C.O.
General Post Office.
390
Hongkong August 11th.
Sir,
1271
A
Rec'd 11 JAN 01
The undersigned clerks in the General Post Office,
beg most respectfully to present this our humble petition, and sincerely trust you will be pleased to recommend our application to the favourable consideration of His Excellency the Governor.
Within the last ten years, the volume of inward and outward postal correspondence has increased enormously, and has far outstripped the slight increases of staff made from time to time to cope with the increase of work, and which has not yet reached its limit as the Australian Colonies have not yet adopted the penny rate of postage.
Mr. Lister, when Postmaster General, had the work of consolidating the Post Office after it became a member of the Universal Postal Union, advocated only 5 hours per day as the duration of time to be imposed on a postal clerk, exclusive of course of the extra attendance necessitated on an outward contract mail day or on an inward contract mail arriving after office hours.
The hours of duty now range from 8 to 12 per diem, according to the exigencies of the Postal Service, exclusive of extra attendance on arrival or departure of contract packets.
This is gradually increasing, and the hours of duty may be expected to become longer rather than shorter.
In no other Government Department of this Colony are the hours of duty so long or the work of so trying a nature, requiring a combination of clerical intelligence, sound common sense and ...
To Commander
N.C.H. Hastings R.N.
Postmaster General.