Your reference 30160/27.
P.O. reference...118927/27.
All communications should be addressed to-
"The Secretary,
General Post Office."
NATION
FOR DISH
SCHEME
MEN
GENERAL POST OFFICE,
16
LONDON, E.C. 1.
January...
IVED
17 JAN 1928
100 - OFFIC
192.8.
20
30160127
Wolf
Copy In Shanks 34-1/2 1-2 FEB 1920
Anad - (2).
45- All
Sir,
I am directed by the Postmaster General to refer to your letter of the 29th of October last on the subject of the parcel post service from Great Britain to the Far East and to state for the information of the Secretary of State for the Colonies, that the matter has again been very fully reviewed.
If
In the alternate weeks, when the Peninsular and Oriental Contract Packets do not run to Hong Kong, the Letter Mails for Hong Kong are disembarked at Bombay and conveyed across India to Singapore for onward transmission to their destination. the Parcel Mails were forwarded by that route, extra payments would have to be made for their land transit in India, their sea conveyance between India and Singapore and between Singapore and Hong Kong, and for trans-shipment at Singapore. To cover this additional expenditure a material increase of the rates of postage would be necessary, and this would seriously discount the value of the service to the public.
The only satisfactory means of providing a weekly Parcel Post to Hong Kong would be the use in alternate weeks of steamers belonging to Messrs. Holt and Company, which sail direct to Hong Kong. These steamers were in fact used for the conveyance of parcels for the Far East generally until 1921, when a fortnightly instead of a monthly service was reestablished by the direct Packets of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company. The weekly service could not be confined
to Hong Kong, but would certainly have to be extended to all the other places in the Far East served by Messrs. Holt's steamers, and the diversion of these mails from the Contract
The Under Secretary of State,
COLONIAL OFFICE.
packets
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