No. 95.
GOVERNMENT NOTIFICATION.
The following Annual Report from the Postmaster General, is published for general information.
By Command,
Colonial Secretary's Office, Hongkong, 21st April, 1880.
W. H. MARSH,
Colonial Secretary.
GENERAL POST OFFICE, HONGKONG, March 15th, 1880.
SIR, I have the honour to report on the British Postal Service in Hongkong, China, and Japan during the year 1879.
2. It has been a year of very severe and incessant work in this Department, which, from sickness and other causes, has also been somewhat short-handed. The pressure experienced arose, however, not so much from the amount of work, as from its uneven distribution. All through the year the French and English mails arrived within a day or two of each other. The French packet would come in first, then, perhaps even before her mails for the North were disposed of, it would be necessary to despatch the mail for Europe. Hardly was that done ere the peak gun would announce the English mail. A day is recollected, only one out of several, on which nearly every officer of the Department was hard at work for thirteen continuous hours, from six in the morning till seven at night, with barely time to snatch a hurried mouthful of food. Nearly the entire work of a fortnight would be crowded into about three or four days. The fact that there was little but routine to occupy the rest of the time scarcely made up for these seasons of severe pressure, the effect of which on the health of some members of the staff has been only too obvious. The mails are now, however, beginning to arrive at weekly or nearly weekly intervals, and it is hoped in future to have the work of the Department less crowded together.
3. The incessant changes to which Postal business has been subject during the last three years have naturally entailed a great amount of labour and correspondence upon this Office. Three times at least every detail of the service has had to be rearranged. There is no comparison between a period of such continual change and the tranquil years of the past, when perhaps there was nothing to be recorded in the Annual Report more important than that postage to some German Principality or Italian Duchy had been doubled, or that various South American republics had declined to admit patterns. The present transition state of the service will probably continue (it is to be hoped it will) until the Postal Union is universal in reality as well as in name, and until the goal of all progress hitherto is reached, viz., when all countries contribute to a central fund for the reimbursement of those which provide transit, and all accounts of the actual weights of mails transmitted are swept away.
1
4. A still further reduction of International postage was effected during the year, and certain other changes, the outcome of the Convention of Paris in 1878, were introduced. Some of these have not become very popular. Post Cards for instance, which it is now obligatory for every Union country to issue, will probably never be much used in the East. Return Receipts for Registered letters are also seldom demanded, as the public seem rightly to consider the Registration system completely safe without them. A most perplexing distinction between Printed and Commercial Papers has been established, which probably no amount of explanation will make generally understood. People are apt to ask somewhat impatiently why such arrangements are made. But the present system, under which the same Postal Rules are applied over nearly the entire civilised world, naturally requires some deference to the views of other countries. It is no longer merely a question of what suits Hongkong or what suits England, but of what suits every country, and against such little inconveniences as the limitation of patterns to eight ounces in weight may be set the fact that a man who knows Post Office practice in one Country of the Union knows it in all. The traveller has no longer to consult a fresh code of rules in every town he enters, the facilities he finds in Canada he will equally find at St. Petersburgh, or in Japan.
5. The most recent changes in the service have enabled this Department to accomplish what has been its aim for years, viz., the establishment of an absolutely uniform Postal Tariff, free (except in the solitary instance of the Australasian Colonies) from all differences of charge on account of route, and with all its rates (except as above) decimal in amount. It will now, it is hoped, be possible gradually to reduce our overgrown category of Stamps, and replace them by about half a dozen values, all decimal.
6. The Registration fee has not been lowered to anything like the small amounts adopted by some countries, as it is found that such low fees throw an immense amount of responsible work on every Post Office concerned, to which the sums paid seem disproportionate. A Registered letter can now be sent for considerably less than an ordinary letter cost three years ago, and it may perhaps therefore be said that reasonable cheapness has been attained.
1. Since the above was written a steady demand for the 1-cent cards recently issued has set in,
No. 95.
GOVERNMENT NOTIFICATION.
The following Annual Report from the Postmaster General, is published for general information.
By Command,
Colonial Secretary's Office, Hongkong, 21st April, 1880.
W. H. MARSH,
Colonial Secretary.
GENERAL POST OFFICE, HONGKONG, March 15th, 1880.
SIR, I have the honour to report on the British Postal Service in Hongkong, China, and Japan during the year 1879.
2. It has been a year of very severe and incessant work in this Department, which, from sickness and other causes, has also been somewhat short-handed. The pressure experienced arose, however, not so much from the amount of work, as from its uneven distribution. All through the year the French and English mails arrived within a day or two of each other. The French packet would come in first, then, perhaps even before her mails for the North were disposed of, it would be necessary to despatch the mail for Europe. Hardly was that done ere the peak gun would announce the English mail. A day is recollected, only one out of several, on which nearly every officer of the Department was hard at work for thirteen continuous hours, from six in the morning till seven at night, with barely time to snatch a hurried mouthful of food. Nearly the entire work of a fortnight would be crowded into about three or four days. The fact that there was little but routine to occupy the rest of the time scarcely made up for these seasons of severe pressure, the effect of which on the health of some members of the staff has been only too obvious. The mails are now, however, beginning to arrive at weekly or nearly weekly intervals, and it is hoped in future to have the work of the Depart- ment less crowded together.
3. The incessant changes to which Postal business has been subject during the last three years have naturally entailed a great amount of labour and correspondence upon this Office. Three times at least every detail of the service has had to be rearranged. There is no comparison between a period of such continual change and the tranquil years of the past, when perhaps there was nothing to be recorded in the Annual Report more important than that postage to some German Principality or Italian Duchy had been doubled, or that various South American republics had declined to admit patterns. The present transition state of the service will probably continue (it is to be hoped it will) until the Postal Union is universal in reality as well as in name, and until the goal of all progress hitherto is reached, viz., when all countries contribute to a central fund for the reimbursement of those which provide transit, and all accounts of the actual weights of mails transmitted are swept away.
1
4. A still further reduction of International postage was effected during the year, and certain other changes, the outcome of the Convention of Paris in 1878, were introduced. Some of these have not become very popular. Post Cards for instance, which it is now obligatory for every Union coun- try to issue, will probably never be much used in the East. Return Receipts for Registered letters are also seldom demanded, as the public seem rightly to consider the Registration system completely safe without them. A most perplexing distinction between Printed and Commercial Papers has been established, which probably no amount of explanation will make generally understood. People are apt to ask somewhat impatiently why such arrangements are made. But the present system, under which the same Postal Rules are applied over nearly the entire civilised world, naturally requires some deference to the views of other countries. It is no longer merely a question of what suits Hongkong or what suits England, but of what suits every country, and against such little inconveniences as the limitation of patterns to eight ounces in weight may be set the fact that a man who knows Post Office practice in one Country of the Union knows it in all. The traveller has no longer to consult a fresh code of rules in every town he enters, the facilities he finds in Canada he will equally find at St. Petersburgh, or in Japan.
5. The most recent changes in the service have enabled this Department to accomplish what has been its aim for years, viz., the establishment of an absolutely uniform Postal Tariff, free (except in the solitary instance of the Australasian Colonies) from all differences of charge on account of route, and with all its rates (except as above) decimal in amount. It will now, it is hoped, be possible gradually to reduce our overgrown category of Stamps, and replace them by about half a dozen values, all decimal.
6. The Registration fee has not been lowered to anything like the small amounts adopted by some countries, as it is found that such low fees throw an immense aniount of responsible work on every Post Office concerned, to which the sums paid seem disproportionate. A Registered letter can now be sent for considerably less than an ordinary letter cost three years ago, and it may perhaps therefore be said that reasonable cheapness has been attained.
1. Sluce the above was written a steady demand for the 1-cent cards recently issued has set in,
No. 95.
GOVERNMENT NOTIFICATION.
The following Annual Report from the Postmaster General, is published for general information.
By Command,
Colonial Secretary's Office, Hongkong, 21st April, 1880.
W. H. MARSH,
Colonial Secretary.
GENERAL POST OFFICE, HONGKONG, March 15th, 1880.
SIR, I have the honour to report on the British Postal Service in Hongkong, China, and Japan during the year 1879.
2. It has been a year of very severe and incessant work in this Department, which, from sickness and other causes, has also been somewhat short-handed. The pressure experienced arose, however, not so much from the amount of work, as from its uneven distribution. All through the year the French and English mails arrived within a day or two of each other. The French packet would come in first, then, perhaps even before her mails for the North were disposed of, it would be necessary to despatch the mail for Europe. Hardly was that done ere the peak gun would announce the English mail. A day is recollected, only one out of several, on which nearly every officer of the Department was hard at work for thirteen continuous hours, from six in the morning till seven at night, with barely time to snatch a hurried mouthful of food. Nearly the entire work of a fortnight would be crowded into about three or four days. The fact that there was little but routine to occupy the rest of the time scarcely made up for these seasons of severe pressure, the effect of which on the health of some members of the staff has been only too obvious. The mails are now, however, beginning to arrive at weekly or nearly weekly intervals, and it is hoped in future to have the work of the Depart- ment less crowded together.
3. The incessant changes to which Postal business has been subject during the last three years have naturally entailed a great amount of labour and correspondence upon this Office. Three times at least every detail of the service has had to be rearranged. There is no comparison between a period of such continual change and the tranquil years of the past, when perhaps there was nothing to be recorded in the Annual Report more important than that postage to some German Principality or Italian Duchy had been doubled, or that various South American republics had declined to admit patterns. The present transition state of the service will probably continue (it is to be hoped it will) until the Postal Union is universal in reality as well as in name, and until the goal of all progress hitherto is reached, viz., when all countries contribute to a central fund for the reimbursement of those which provide transit, and all accounts of the actual weights of mails transmitted are swept away.
1
4. A still further reduction of International postage was effected during the year, and certain other changes, the outcome of the Convention of Paris in 1878, were introduced. Some of these have not become very popular. Post Cards for instance, which it is now obligatory for every Union coun- try to issue, will probably never be much used in the East. Return Receipts for Registered letters are also seldom demanded, as the public seem rightly to consider the Registration system completely safe without them. A most perplexing distinction between Printed and Commercial Papers has been established, which probably no amount of explanation will make generally understood. People are apt to ask somewhat impatiently why such arrangements are made. But the present system, under which the same Postal Rules are applied over nearly the entire civilised world, naturally requires some deference to the views of other countries. It is no longer merely a question of what suits Hongkong or what suits England, but of what suits every country, and against such little inconveniences as the limitation of patterns to eight ounces in weight may be set the fact that a man who knows Post Office practice in one Country of the Union knows it in all. The traveller has no longer to consult a fresh code of rules in every town he enters, the facilities he finds in Canada he will equally find at St. Petersburgh, or in Japan.
5. The most recent changes in the service have enabled this Department to accomplish what has been its aim for years, viz., the establishment of an absolutely uniform Postal Tariff, free (except in the solitary instance of the Australasian Colonies) from all differences of charge on account of route, and with all its rates (except as above) decimal in amount. It will now, it is hoped, be possible gradually to reduce our overgrown category of Stamps, and replace them by about half a dozen values, all decimal.
6. The Registration fee has not been lowered to anything like the small amounts adopted by some countries, as it is found that such low fees throw an immense aniount of responsible work on every Post Office concerned, to which the sums paid seem disproportionate. A Registered letter can now be sent for considerably less than an ordinary letter cost three years ago, and it may perhaps therefore be said that reasonable cheapness has been attained.
1. Sluce the above was written a steady demand for the 1-cent cards recently issued has set in,
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