9.0 1
+
407
services of couriers in every direction and establishing a Post Office in every village where it is required. In the other Provinces work along the two great trunk lines will be improved and preparations for extension gone on with,
The Grant will enable him to do away with the recently established zone tariff, of which much complaint has been made by the proprietors of newspapers, upon whom it was a heavy tax, and have a uniform rate for the whole of China.
Sir Robert Hart still complains of the competition of foreign Post Offices, especially Japanese, French and German, who are endeavouring to establish themselves along special lines or in special spheres, the Japanese wherever they can see an opening, the Germans along their railway, which is bound to carry German mails and asks prohibitive rates for carrying those of the Chinese Post Office, and the French from Tonking via Yunnan-fu to Chungking, with the collaboration of the Roman Catholic Missionaries in the interior.
Note attached.
Sir