70
was still experienced this Government would no longer maintain the Postal Service, British merchants would use the British Agency exclusively in order to prevent its abolition, since they have much more confidence in it as far as their important correspondence is concerned.
The objection to the proposal at (b) is that the Community at any Port might justly urge that they were called upon to pay not merely the expenditure upon their own Post Office but a share of the Military Contribution of this Colony. I think therefore that the proposal at (b) can only be adopted in conjunction with that at (a), in which case the majority of Agencies would not be called upon to make any contribution. It has as I have already reported to Your Lordship been adopted in the case of Tientsin where an experimental office was established, but I did not consider it just to call upon the Chamber of Commerce to make good the sum which is paid by this Government to the Military Contribution, and the Colonial Revenue thus continues to lose a sum of $1,020 on account of the Tientsin Agency. The incidence may be seen from the following:
Agencies