1871 — Page 206

No 69.

GOVERNMENT NOTIFICATION.

The following Annual Report of the Hongkong General Post Office for the Year 1871. is ublished for general information.

By Cominand,

CECIL C. SMITII, Acting Colonial Secretary.

Colonial Secretary's Office, Hongkong, 6th April, 1872.

No. 18.

GENERAL POST OFFICE, Hongkong,

28th March, 1872.

Sin,—I have the honor to submit for the information of His Excellency SR Richard GraveS MACDONNELL, K. C. M. G., and C. B., the twelfth Annual Report on the Post Office, being that for he year 1871.

2. The arrangements mentioned in my last Report under which the general Mails for Shangline are sorted in this Office instead of at sea as formerly, have been successfully carried out, with ad- vantage to the Shanghac Community, but at the cost of this Government,

3. The building No. 15 Nankin Road, Shanghae, to which the Post Office was removed, under the -metion contained in C. S. O. No. 491 dated 15th February, 1871, is centrally situated, commo-

ions, and otherwise adapted for Post Office purposes.

1. The increasing importance of Shanghae ns a commercial entrepôt is, however, such as to fully 1 stify the erection of a Post Office, and so long as the Mail Packets touch there, I consider, as state in the Report of iny Tour of Inspection, that as n investment and for obvious reasons, it will be for more advantageous to the Public to have a building erected specially for Post Office purposes, than to continue the present plan, paying rent and being liable to repentel changes.

5. The Convention or Agreement between the British Post Office and the Loral Post Ollice at Shaughne, which had been in force for about four years, was abrogated in June last, and whilst the Revenue has not been affected by the separation of the two Offices, no inconvenience his apparently been sustained by the Public.

6. No improvement has taken place in the Revente of the Yokohama Agency since the 24th March last, when I reported a decline of about 35 per cent therein attributable to the opening out of the Pacific Railway from San Francisco to New York, which has diverted most of the correspondence from Japan for the United States of America and a portion of that for the United Kingdom from its former ronte by British Packets viâ Hongkong, to the less expensive and more direct ronte afforded by the United States' Packets at present plying monthly between Yokohama and San Francisco, and it is probable that when those Packets run fortnightly the usefulness of the British Post Offi bama will be still further diminished and its Revenue likewise. The loss involved by the mainte- muce of that Office is borne chiefly by the Imperial Post Oflice.

at Yoko-

7. The Spanish Government having in June last entered into a contract for the exclange of Mails between Singapore and Manila, the Mail service between Hongkong and Manila, which had been for many years conducted by vessels of the Spanish Navy, was discontinued. The new service is carried in connection with the fortnightly English Mail Packets only, and the Letters from Manila for transmission by the homeward French Mail Packets and for the United States' Mail Packets are still sent to this Office by private steamers from Manila.

S. The arrangement made in the year 1864 with the Government of India under which corres- pondence conveyed by private ship between India (which then included the Straits Settlements i and flongkong is charged with Postage at the receiving Office only, which Office pays the gratuity to the Ship Master for its conveyance, has been departed from in the Settlements, and, whilst th correspondence for Singapore, Penang and Malacen is forwarded from this Office by private vessels without any prepayment of Postage, it appears that the Post Ollices at those places make the Prepayment of the Postage compulsory on such correspondence, which is, under the arrangement above referred to, liable, on receipt here, to a charge of 8 cents per ounce Letter and of two cents

ch Paper to enable this Office to pay the gratuity authorized by Law for its conveyance. this is obviously both inequitable and inconvenient to the Public, I have called attention to the matter in a letter dated 7th October, 1871, No. 55.

AS