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3.
draws attention to the dissatisfaction still prevalent
among the British residents at that port in regard to the postal arrangements; and complaints from British subjects in other parts of China, as well as in Hong Kong, as to the irregular treatment of correspondence by the Chinese Post
Office have not been infrequent.
With regard to the suggested British Postal Agencies at Pekin, Tientsin and Chefoo, it would appear from Sir
E. Satow's letter of the 5th of August to the Hong Kong
Government that, with so few British residents at Pekin, there is at present no postal justification for the estab- lishment of a British Post Office there. Though at
Tientsin the position is somewhat different, the difficulties
mentioned by the British Consul appear to be greater than
the Hong Kong Post Office can undertake to cope with.
The Postmaster General has no information as to the financial
aspects of the matter which have doubtless influenced the
decision of the Hong Kong Office. From Major General
Gascoigne's letter of the 14th of July (No. 68/$) to
Mr. Lockhart, it would appear that the Hong Kong Government
is willing to establish a Postal Agency at Chefoo, but
nothing definite can be said on the proposed plan for such
an establishment until the Secretary of State for the
Colonies has decided whether the control of an agency at Chefoo should be vested in Hong Kong or Wei-hai-Wei.
This
of course is assuming that the latter possession is to be
equipped with an independent Post Office, as foreshadowed
the Colonial Office letter of the 31st of July, No. Down! 23350/1901 It is important to remark that the case of
www. Chefoo is affected by ascheme, which the Postmaster General is now considering, for the conveyance of mails to and from
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the Far East by the Trans-Siberian Railway. If this scheme
comes into operation, Chefoo will naturally become the distributing port for China and this consideration will no doubt be kept in mind in arriving at a decision in regard to the proposed British postal agency. It is observed from Mr. Consul Brady's letter of the 18th of June
(paragraph 6) that the Chinese Post Office at Chefco at
present acts partly in the capacity of agent for Wei-hai-Wei
in connexion with the receipt and despatch of mails at that
port, its services having so far been given gratuitously.
As regards Mr. Commissioner Lockhart's recommendations
in his despatch of the 30th of July relative to Wei-hai-Wei,
it is thought that the importance of Wei-hai-Wei as a postal
centre at the present time is somewhat overrated. The
Postmaster General has no information as to the present
financial position of the Hong Kong Agency there, nor as to
the postage receipts. It is roughly estimated, however,
on the basis of the weights of mails despatched from the United Kingdom recently, that the postage collected on
correspondence for Wei-hai-Wei amounts to about £250 a year,
as compared with the estimate or £900 a year arrived at in
November 1900. This marked reduction is no doubt partly
explained by the extension or the penny postage scheme to Wen-hai-Wei in May last, and partly by the diminution of correspondence following the recent change of posting in regard to the place.
The Postmaster General hardly thinks it likely that
the profit on the sale of stamps, as anticipated by Mr. Lockhart's advisory council, would nearly cover the cost of the elaborate mail service recommended by the
the
Council's