POST OFFICE
(Contd.)
Thus progress established many of the amenities which we know to-day, and the cost to the Post Office was proportionate. In 1883 we find much correspondence on the Colony's contribution towards the loss incurred by the Imperial Government on the P. and O. Co's. new contract (which came into force on February 1, 1880), to carry mails between England and the Colonies. Hong Kong was actually asked to contribute £12,700 per annum, but the Government decided all it could afford was about $4,000, and the Home Government eventually suggested £6,000 which the local Postmaster General considered could be agreed to with certain conditions.
In the course of the correspondence it is disclosed that up to 1877 the Colony had contributed nothing towards the cost of the mail service; but from 1877 Hong Kong had paid part of the additional cost for an augmented service, the amount paid in 1879-80 being £2,828. From 1880, as stated, the charge became higher under a new contract. But we are not concerned here with the details of these payments.
835
The signalling of the mails when they arrived was a matter considered from time to time. That the original method was rather haphazard may be gathered from some of the correspondence on file.
On May 31, 1884, Captain Dempster writes to the Postmaster General. "My dear Mr. Lister, I shall give the necessary instructions to the P.C. on duty at Peddar's Wharf to give notice to you on the arrival of the mails in the night."
But in March 1886 we find Mr. Lister appointed Chairman of a board, which included the Acting Harbour Master and the Director of the Observatory, to consider and report "on the question of the signalling of the incoming mail steamers and the Government writes almost immediately stating that "the necessary instructions have been issued for giving effect to the recommendations of the Board."
In February 1897 in reply to a letter from the Postmaster General, the P. and O. Company states that it will in future regularly advise the Post Office of the hour of arrival at Green Island of the English mail.
Space considerations make it necessary to reserve the question of detained mails for a further article: and in a concluding note we shall see how the move to the present Post Office building was brought about; also the provision of a postal service to the Peak districts, and the establishment of a sub-Post Office at Kowloon.
We come to-day to a bit of old history which contains several instances of friction between the Post Office and the shipmasters, but the Postmaster must have had good grounds for declaring that some of the merchants and captains of vessels were not trying to ensure the proper delivery of letters through the authoritative channel. There is no space for a full consideration of the subject: I shall confine myself to a few extracts from the records, which practically speak for themselves.
As early as August 1847 appears a complaint that "clipper vessels" sailing from Bombay and Calcutta to China were proceeding direct to Cumsingmoon, where the opium receiving ships were stationed, distant nearly forty miles from Hong Kong, and from there were going direct to Whampoa, whence the mails were sent to Hong Kong by "Chinese Express Boats;" thus causing a delay and extra expense as the Post Office had to pay the cost