No. 97.
GOVERNMENT NOTIFICATION.
His Excellency The GOVERNOR directs the publication of the subjoined Annual Report of the Hongkong General Post Office for the Year 1866.
By Order,
Colonial Secretary's Office, Hongkong, 29th June, 1867.
No. 32.
HENRY JOHN BALL, Acting Colonial Secretary.
GENERAL POST OFFICE, HONGKONG, 27th June, 1867.
Sir,-Some delay has occurred in handing in my usual Annual Report, caused by my absence, accompanied by EDWARD HUGH REA, Esquire, the Special Surveyor of the Post Office in the East, on an Official tour of inspection of the Postal Agencies at the various Ports and places in China and Japan. Having returned to Hongkong on the 15th Instant I proceeded at once to collect the information necessary for this purpose and I now transmit for the information of His Excellency Sir RICHARD GRAVES MACDONNELL my report being that for the year 1866.
In the first place I regret to remark that the Office has not apparently been so productive of Revenue during the year ending the 31st December last as it was in 1865 by the sum of $28,950.26 cents, and the following statement shews, that whilst the Imperial share of the Revenue was £3,928.18.7=$18,858.86 cents less in 1866 than it was in 1865, the Colony's share was $9,391.40 cents minus for the same period:-this diminution is accounted for by the depressed state of Commercial and Banking interests in the East; during the year many Mercantile Firms of standing, and Six Banks have either failed or discontinued business; by a monthly line of Steamers running for a portion of the year between Manila and Singapore carrying Mails which were formerly conveyed to this place for transmission to the United Kingdom and other places; by the continuance of an illicit conveyance of letters by vessels running on the Coast of China and Japan, and chiefly to Shanghae, where they have been deposited at the Local Post Office to the detriment of the Colonial Revenue, a fact which is substantiated by the report for the year ending 31st March last which has just been published by the Municipal Council of that place, from which it appears that nearly Six thousand Loose Letters were received at that Office from Hongkong in the year. An agreement which I made during a recent visit to Shanghae ensures that such letters will, even if taken to the Local Post Office in the first instance, be handed over to the British Post Master, who will collect the ordinary Sea Postage upon them. The mails carried by the French line of Mail Packets have also increased somewhat to the disadvantage of the British Revenue.
Comparative Statement of Revenue.
Total amount of Revenue collected during the year 1865, £40,029.16.1 =$192,143.06 Do. do. do. 1866, 34,144.6.8 =$163,892.80 Total deficiency in 1866 as compared with 1865, £5,885.9.5 =$28,250.26 Total amount of Imperial Revenue collected in 1865, £27,267.18.5 =$130,886.03 Do. do. 1866, £23,338.19.10 =$112,027.17 Total deficiency in 1866 as compared with 1865, £3,928.18.7 =$18,858.86 Total amount of Colonial Revenue collected in 1865, $61,257.03 Do. do. 1866, $51,865.63 Total deficiency in 1866 as compared with 1865, $9,391.40The amount (exclusive of Postage Stamps) outstanding and due to this Office from the Packet Agencies at the Ports at the end of the year 1865 was $8,558.47 cents, whilst that due at the end of 1866 was $13,704.10 cents thus shewing that there was $5,145.63 cents more outstanding and due to the Department in 1866 than in the previous year, and therefore reducing the total deficiency in last year's Revenue to $23,104.63, and making the Colony's share of the Postal Revenue for 1866 in reality only $4,240.77 cents less than that of 1865.
The Revenue of the Department is not however a perfect criterion of the amount of work performed in the Post Office, as for instance, if, as before shewn, £23,338.19.10 was collected here on account of the Imperial Office, it is only reasonable to assume that a sum even larger than that has been collected in the United Kingdom and elsewhere and retained there, upon correspondence sent in the mails to Hongkong, and therefore estimate that the existence of this Office and the Agencies which are subject to it induces a sum equal to about £60,000 Sterling per annum towards the payment of the Postal Subsidy, and this I am satisfied by the result of experience recently gained might be very much augmented if Officers of the Post Office were placed on board the Packets to sort the mails on the voyage, a subject which will form a part of the General Report of my tour of inspection.
The expenditure for the year 1866, so far as the same has been defrayed by the Colony amounts to $25,356.46 cents or $87.13 cents less than that of 1865, this does not embrace any portion of the charge for the carriage of the English Mails, although it includes a sum of $2,439.81 cents paid for the conveyance of mails by private Ships.