No. 218.
THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 5TH NOVEMBER, 1879. 641
GOVERNMENT NOTIFICATION.
The following despatch from Her Majesty's Secretary of State for the Colonies, dated 30th August, 1879, with copy of the correspondence accompanying it, is published for general information.
By Command,
Colonial Secretary's Office, Hongkong, 4th November, 1879.
HONGKONG. No. 118.
W. H. MARSH,
Colonial Secretary.
DOWNING STREET,
30th August, 1879.
SIR, On the 25th instant I communicated to you by telegram the arrangements proposed for the transmission viâ Brindisi after January next, (when the existing contract with the Peninsular and Oriental Company will expire) of the Eastern and Australian Mails, and the proposed abandonment of the service via Southampton.
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I now enclose for the information of your Government copies of a correspondence between the Treasury and this Department upon which that telegram was founded.
Governor HENNESSY, C.M.G.,
Corr.
12488 79.
HONGKONG.
I have the honour to be,
Sir,
Your most obedient humble Servant,
M. E. HICKS-BEACH.
The Treasury to the Colonial Office.
TREASURY CHAMBERS,
23rd July, 1879.
SIR, I am directed by the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury to transmit to you herewith for the information of the Secretary of State for the Colonies, copy of a letter from the Postmaster-General, dated the 17th instant, respecting future arrangements for the conveyance of the portion of the Eastern Mails now carried via Southampton, and I am to request you to move Secretary Sir MICHAEL HICKS BEACH to favour my Lords with any observations he may have to offer in regard to the proposals contained therein so far as they affect the correspondence with the Australian Colonies, New Zealand, Ceylon, the Straits Settlements and Hong-Kong.
The Under Secretary of State,
I am, &c.,
H. SELWIN IBBETSON.
COPY.
99,770.
Colonial Office.
The Post Office to the Treasury.
GENERAL POST OFFICE,
17th July, 1879.
MY LORDS, When the arrangements were made last year for the Sea Conveyance of the Eastern Mails after the 1st February next, when the existing contract with the Peninsular and Oriental Company will expire, it was determined to make no provision for a service between Southampton and Suez, and accordingly that line is omitted in the new contract.
It remains now to consider by what means the correspondence, which is at present being forwarded by the Southampton route, shall be sent after February.
In the early part of this year I put myself in communication with the Post Offices of France and Italy, for the purpose of ascertaining what abatement they would respectively be willing to make in the amount of the transit rates now paid to those Offices for the special weekly conveyance between Calais and Brindisi of the accelerated portion of the Eastern Mails, provided the whole of the corres- pondence of every description was forwarded by that route.
It is only very recently that I have received a definite reply from Italy.