CO129-139 - Sir MacDonnell - 1869 [8-12] — Page 274

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270

Wongking and Torshaw on account of commercial importance of

the great

advices and documents reaching this Colony from Foochow in time for the

Haneward Mail which under the

present system has

very

rarely been

Mr Mitchell, the Postmaster

General, having recently returned from

his annual inspection of the poststations,

9

enabled to extract from the proof of his unpublished report now before me (Par. 18 to 38) ample informa-tion to assist Your Lordship in forming opinion of the great importance

to the commercial world of the postal communication in question, not because

Enclosure 2.

much

correspondence and many

transactions which now find their

way to Shanghai would in that case come to Hongkong,

but because it is

the interest of the mercantile world having regard to the

enormously

heavy transactions in connection with Foochow amounting sometimes to 24½ millions of dollars by the mail,

get

that they should be able to get their latest advices and documents at the Port of final departure of the Mail from China.

Mr Mitchell appears to think that a contribution by the Imperial Post Office of £3000 per annum (Par.31), added to a bounty to be given