Frich. No 11.
Their letters by those routes to Europe prepayment here of the Chinese, Indian and Ship Letterage. In accordance with the opinions there expressed, and considering the great importance to the community of this accommodation being afforded to them, I caused a letter to be addressed to the Deputy Post Master, authorizing as a temporary measure and pending instructions from the Post Master General on the subject, to receive the Indian Postage here, the Government to open an account with him, as an undertaking to open an account with the Post Masters of the respective Residencies.
It is unnecessary for me to say, that some such course must ere long be adopted, it is only a sense of the great inconvenience, which would arise from not its being adopted, which has induced me to consent, even temporarily to undertaking this responsibility, and that I trust Your Lordship will urge, that instructions be sent out by the proper Department, to provide for this desirable object. The Notification has not yet been drawn up, but it shall be carried into execution as soon as Mr Scales has prepared it.
Loud complaints have also been made of the heavy charges exacted by this scales on parcels of patterns. In one case where a parcel of this kind, not having passed through any Post Office, was given by mistake by the Captain of a private ship, in whose care it was, to the agent employed in landing the mails, Scales refused to give it up without a heavy payment. This operates merely against the Merchants here, and the propriety of remitting part at least of charges on such packages, where postage is fairly due,
N°19 incl. N° 13 to N° 19 160