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6.
I attach a list of clerks who have resigned recently showing their present pay as compared with their previous salaries.
7.
A number of the more recently recruited clerks work hard and do their best but they will, as far as can be seen, never develop into good postal officers. What is required is a much better class of man than is at present obtained and this can only be got by offering better pay and removing some of the more hopeless to less exacting Departments.
8.
The staff is too small in the General Office to admit of clerks specializing, say, into (a) sorting letters for local delivery, (b) sorting letters for despatch, (c) closing and despatching mails, and few ever attain proficiency in all three points. The result is constant mistakes involving delays and much correspondence.
9.
It is highly desirable that a better grade of clerk and shroff be employed in the Enquiry Office and Poste Restante and at the Stamp counter. Neither of the Compradores nor any of the Shroffs have any real knowledge of English and they have great difficulty in understanding the Public and in making themselves understood, and further, the technical information furnished in the Postal Guide is beyond their comprehension. The services of four Stamp-vendors are required at the counter and all these ought to be sufficiently well educated and experienced to be able to answer or to know where to go and get an answer to any enquiries the public may make. Similarly, in the Poste Restante, foreigners and ship passengers often have trouble at the counter owing to this difficulty.
10.
The Senior Clerk deals with the distribution of letters to postmen, none of whom read English and the address of each letter has to be read out in Chinese. To check these would involve much delay and confusion between similar names constantly.