AnnualReport-1882 — Page 85

Report has been and is being developed, but it requires, to be fully carried out, a comparatively inexpensive enlargement of the office, for which, as the Public Works Department is somewhat heavily taxed at present, it has not been thought advisable to press A third measure has been the leaving over of all insufficiently paid correspondence to be dealt with after the general delivery of the mail, instead of preparing it to go out with that delivery. This may sometimes cause an unpaid letter to be forwarded to the Coast by a later steamer than that which carries the paid mail-an extra penalty on non-prepayment One basketful of unpaid letters takes just as long to deal with as do the eighty odd sacks of which the mail is composed. If persons will not prepay their letters, they are not entitled to any sympathy when delay ensues in consequence

22 The local delivery of the Hongkong Office is not, and never has been one of its strong points. Without a largely increased staff it never can be, and for such an augmented staff there is not sufficient local work to pay

The work of the Office has to be arranged entirely according to the arrivals of steamers, it is therefore impossible to imitate the town deliveries of inland cities, where the postmen proceed to their various districts three, four, or even ten times a day with unbroken regularity. Measures however have been taken to improve our local delivery as much as possible, and it is now more used for the distribution of invitations, notices, and similar documents than it has ever been before

23 Complaints are not infrequently received that correspondence for private houses is delivered at places of business This does not arise, as is often assumed, from the idleness of the postmen, but is the invariable rule of the Office, and is also the rule which on the whole is most convenient to all persons concerned

Considering how widely scattered private residences are, some at Kowloon, some at the Peak, &c, it is difficult to see how, with our present staff, business letters would ever get delivered at all were the postmen continually taken off their work to carry single letters these long distances. The rule adopted therefore is delivery at the nearest place of business The only exception is in the case of large numbers of invitations, &c, when a special request is made for delivery at private houses, and even then such a request can only be carried out in subordination to the mail work which is the essential duty of the Office. Of course all this is written in the Postal Guide, but the difficulty with Postal Guides, or indeed with Postal Notices of any kind, is to get people to read them

24 After being unsettled for some time, the departures and arrivals of the Contract Mails for and from Europe have been arranged for days and hours which, taking the year all round, are perhaps as convenient as it is practicable to make them. The mails three times reached London and once reached Hongkong in 32 days, in each instance by French packet. The quickest British packet passage has been 33 days, twice, outward. Taking the whole year, however, and the passages in both directions, the British Packets show an average of 36 days against 36, the average French mail passage The following are the averages for the year,

British Packets, Outward, French Packets, Homeward, French Packets, Outward, British Packets, Homeward,

35 days.

36

37

19

**

371

17

I have the honour to be.

Sir,

The Honourable W H MARSII, CMG,

Colonial Secretary

&c,

Your most obedient Servant

APPENDIX.

r

A LISTER, Postmaster Generat

(A)-COMPARATIVE STATEMENT OF REVENUE AND EXPENDITURE 1881 & 1882

1882

1881.

Imperial Share,

$19,894 49

$31,344 88

Decrease,

$11,450 39f

Conveyance of Mails and contribu- Į

tion towards P & O Subsidy,

$10,031 05

$11,588 78

Decrease,

$ 1,557 73

Expenditure,*

$31,317 85

$31,901 92

Balance,

Gross Revenue,

$43,438 55†

$27,874 98

Decrease, Increase,

$

584 07

$15,563.57+

..$104,681 94

$102,710 56

Increase,

$ 1,971 38

* Grown Agents' account not included

†These large differences are caused by an outstanding debt of about $13,000 to the London Office