1878 — Page 206

162.

GOVERNMENT NOTIFICATION.

The following Annual Report of the General Post Office, with Returns annexel, for the year 478, is published for general information.

By Command,

Colonial Secretary's Office, Hongkong. 15th July, 1879.

FREDERICK STEWART,

Acting Colonial Secretary.

GENERAL POST OFFICE,

HONGKONG, 12th April, 1879.

SIR.-l have the honour to report on the British Postal Service in Hongkong, China, and Japan Iuring 1878.

2. The chief feature of the year has been the gradual consolidation of the work of the Department the lines of the International Regulations agreed upon under the Treaty of Berne. In 1877 the blic reaped the benefit of that Treaty in the form of a general and very considerable reduction of stage, in the year under review the community of Hongkong has enjoyed it in the shape of extension the hours for posting. Letters are now received on shore until half an hour before the packets, ritish or French, leave for Europe, and a letter for any part of the world can now be posted on board ther packet up to almost the very last moment. Moveable boxes have also been placed on the hanghai and Yokohama packets of both lines.

ins

3. Some Continental Post Offices are of opinion that the British system of late fees is indefensible, not illegal. It may be doubted, however, whether those offices permit even ordinary posting up to Is anything like so late as it is the practice to allow in British Offices. Now, to take Hongkong in example, if everybody were to be allowed to go on posting everything to the last moment possible, might be practicable to keep the windows open for ordinary correspondence five minutes longer than are kept open at present, and probably nine-tenths of the matter thrown upon the artment during that five minutes might just as well have been posted three days before. the inposition of a late fee the merchant and the banker gain half an hour to finish and close their rtant despatches. The question is simply whether the public prefers five minutes of promiscuous erty gratis to half an hour secured by the payment of a small charge. There cannot be much doubt

hich of the two would be chosen in Hongkong.

Whereas