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with the Rae-Mitchell report. On the 1st January, 1880, the Agencies at Nagasaki and Yokohama were withdrawn owing to the fact that Japan had joined the Universal Postal Union in 1877. The Imperial grant to the agencies was thereupon reduced by the sum of £560 and after 1880 the Imperial Posts paid the sum of £810 a year in support of the Agencies in China; this amount was never varied until London took back full control in 1911.
In 1882, again it would appear contrary to the Rae-Mitchell report, an Agency was opened at Tientsin. This port had been opened to trade in 1860 and owing to representations made by the Consul, a Postal Agency was opened in his Consulate. A subsidy of £12 a month was granted by the Colonial Government towards the upkeep and expenses of this Agency. It would be interesting to know how this peculiar sum, granted by a British Colony to a British Consul as a subvention for a Colonial Postal Agency, was actually allocated. To-day it would of course hardly pay the wages of one coolie, but in the spacious days of 1882 it may have been sufficient to pay the whole postal staff. The records however are dumb and I have been unable to discover who actually received this sum of money. Representations were made to the London Post Office for a contribution towards the cost of the Agency. A reply was received, and it appears to me that no other reply was possible, that the reasons against opening more agencies laid down in the Rae-Mitchell report seemed to be just as valid, if not more so, in 1882 than they had been when the report was written.
The Tientsin Agency however did not work well. It was closed during the winter owing to ice and the courier route from Chinkiang to Tientsin was unsatisfactory.
The Tientsin Agency was closed in 1890 and the Colonial Government was relieved of paying its subvention of $12.00 a month.
On the 1st March, 1884, the Post Office at Macao assumed its proper position as a Portuguese Post Office under the Postal Union and the previous irregular arrangement by which it was worked as a kind of honorary agency of the Hongkong Post Office (but an agency under no control) was discontinued.
In 1885 Siam entered the Postal Union and a properly organised Post Office was opened at Bangkok under the direction of H.R.H. Somdet Phra Chow Nong Ya Tho Chow Fa Bhanurangse Swangwongse Krom Hluang Bhanuphanduwongse Woradej, Minister of Posts and Telegraphs. A kind of unrecognised Agency of the Hongkong Post Office had been maintained in the Consulate General at Bangkok where Hongkong Stamps were sold and where a letter could be registered. This Agency ceased to exist.
Mr. A. Lister was Postmaster General from 1875 until his death in 1890. He had very great knowledge of the working of the Posts at the Agencies and was strongly in favour of handing them back to China to be administered by the Customs Posts.