3.0
450
an add be by an
there is not sufficient room to sort two heavy mails at the same time. It is notorious that this is and has been for years past
With the natural increase and growth the actual state of affairs.
in the work of the Post Office during the next six or seven years what will it be then? The position of this important Government Department will have become positively intolerable, unworthy of and in every respect discreditable to the Colony.
3.- His Excellency Sir Wm Robinson, then Governor, appointed a Committee on 8th September 1894, "to report on the condition of the Government Offices and the desirability of locating the
The Committee consisted of various Departments under one roof". the Hon: the Director of Public Works (F.A. Cooper), the Hon: the Colonial Treasurer (A.M. Thomson), and Messrs C.P. Chater, C.M.G., A. McConachie, and Sir T. Jackson. After due enquiry the members reported unanimously on 23rd November, 1896, as follows:-
"It is desirable for many reasons that the several Government Offices should be situated close together, if possible under one roof, as much loss of time and inconvenience to the public would be thereby obviated, and business greatly facilitated. Were it not for the fact that the present offices at St. John's Place are in a good structural condition, are suitably and conveniently situated for the meetings of Council, and the accommodation afforded for the Colonial Secretary's Department appears adequate, we should recommend that in any project for the erection of new buildings accommodation should be provided for that department.
"The Post Office and Treasury buildings, which had been erected in 1846 for a house for the Registrar General, on the site of the present Post Office and Treasury, and subsequently altered for the purpose of serving as a Post Office, were in 1864 found to be quite inadequate to meet the requirements of the Postal Department; it was therefore decided to pull them down and erect a new Post Office.
"The present main buildings, which were completed in 1867 with certain additions and alterations carried out in 1884 and 1885, consist of a ground floor and basement
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Occupied