony on the 13th February, 1950.
Mails (General, Registered & Parcels)
2. Full details are shown in Tables I, II, and III.
3. General.
(a) With the exception of a temporary decrease in surface "transit" mails of 86,031 bags (57.2%) and of 1,089 (7.4%) Air Mail bags despatched, due to the suspension of service with China, all other classes of mails showed appreciable increases and some further records were established. There was an increase of 14,149 bags (18.9%) in surface mails received and a decrease of only 772 bags of Air Mail (4.7%) received. Several new services were inaugurated.
Air Mail Service.
(b) The transmission time for U.K. mails was reduced from 5 to 4 days with the inauguration of the B.O.A.C. "Argonaut" service in September. New services were established with Okinawa and Tokyo by P.A.L. in April, with Mauritius in August, and Sandakan in January, whilst in November separate despatches were commenced to Brussels, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Lisbon, Geneva, Oslo and Stockholm, via B.O.A.C. U.K. service.
In September the first direct service between Vancouver and Hong Kong was inaugurated by the Canadian Pacific Air Line-transmission time 2 days.