No. 52.
GOVERNMENT NOTIFICATION.
The following Annual Report of the Hongkong General Post Office for the Year 1873, is published for general information.
By Command,
Colonial Secretary's Office, Hongkong, 21st March, 1874.
J. GARDINER AUSTIN, Colonial Secretary.
No. 11.
GENERAL POST OFFICE,
VICTORIA, HONGKONG, 19th March, 1874,
SIR,-I have the honor to present to His Excellency Governor SIR ARTHUR EDWARD KENNEDY, K.C.M.G., C.B., the Fourteenth Annual Report on the l'ost Office, being that for the year 1873.
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2. The year 1873 was characterized by a general dullness in Trade, and the Department has not escaped the consequent effect upon its revenue,
8. The events and alterations which are worthy of note are as follows, viz. :-
4. The arrangement referred to in my last Annual Report, paragraph 5, for sending correspon- dence paid or unpaid between this Office and Austria, and the several Continental States, via Trieste, by means of the British Mail Packets has been completed.
5. The French Mail Packets continue to afford the best means of transmitting Mails to and from the Australian Colonies and New Zealand viâ Point de Galle, from whence they are carried by Packets under contract with the Victorian Government, the Mails for Queensland are however now forwarded vin Singapore by a line of Steamers through Torres' Straits, under Contract with the Queensland Government.
6. A line of British Mail Contract Packets has been established between Aden and Zanzibar, and thence to the Cape of Good Hope, calling at certain Ports on the Eastern Coast of Africa, and at Natal, which affords a regular means of conveyance of correspondence from Hongkong for the foreign ports on the East African Coast as well as for Natal and the Cape Colony, and by the connecting line, to St. Helena and Ascension also, at a reduced rate of postage.
7. The correspondence forwarded to London in private ship Mails, via Suez and Brindisi, is still inconsiderable, although in one instance, viz., the private ship mail sent by the Steamer Glaucus, which was despatched from Hongkong on the 23rd January, was delivered in London on the 3rd March, the day upon which the Mail despatched froin Hongkong by the Contract Packet Sumatra on the saine date was delivered in London, and the Ulysses' Mail which was despatched from Hongkong on the 27th May, was delivered in London on the 8th July, the date upon which the Travancore's Mail which was despatched on the 24th of May was delivered; the Travancore however met with an accident. The shortest time in which a private ship Mail from Hongkong, was delivered in London was 40 days, and the longest 58 days. No private ship Mails, were sent from the United Kingdom to China via Brindisi during the year.
8. There has been no instance of a Mail having been lost, such as was reported in the year 1872. The British Contract Packet Madras which left Hongkong on the 1st September with the Mails for Yokohama struck on a sunken rock off Swatow on the following day, and had to put into that Port, and the Bombay was despatched from Hongkong on the evening of the 4th September for Swatow and proceeded to Yokohama, with the Madras's Mails.
9. The question of establishing a Money Order system between Hongkong and China on the one side, and Saigon and Cambogia on the other has been fully considered; but for the reasons set forth my Report of 30th August, No. 31, it was not deemed expedient to carry the project into effect.
in
The Honorable J. Gardiner AusTIN,
Colonial Sceretary,
HONGKONG.