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13.
These are the highest uniform rates of which the Convention of Paris allows,
but I feel sure that the public in Hongthong and China, far from regarding them as retrogression, would hail them as a
in advance.
14.
as a
step
It might be well to invite the Governments of the Straits, India, and Ceylon to join with Houghong in asking . for these uniform rates of Postage, but if they cannot be generally established perhaps
there would be no objection
to
the adoption of such uniform rates by
this Colony,
Colony, so long
as it should account
to London at the same rates as will be
charged to Ceylon and Singapore.
15.
-Letters being the paying part of
Postal business, the 5d unil on those not forwarded via Brindisi would without
enciting a single complaint, put this
much better position for
office in a
-paying
its Postal Contribution, and meeting the loss that would accrue on Books and
Papers forwarded via Brindisi. Moreover we should then be able to simplify
local
our-
category of stamps, to adapt them to the coinage (a ten cents postage, I may point out, represents a coin),
020
other
smit does) and eventually to have a -nearly pure decimal series. The checking
of postage would be immensely simplified.