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by British Packet via Singapore,
should be extended to the Mails conveyed between those places by French Packet =
His Lordship requests that you will be good enough to state to the Earl of Clarendon that there is a
difficulty in meeting the wishes of the Government of Hong Kong in this matter, as the payment to be made to the French
Post Office, for
the service of conveying mails by French Packet, is regulated by the Postal Convention between this Country and France, and this
Department
is not,
as it was in the case
of the Mails carried by British Packet, free to modify the rates of payment so as to suit the peculiar Conditions of the arrangement entered into between Hong Kong and the Netherlands India.
The Postmaster General
does not consider it would be desirable to make any proposal on the subject to the French Post office, as
the
rates fixed by the Anglo-French Convention have a general bearing on all correspondence conveyed by the British and
French