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FUBLIC RECORD

OFFICE

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C.O.882/12

ALLY. WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-

COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

| PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

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managed. With the exception of the Accountant and the two typists above mentioned the staff is recruited specially and the rates of pay are considerably lower than those of the General Civil Service grades employed in other departments on work of equiva- lent difficulty and responsibility. It is, we think, an advantage to maintain this system of recruitment for a department such as the Post Office whose work requires specialized training and long experience for its efficient performance, but we see no reason why the clerical scales of pay should not be assimilated to those of the corresponding grades of the General Clerical establishment, and we allow for this assimilation in our revised scheme of pay for the clerical services (chapter XIII). On the present system we should regard the general grades IV, V, and VI as appropriate for the postal Second, Third, and Fourth grades, respectively.

26. While we have no criticism to make of the general organiza- tion of the department we consider that a large proportion of the Deputy Postmasters, outside the districts of Port Louis, are by no means fully employed. This was freely admitted by the › Colonial Postmaster who has endeavoured to reduce the waste to the minimum by substituting a part-time service wherever possible. In the case of railway station post offices, which constitute the great majority of the local post offices, where under existing cir- cumstances a whole-time service must be maintained, he has re- cently made the experiment of training selected railway officers to take charge of these post offices in conjunction with their rail- way duties. Our proposals for reducing railway services will affect the position. In some cases it will not be necessary to retain whole-time post offices when the railway stations have been closed; in other cases it will be possible to combine railway and postal duties. In the majority of cases, however, the need for main- taining a whole-time post office will remain when the railway station has been closed, but the closing of the stations will mean a further reduction in the work of these offices. The spare-time services of the postal staff can and should be utilized for other local government work, so as to eliminate wherever possible the pre- sent system of having two and in some cases more than two sepa- rate Government offices functioning in the same small district, each providing less than full-time employment for the staff maintained. If, as we propose, the number of local post offices is maintained at the strength which the Colonial Postmaster considers to be necessary when the railway reorganization has been carried out, and only those offices are closed which have in fact nothing but railway work to do, the transfer of other departmental duties will not be accompanied by any inconvenience to the general public who, indeed, would be given increased facilities if they could pay at any post office certain dues which at present can be paid only at a single cashier's office in each district. Among the duties which we propose should be taken over by the local post offices

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are the receipt of licence fees and house tax, such duties in con- nexion with the Government Savings Bank as are at present per- formed by the District Cashiers, and the duties of Civil Status Officers with reference to the registration of births, deaths, and marriages. The Colonial Postmaster is satisfied that if these addi- tional duties were thrown upon his local officers no increase of postal staff would be required beyond the addition of two or at the most three clerks in his central office. We have, however, taken these additional responsibilities into consideration in our recommendations affecting the future salaries of the Colonial Post- master and the Post Office Accountant.

It is not unreasonable to expect that one result of transferring the Savings Bank work from the District Cashiers to the local post offices will be a considerable increase in the amount of the deposits. The provision of only eight offices throughout the Colony for the reception of small deposits can hardly be regarded as adequate, and is probably one reason why the Savings Bank has made so little an appeal to the poorer classes of the Indian agricultural population.

27. In view of the additional work which we propose should be thrown upon it, we are unable to recommend any reduction in the cost of the Post Office organization. We have considered the possibility of increasing its revenues. The rates for Empire and We were foreign postage have only recently been increased. informed that an increase in the rate for inland postage would probably not be remunerative although this rate stands so low as 5 cents, and we do not recommend, therefore, that any change should be made.

We are of opinion, however, that the privilege which has been enjoyed for many years by the local newspaper owners of having their papers carried and delivered free of charge by the Colonial Post Office should be withdrawn and that a charge of 1 cent per newspaper should be imposed. This trifling charge would bring in additional postage revenue of Rs.12,500. The ground on which the system of free postage for newspapers has been defended is that the newspapers publish Government notices and advertise- ments free of charge. Inasmuch as most of the notices in ques- tion, such as the announcement of oversca mail arrivals and depar- tures, have a high news value, there is no reason why any question of payment for their insertion should arise, but even if the usual charges for advertisements were made, the total amount for all Government departments would be much less than the amount which the Post Office is now forgoing in postage, and probably much less than the annual payment of Rs.6,000 which it makes to the Railway for carriage of the papers by rail and omnibus. This

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