1877 — Page 200

No. 59.

GOVERNMENT NOTIFICATION.

The following Annual Report for 1877, received from the Postmaster General, is published for general information.

By Command,

Colonial Secretary's Office, Hongkong, 30th March, 1878.

J. GARDINER AUSTIN, Colonial Secretary.

GENERAL POST OFFICE, HONGKONG, 28th March, 1878.

SIR,-1 have the honour to report on the British Postal Service in China and Japan during 1877. 2. On April 1st this Colony entered the General Postal Union, and although its Agencies in China and Jupan did not at first share the entire benefits of that entry, the differences of detail applied to them were gradually modified until they ceased to exist. Japan entered the Union independently on June 1st, and meanwhile the foreign settlements on the Coast of China had been completely assimilated to Union countries. The International Bureau has been asked to notify, and has notified all Union Offices, that correspondence for or from any part of China, to which there is communication, is to be treated cxactly as if it were for or from Hongkong, except that to places where there are no Post Offices prepayment is compulsory, and Registration does not extend beyond the nearest British Office.

3. It had been settled that the Union arrangements should commence on April 1st, but up to little more than a fortnight before that time this Department was in absolute ignorance of any details whatever. Not even the rates of Postage to be charged were known. Detailed instructions from the London Office arrived on the evening of March 12th. It may be imagined that the task of re-organising almost every detail of the service in so short a time was not light, and indeed the amount of work imposed on the Department has been such as to tax all its resources for the remainder of the your. For although the Union arrangements seemed to work at once smoothly and effectively, as far as the public were concerned, yet as far as concerns International organisation many points are even yet far from being decided.

4. The great advance effected by the Treaty of Berne may be said to be this;-that whereas before that Treaty the transmission of correspondence was practically subordinated to the keeping of accounts, the keeping of accounts is now subordinated to the real business of the Postal service, transmission. This Department, for example, would not have ventured to send the Postmaster at San Francisco a single letter for Canada, without first enquiring whether he could arrange to receive and forward it. The Office of the United States would probably have replied (as would any other Office) How do you propose to bring such correspondence to account? and the absence of any special arrangement for this purpose, or the fact that the few, but possibly important letters to be forwarded were not numerous enough to justify a complicated and perhaps expensive system of accounts, was everywhere regarded as a conclusive reason why such letters should not be sent.

5. Now, however, every Union Office is bound to forward as a matter of course all Union corres- pondence received by it, whether in closed Mails or à découvert, by the best route open, leaving questions of account for subsequent consideration. In other words, the principle of the service has become, Transmission first, questions as to payment afterwards.

6. The weak point of the old system was that the development of new and specdier routes for correspondence was checked by incessant difficulties, presented in the complicated system of paying *ca-conveyance on each letter. The weak point of the new seems to be that a good deal of sea-convey- ance will probably never be paid for at all, which, however, inflicts no inconvenience on the public. The great marine services of England and France, and the Railway systems of the old and new con- timents cannot, of course, be availed of by all comers without any attempt at payment, and therefore l'eriods of Statistics have been devised, during which a careful account is kept of the weight of cor- respondence forwarded, and from these observations it is thought that an approximation may be obtained. to the sums due for the entire year.

7. The selection of these periods, and the fixing of their duration has given rise to voluminous correspondence. The Berne Congress originally selected a week in August and a week in December. However well these periods might answer in Europe, where there are several departures by Railway cach day, they were obviously useless in determining anything as to sea-transit effected only at fort- nightly intervals. The month of June was then agreed on, but the observations taken during that period with much care and labour were cancelled, fortunately for this Colony, for, June being in the