GOVERNMENT NOTIFICATION—No. 104.
The following Annual Report from the Postmaster General is published for general information.
By His Excellency's Command,
Colonial Secretary's Office, Hongkong, 11th March, 1882.
W. M. DEANE,
Acting Colonial Secretary.
GENERAL POST OFFICE, HONGKONG, 16th February, 1882.
SIR, I have the honour to report on the British Postal Service in Hongkong and China during 1881.
2. Few persons who have had much to do with the preparation of Reports, especially of such as are drawn up in the mere course of routine, can have avoided asking themselves whether these annually recurring documents are of any use? And when they mainly consist of masses of tabulated figures, it may be doubted whether they are of such practical service as to compensate for the heavy expense of printing. It is satisfactory, therefore, to consider that valuable additions to our Postal Service—Parcel Post with India and with Ceylon, and a Money Order system with India—have been instituted as direct consequences of the Report prepared in this Department last year. Advantage has been taken of the initiation of the India Money Order system to revise our Rates of Money Order Commission (adapting them to the decimal coinage of this Colony) and to assimilate those levied on Local and Intercolonial orders to the sums charged on Imperial and Indian orders.
3. A Parcel Post with France will probably also shortly be commenced. It may be hoped the time is not far distant when any small object, not of an unsuitable nature, will be transmissible by post at a moderate rate.
4. Continual vigilance will have to be maintained, however, to prevent the transmission of articles utterly unsuitable for forwarding by post. A complaint was received during the year from the German Post Office, that a box of Vesta matches forwarded in a Registered Letter from Shanghai had exploded in the travelling Post Office van, thereby nearly leading to an accident the results of which might not have been confined to the Mails or the Mail Officers. Lucifers of Japanese manufacture also took fire in this Office. The senders of these matches would no doubt have been ready to argue that they were the most innocuous things in the world. Everybody is always convinced of the harmlessness of his own sample. A tin of sardines, for instance, looks as if it might go round the globe, and, under favourable circumstances, it might. On the other hand, it might not go twenty yards without an unpleasant accident. It happens to be the bottom packet in a heavy bag, the coolie who is carrying that bag to the wharf lets it fall, the end of the tin is immediately driven out, and the contents of the bag soaked in oil.
5. A correspondence arose with the London Office as to whether sugar should not be classed as one of those substances which must never be sent by post at all. The letters exchanged are printed in the Appendix. In view of the importance of the growing trade in sugar, it is a pity that the transmission of samples cannot be arranged, but it is impossible not to defer to the larger experience of the London Office, which proves such transmission to be practically unsafe.
6. The trouble and delay caused by the large numbers of short-paid newspapers alluded to in last year's Report continued until the London Office cut the knot by sending them all out by private ship. They still arrive (but now as fully paid) in considerable quantities. All endeavours to get at the senders and impress on them that newspaper postage from the United Kingdom to China is three-halfpence seemed to fail.
7. This was perhaps partly owing to the idea which prevails that under the Postal Union the sums charged as postage must be the same in all countries. It is not so. It is not so. The rules of the Postal Union prescribe limits which must not be exceeded, but within those limits there is a discretion, especially as to the rates on correspondence carried long distances over sea. Hence it is that a newspaper sent from London to China by mail is charged 1d., but in the reverse direction 1d. only. People out here wrote home and told their friends, The postage is 2 cents, that is to say, a penny, and no amount of official statements would convince the recipients of this information that it was incorrect.
8. It was found necessary to put a stop to a practice which prevailed here of posting letters without any attempt to prepay them. The senders were mostly clerks, and the reason for this bad habit would generally be found in the fact that the addressee in any given case was employed by some firm, to whose account the postage would be charged instead of coming out of the pocket of either of the correspondents. Now an unpaid letter gives at least twenty times as much trouble as a paid one, and all unpaid letters tend to retard the delivery of the mail in which they are. The person, therefore, who, having the means to prepay his letter, does not prepay it, can only be regarded as a public enemy. It has been necessary to remind the young gentlemen who carried on the practice referred to that prepayment of local correspondence is compulsory.
A pair of the silvered glass globes used for Christmas trees were once sent to this Office very indifferently packed with cotton wool in a cigar box. The box was smashed into little pieces, and one of the globes was represented only by a handful of fragments. But the other, which had come all the way from Brindisi wrapped only in a bit of brown paper, reached Hongkong unbroken.
GOVERNMENT NOTIFICATION-No. 104.
The following Annual Report from the Postmaster General is published for general information.
By His Excellency's Command,
Colonial Secretary's Office, Hongkong, 11th March, 1882.
W. M. DEANE,
Acting Colonial Secretary,
GENERAL POST OFFICE, HONGKONG, 16th February, 1882.
SIR, I have the honour to report on the British Postal Service in Hongkong and China during 1881.
it
2. Few persons who have had much to do with the preparation of Reports, especially of such as are drawn up in the mere course of routine, can have avoided asking themselves whether these annually recurring documents are of any use? And when they mainly consist of masses of tabulated figures, may be doubted whether they are of such practical service as to compensate for the heavy expense of printing. It is satisfactory therefore to consider that valuable additions to our Postal Service --Parcel Post with India and with Ceylon, and a Money Order system with India-have been instituted as direct consequences of the Report prepared in this Department last year. Advantage has been taken of the initiation of the India Money Order system to revise our Rates of Money Order Commission (adapting them to the decimal coinage of this Colony) and to assimilate those levied on Local and Intercolonial orders to the sums charged on Imperial and Indian orders.
3. A- Parcel Post with France will probably also shortly be commenced. It may be hoped the time is not far distant when any small object, not of an unsuitable nature, will be transmissible by post at a moderate rate.
4. Continual vigilance will have to be maintained, however, to prevent the transmission of articles utterly unsuitable for forwarding by post. A complaint was received during the year from the German Post Office, that a box of Vesta matches forwarded in a Registered Letter from Shanghai had exploded in the travelling Post Office van, thereby nearly leading to an accident the results of which might not have been confined to the Mails or the Mail Officers. Lucifers of Japanese manufacture also took fire in this Office. The senders of these matches would no doubt have been ready to argue that they were the most innocuous things in the world. Everybody is always convinced of the harmlessness of his own sample. A tin of sardines, for instance, looks as if it might go round the globe, and BO, under favourable circumstances* it might. On the other hand it might not go twenty yards without an unpleasant accident. It happens to be the bottom packet in a heavy bag, the coolie who is carrying that bag to the wharf lets it fall, the end of the tin is immediately driven out, and the contents of the bag soaked in oil.
5. A correspondence arose with the London Office as to whether sugar should not be classed as one of those substances which must never be sent by post at all. The letters exchanged are printed in the Appendix. In view of the importance of the growing trade in sugar it is a pity that the tran- smission of samples cannot be arranged, but it is impossible not to defer to the larger experience of the London Office which proves such transmission to be practically unsafe.
2
6 The trouble and delay caused by the large numbers of short-paid newspapers alluded to in last year's Report continued until the London Office cut the knot by sending them all out by private ship. They still arrive (but now as fully paid) in considerable quantities. All endeavours to get at the senders and impress on them that newspaper Postage from the United Kingdom to China is Three- half-pence seemed to fail.
This was perhaps partly owing to the idea which prevails that under the Postal Union the sums charged as postage must be the same in all countries. It is not so.
It is not so. The rules of the Postal Union prescribe limits which must not be exceeded, but within those limits there is a discretion, especially as to the rates on correspondence carried long distances over sea. Hence it is that a newspaper sent from London to China by mail is charged Id, but in the reverse direction 1d. only. People out here wrote home and told their friends, The postage is 2 cents, that is to say, a penny, and no amount of official statements would convince the recipients of this information that it was incorrect.
8. It was found necessary to put a stop to a practice which prevailed here of posting letters without any attempt to prepay them. The senders were mostly clerks, and the reason for this bad habit would generally be found in the fact that the addressee in any given case was employed by some firm, to whose account the postage would be charged instead of coming out of the pocket of either of the correspondents. Now an unpaid letter gives at least twenty times as much trouble as a paid.one, and all unpaid letters tend to retard the delivery of the mail in which they are. The person therefore who, having the means to prepay his letter, does not prepay it, can only be regarded as a public enemy. It has been necessary to remind the young gentlemen who carried on the practice referred to that prepayment of local correspondence is compulsory.
A pair of the silvered glass globes used for Christmas trees were once sent to this Office very indifferently packed with cotton wool in a cigar bar. The box was amashed into little pieces, and one of the globes was represented only by a handful of fragments. But the other, which Shad come all-the way, from Brindisi wrapped only in a bit of brown paper, reached Hongkong unbroken Vo
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