1878 — Page 207

4. The considerable modifications of mail hours introduced during the year would have been easier to effect, and would be easier to maintain, but for a certain tenacity of old custom more worthy of the conservatisin ascribed to Chinese than of the intelligent progress of the West. When the rates of postage by French packet were almost prohibitive, and advanced by a perplexing quarter-ounce unit, a resolution never to write by that packet was intelligible, but now that it is at once the cheaper and the quicker opportunity, the watchword, I never write by French packet, does seem a little out of place. A fair division of correspondence between the two packets would be a great boon to this Department, the officers of which have not enough to do on one mail day, and far too much on the

other.

5. The issuing of a printed list of mails each morning has been adopted, and has been found con- venient. It saves the laborious writing of some 5,000 notices annually, whilst these are replaced by more than 73,000 printed slips issued to the public. The only difficulty has been in getting notice of the day's departures carly enough. Some persons seem unable to conceive that anything is done in this Office before 10 o'clock in the morning, and in one or two instances it has been necessary to hint at a prosecution, which, however, it is hoped may be avoided. There ought to be no difficulty in issuing the day's list at 8.30 A.M., which is perhaps, on the whole, the most convenient hour.

6. The money order system with the Straits Settlements has been a decided success. Although it has been in operation but a short time, orders representing about $100 a month have been issued Singapore, and the return remittances shew about the same average. These figures seem insignificant when compared with the millions handled by European offices, but as between our small communitie they represent a considerable and increasing amount of public convenience. It takes a long time for any facility of this kind to get thoroughly understood and appreciated. People are only just beginning to find out that they can make local remittances by means of stumps, although the fact has been publicly notified these three years.

7. It should be a warning hardly ever to abandon a scheme on account of merely theoretical difficulties, that some years since a money order system with the Straits was suggested, but after much correspondence the project was relinquished simply from an apprehension of trouble with Chinese names. Such a difficulty has not even presented itself, but if it does it can very easily be met. The Chinese, as might have been expected, generally prefer to arrange their remittances in their own way. A few, however, make use of the Post Office.

8. Correspondence has been re-opened with the Australian Colonies with a view to the establish ment of a money order system with them. Applications are not infrequently received for orders o Continental Countries, the United States, &c., and though it would certainly not be worth while to keep accounts with those countries for the sake of, perhaps, one order every three months exchanged with each, yet such applications are always refused with regret. If there were a sort of International clearing-house, say at Berne, and it were understood that each Post Office should keep accounts with that clearing-house, and with that only, it would then be not only possible, but also easy for every Union country to exchange Money Orders with every other Union country.

9. A very favourable Convention has been concluded with Queensland, and now awaits the approval of the Home Government. On its coming into force the postage upon letters for all parts of Australi when forwarded via Torres Straits will be lowered by one half,

10. Attention has been paid to the working of the Straits Settlements Post Office Savings Bank. but as that institution has been in a transition state during the year with regard to some points management, sufficient experience has not yet been gained to decide for or against such an experiment here.

11. It is almost impossible to predict whether any given Postal arrangement will be extensively availed of or not.

Sometimes facilities which might be expected to be welcome to everybody received by the public with absolute indifference and neglect, whilst at other times some trifling com cession, about which nobody was supposed to care, is hailed with enthusiasm. Observation will bor ever generally detect the cause of these apparently anomalous results. The Pillar Boxes recently established in the town form a case in point. After much trouble taken about them, they must be with regret, pronounced to be failures. If, however, they are failures in Hongkong, it may be some consolation to know that Pillar Boxes have not (it is believed) succeeded anywhere in the East.

12. When there was only one Box in Bonham Strand, and that was cleared but once a day, the collections averaged about 60 letters a week, almost all on mail day. With the removal of the box the Harbour Department, and its clearance three times a day, the number of letters dwindled to less the half! The reason was that before the extension of mail hours (which took place about the same time Chinese got half an hour longer at the Pillar Box free of late fee than they did at the Post Office Directly this was altered the number of letters posted fell off, shewing that they prefer to bring the correspondence to the general office.