GOVERNMENT NOTIFICATION.-No. 107.
The following Annual Report from the Postmaster General is published for general information.
By Command,
Colonial Secretary's Office, Hongkong, 22nd March, 1884.
W. H. MARSH,
Colonial Secretary.
GENERAL POST OFFICE,
HONGKONG, March 21st, 1884.
SIR, I have the honour to report on the British Postal service in China during 1883.
2. There is almost nothing of International interest upon which to remark. It is to be hoped the long-deferred entry of the Australasian Colonies into the Union is at last to take place. A Postal Congress was to assemble at Lisbon last summer, but nothing has as yet been heard of its proceedings. A general period of Statistics was held in November, and passed off smoothly. Its results, as far as concerns the work of this Department, will be found embodied in Table C in the appendix. It is difficult to account for the decreases shewn in this Table. The figures only mean that during the 28 days selected considerably less correspondence happened to pass through the Post Office than during the corresponding period in 1882. That there has been no real diminution is shewn by the increased sale of stamps during the year.*
3. The Post Offices at all the Ports have been inspected by the Assistant Postmaster General, Mr. TRAVERS, whose report has been published. Mr. TRAVERS alludes to the inconveniences experienced by the smaller communities in not being able to obtain Money Orders except from Hongkong or Shanghai. It has just been decided at home to extend the excellent Postal note system to the Colonies, and thus will be afforded to this Office the means of offering Postal notes on the United Kingdom for sale at all the Ports where its Agencies are maintained, as well as of much simplifying the present rather complicated Money Order system.
4. The Postal facilities provided for the community at Swatow have been increased, thanks to the energy of Mr. BROWN, late Postal Agent there, by the opening of a branch Office on the side of the river opposite to the Consulate, where the Post Office has hitherto been worked. So far there is every reason for satisfaction with this experiment.
5. What should have been the success of the year was the establishment of a Postal Agency at Tientsin, but it can only be regarded as a disappointing failure. Successive Consuls stationed there had assured this Department that, the Agency once established, there would be no difficulty about the courier transit from Chinkiang to Tientsin during the months when the river Peiho is frozen. The Agency has been established, but there is a difficulty. The courier service is carried on by the Customs, and it has been found practically impossible to get a sealed bag of Registered correspondence through unopened, simply because the managers of the Transit service open all such bags for the purpose of re-packing the contents. Under these circumstances all check on the safety of Registered Articles vanishes, and this Office finds itself practically where it was before, with Registration extending to Shanghai and no further.
6. The service sustained a loss during the year in the sad death of Mr. L. W. HENLEY, Postal Agent at Foochow. Mr. HENLEY was devoted to the interests of the community amongst whom he was stationed; his amusing and vivacious letters, always full of excellent suggestions, went far to prove the truth of the saying that no work is really well done which is not done in the spirit of play.
7. Very much larger mails than in former years have been forwarded by the direct steamers leaving Hankow for London. A practice used to prevail at this port of sending letters on board loose to be posted at Suez. On one occasion, as might have been expected, the whole consignment of letters was not posted at Suez, but carried round by Gibraltar, a mishap which seems to have been not without its moral at Hankow.
8. An Assistant is badly wanted at Amoy, where the business is out-growing the establishment. The Agent there writes of his difficulties in a strain which recalls the reports of the late Mr. TROLLOPE :—
"The Post Office boat is far too small for the work it has to do. Mr. TRAVERS called attention to this after his inspection of the Agency, and from my personal experience I can confirm all that he has said. I went out in the little dingy a few weeks ago to one of Messrs. HOLTS steamers lying in the outer harbour, and the trip was not only an unpleasant but an unsafe one. I have had much experience in boating here in rough weather, and can safely affirm that a very little more wind and sea would have capsized the boat. Perhaps when a Post Office boatman and a Postal Agent (or two) have been drowned, and a home mail lost, Her Majesty's Postmaster General may recognise the advisability of providing a safer means of conveyance."
* Stamps sold in 1883, $100,690.68; In 1882, $89,147.62. Increase, $11,543.06, or nearly $1,000 a month.
GOVERNMENT NOTIFICATION.-No. 107.
The following Annual Report from the Postmaster General is published for general information.
By Command,
Colonial Secretary's Office, Hongkong, 22nd March, 1884.
W. H. MARSH,
Colonial Secretary.
GENERAL POST OFFICE,
HONGKONG, March 21st, 1884.
SIR, I have the honour to report on the British Postal service in China during 1883.
2. There is almost nothing of International interest upon which to remark. It is to be hoped the long-deferred entry of the Australasian Colonies into the Union is at last to take place. A Postal Congress was to assemble at Lisbon last summer, but nothing has as yet been heard of its proceedings. A general period of Statistics was held in November, and passed off smoothly. Its results, as far as concerns the work of this Department, will be found embodied in Table C in the appendix. It is difficult to account for the decreases shewn in this Table. The figures only mean that during the 28 days selected considerably less correspondence happened to pass through the Post Office than during the corresponding period in 1882. That there has been no real diminution is shewn by the increased sale of stamps during the year.*
3. The Post Offices at all the Ports have been inspected by the Assistant Postmaster General, Mr. TRAVERS, whose report has been published. Mr. TRAVERS alludes to the inconveniences experienced by the smaller communities in not being able to obtain Money Orders except from Hongkong or Shanghai. It has just been decided at home to extend the excellent Postal note system to the Colonies, and thus will be afforded to this Office the means of offering Postal notes on the United Kingdom for sale at all the Ports where its Agencies are maintained, as well as of much simplifying the present rather complicated Money Order system.
4. The Postal facilities provided for the community at Swatow have been increased, thanks to the energy of Mr. BROWN, late Postal Agent there, by the opening of a branch Office on the side of the river opposite to the Consulate, where the Post Office has hitherto been worked. So far there is every reason for satisfaction with this experiment.
5. What should have been the success of the year was the establishment of a Postal Agency at Tientsin, but it can only be regarded as a disappointing failure. Successive Consuls stationed there had assured this Department that, the Agency once established, there would be no difficulty about the courier transit from Chinkiang to Tientsin during the months when the river Peiho is frozen. The Agency has been established, but there is a difficulty. The courier service is carried on by the Customs, and it has been found practically impossible to get a sealed bag of Registered correspondence through unopened, simply because the managers of the Transit service open all such bags for the purpose of re-packing the contents. Under these circumstances all check on the safety of Registered Articles vanishes, and this Office finds itself practically where it was before, with Registration extending to Shanghai and no further.
6. The service sustained a loss during the year in the sad death of Mr. L. W. HENLEY, Postal Agent at Foochow. Mr. HENLEY was devoted to the interests of the community amongst whom he was stationed; his amusing and vivacious letters, always full of excellent suggestions, went far to prove the truth of the saying that no work is really well done which is not done in the spirit of play.
7. Very much larger mails than in former years have been forwarded by the direct steamers leaving Hankow for London. A practice used to prevail at this port of sending letters on board loose to be posted at Suez. On one occasion, as might have been expected, the whole consignment of letters was not posted at Suez, but carried round by Gibraltar, a mishap which seems to have been not without its moral at Hankow.
8. An Assistant is badly wanted at Amoy, where the business is out-growing the establishment. The Agent there writes of his difficulties in a strain which recalls the reports of the late Mr. TROLLOPE :—
"The Post Office boat is far too small for the work it has to do. Mr. TRAVERS called attention to this after his inspection of the Agency, and from my personal experience I can confirm all that he has said. I went out in the little dingy a few weeks ago to one of Messrs. HOLTS steamers lying in the outer barbour, and the trip was not only an unpleasant but an unsafe one. I have had much experience in boating here in rough weather, and can safely affirm that a very little more wind and sea would have capsized the boat. Perhaps when a Post Office boatman and a Postal Agent (or two) have been drowned, and a home mail lost, Her Majesty's Postmaster General may recognise the advisability of providing a safer means of conveyance."
* Stamps sold in 1883, $100,690.68; In 1882, $89,147.62. Increase, $11,543.06, or nearly $1,000 a month.
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