Managements and control of the Packet: Agencies at these places entails a great expenses and responsibility upon it, and if they were disconnected from this Office, the cost of maintaining these Hongkong Officers would be lessened.
Whatever arrangements however be decided upon for the arrangement of this subsidy, it is clear as in the year 1863 the excess of postal Revenues to the Colony over the expenses of the Department amounted to $35,843.42 = £7,467:7.
In this present year I regret to say that this profit to the Colony will be considerably less than it was in 1865, as though the Hongkong Government cannot give any material aid in defraying the cost of this conveyance of the Contract mails.
The diminution in postal revenue is no doubt one result of the monetary crisis in England, which has restricted banking and trade operations to narrower limits; and the sum I estimate the present year's revenue at is so much less than that of the previous year, as I have turned attention to propounding...
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