(daily to Canton), twice weekly services are maintained to the United States via Manila and Honolulu and to the United Kingdom via Bangkok, Rangoon, Calcutta and Cairo, or alternatively, via Saigon and Paris. At Cairo mails connect for the whole of the African Continent. Times vary according to the weather, particularly in the summer when flying conditions are sometimes far from ideal, but the average time from posting of a letter in United Kingdom to its receipt in Hong Kong is seven to ten days. Seamails are much less certain, depending as they do upon the somewhat irregular movements of shipping, and delays are liable to occur. On the average, the time taken for a letter or parcel by seamail is in the region of six weeks though times substantially less and substantially greater have been recorded. The postal service was severely tested early in the year when the termination of the lengthy shipping strike on the West Coast of America flooded the Colony with enormous quantities of delayed mail. Eusiness in the Money Order Office has also been brisk and there was an increase of almost 200% in the value of postal orders cashed in the Colony.
Telecommunications.
A close degree of co-operation exists between the Govern- ment Telecommunications Service and Messrs. Cable and Wireless Ltd. in the provision of telecommunications services for all purposes within and without the Colony. Commercial fixed point radio services are operated by Cable and Wireless Ltd. and are controlled from a central telegraph office in Victoria. The transmitters and receivers for these services are at the Government Radio Stations at Cape d'Aguilar and Victoria Peak where they are operated on behalf of Cable and Wireless Ltd. by personnel of the Government Telecommunications Depart- ment. Plans are at present being made for further development in this co-operation involving expansion at Cape d'Aguilar to the transmitters, accommodation and staff quarters: Cable and Wireless Ltd. will share the expense. Apart from this technical assistance to Cable and Wireless Ltd. the Government Tele- communications Department runs itself a marine radio service and an air radio service as well as having wide responsibilities for the maintenance of Government X-Ray equipment, licensing of radio transmitters and receivers and surveying all aeroplane and ship wirelesses. The marine radio service operated by Government broadcasts weather and typhoon warnings to shipping and acts as a channel for the passage of official and private messages between the Colony and ships at sea. It is also through this channel that incoming weather reports from ships are received. The service is maintained on both medium and short wave. The functions of the air radio service are principally to control the regularity and safety of air services between the Colony and other airports. A limited service for private messages to passengers is provided. Direction finding and navigational aids are also operated by this service. Since the reoccupation of the Colony aeronautical radio services had
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