The expenses were defrayed by the London, the salaries of the Staff by Hongkong.
2. From time to time these salaries were augmented. In Canton, the salary of the Agent was augmented by $480 a year in a few years after the transfer of the control of the Agencies, but there was no augmentation of the Imperial subsidy.
In 1881, when the Agencies were absorbed into the Postal Administration of Japan, those under the control of the Hongkong General Post Office, and were reduced from £1170 to £710 (exclusive of £100 to Postmaster General) which at the then current rate of 2/4 and 3/2 was equal to $84260 and $4484 respectively. By the same year, the salaries attaching to the China Agencies that existed in 1869, had risen from $4848 in 1869 to $6288 in 1881. To meet this latter sum, the Imperial subsidy, the highest, amounted to only $4484, a deficit for that one year of nearly $2,000; the total deficit from 1869 to 1881 must have been considerable, owing to the almost immediate addition to the salaries of the Swatow and Canton Agents, which was not accompanied by any increase in the Imperial subsidy.
4. In the Estimates for 1890, those China Agents' salaries, which were covered in 1869 by a sum of $4848, had reached the figure of $7880, the Imperial subsidy remaining stationary, being equivalent, at the current rate of exchange, to $3872.
The Table attached will show that this Colony makes considerable profit by having the Postal...