The General Commanding The Superintendent Quarter Master General.
The Assistant Adjutant General.
can act in concert; and under this Arrangement I cannot imagine that any difficulty requiring the other Offices and Individuals to pay the postage at once on their Official correspondence; but if there should be one or two other Departments inconvenienced the coil can be immediately remedied.
In the enclosed papers your Lordships will perceive that allusion is made to the transmission from Hong Kong of Letters for the United Kingdom via Calcutta and Madras, but as there is a heavy Inland postage in India for their conveyance to Bombay, and which your Lordships will perceive I vainly endeavoured to induce the Court Directors to diminish, there is reason to apprehend that they would be detained at postage at the Post of disembarkation.
And I have desired the Deputy Postmaster General not to forward them by that route unless specially so addressed by the Writers. As, however, Sir Henry Pottinger expresses an anxiety that advantage should be taken of Vessels proceeding from Hong Kong to those ports to forward Mails for the United Kingdom, I have thought it advisable to bring the subject under the consideration of the East India Company with a view to some arrangement being made in the matter, for it appears to me that an Account might advantageously be opened between Hong Kong and the Indian Post Office not only for the Letters addressed to the United Kingdom from Hong Kong but also to afford the benefit of optional payment of postage on the local correspondence between that Colony and India.
As regards the latter measure however, it will be desirable, in order to avoid complexity.