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Hong Kong. There is a general public demand for greater
facilities and services from the Post Office; in this
connection I would refer to my despatch No.488 of the
17th of June, 1938, regarding the keeping open of the
Post Office to later hours and the need for improved
delivery service.
3.
As the result of these developments,
which may be expected to continue rather than to be
reversed, it has become necessary for the Chief Accountant
to discharge many duties, other than his purely accounting
work, such as would fall to an assistant postmaster
general if such an appointment existed. It is also in
my opinion of considerable importance that there should
be some officer other than the Postmaster General himself
who can not only keep in close contact with general
administrative work but also maintain some continuity of
policy on a change in the holder of the post of Postmaster
General. Such an officer ought, moreover, to be able to
act in the post of Postmaster General during absences of
limited period of the regular holder, even if the policy
of normally appointing an administrative officer is
continued. The Postmaster General himself is increasingly
occupied with the non-technical side of broadcasting
development as well as being, in his capacity as a senior
administrative officer, generally a member of numerous
outside committees which reduce the amount of time he can
devote to the ordinary administrative routine of the Post
Office.
4.
I consider, therefore, that a post of
Assistant Postmaster General and Chief Accountant should
be created, to which I should propose to appoint in the
first place Mr. H. A. Mills, Chief Accountant. As already
indicated
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3.
indicated, the creation of such a post would be to a large extent no more than a recognition of a state of affairs which already exists, but it would also render possible the fuller development of the present
situation.
5.
Mr. Mills served under the Crown
Agents for the Colonies from 1907 to 1924, being on military service from August 1914 to December 1919. He was seconded temporarily for service in the Harbour Office of this Colony in 1924 and after reverting to the Crown Agents in 1926 was selected later in the
After same year for appointment to his present post. taking a special course of study in Post Office work with the United Kingdom Post Office he assumed duty
in the Colony in February, 1927. He has been on the
He maximum of his present scale since October, 1933. has given full satisfaction in his present post and is regarded by the present Postmaster General, Mr. E. I. Wynne-Jones, as fully competent to discharge the rather wider duties of the proposed new post.
For the salary of the new post I propose
6.
a fixed figure of £1250 on the new terms as to quarters, which is the salary already approved for the Accountant- General and proposed by the Anomalies Committee for certain other posts of deputy heads of departments or heads of smaller departments. The post is perhaps most clearly comparable with that of Accountant- General; on the accounts side it has not of course anything like equal importance but the administrative duties to be attached to it appear to me to raise it to approximately equal status.
7.
If you approve the new post and the
appointment
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