Cenclosure
153
Report by the Treasurer and Postmaster-General,
/ The Honourable et. Lister).
"The
STR.
A.
GENERAL POST OFFICE VOTE.
HONGKONG. 1883.
3-423-
REC?
REG? 4 AUG 83,
I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your minute of the 5th March calling upon me to report on a lengthy correspondence which has passed between the Imperial Treasury, the Colonial Office, and the General Post Office on the subject of contributions by the Eastern Colonies to the Imperial loss on the new Contract with the P. & O. Company which came into force on February 1st, 1880. Papers are returned herewith.
2.--The history of the question, so far as Hongkong is concerned, may be thus summarised. Up to 1877 this Colony contributed nothing towards the heavy Imperial loss on the P. & O. Contract (£211,000 in that year, India contributing £107,500). The postage of a half ounce, or at one period even of a quarter ounce letter for the United Kingdom was at different times 1/4d., 1/3d., 1/2d., (or 1/~by the slow Southampton route) high rates which gave rise to repeated complaints and which may be said to have formed a standing grievance.
3. In 1877 these rates were re-adjusted on a 1½d. basis, this Colony becoming responsible for half the additional loss thus caused, which half was then estimated at £3,150 a year. As a matter of fact, it has not yet reached that sum, even with a further re-adjustment of postage on a 5d. unit. The last annual amount we paid (1879-80) was £2,828.
4.--The Imperial Treasury, having sanctioned a new contract with the P. & O. Company, by which the mails have been somewhat accelerated, proposes that this payment of about £3,000 a year should be merged in a larger one of more than £12,000. The Secretary of State agrees that the Colony should pay something, but he considers £12,000 out of the question, and suggests £6,000, or about double what we are paying at present, the old payment to cease.
5.--I have not the means entirely to check the computations made in the London Post Office on which the larger demand of the Imperial Treasury is based. As far as I have been able to check them, however, they have been found (as might have been expected) to be correct. I find it also to be almost certain that correspondence originating in Shanghai, &c., has been properly kept out of the account. The £12,000 is asked on account of Hongkong correspondence only.
6.--As to the funds we have to meet this claim, I append a return showing that, when all outgoings are allowed for, the annual profit on the Post Office during the last six years has averaged about $8,000 per annum, and this small sum (say £1,450) is the only balance of assets which we can set against a claim of £3,000 additional yearly. Moreover, most of this profit arises from local work, with which the Imperial Post Office has nothing to do.
7.--It follows then that to pay even the smaller sum of £6,000 fixed by the Secretary of State will leave the Colony of Hongkong working its Post Office at a