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but registered or insufficiently paid letters or
money orders or any kind were detained at Shanghai
until the person to whom they were addressed
had sent a receipt for them when they were for-
warded as ordinary letters, after however much
delay, oftentimes very inconvenient.
Upon representations made by me to the Govern-
ment of Hong Kong under whom the Shanghai British
Post Office is placed, and owing to the courtesy
of the Inspector General of the Imperial Chinese
Customs Service, it was arranged that registered
latters, money orders &o., would be handed over
to the Customs Poet and conveyed by them to Tientsin.
This arrangement worked pretty well, but upon
learning early this year that the German Post Office
at Tientsin was affiliated to the General Post Of-
fice and consequently obliged to carry all Tientsin
correspondence to iba destination, the Hong Kong
Post Office, without previous,
handed
over all the Tientsin correspondence to them. No
adequate provision being made for the increased
work, confusion and delay with natural discontent
(
ensued, and fresh complaints were made to me from
Tientsin.
Upon the Hong Kong Government being informed
of the facts of the case, they again entrusted
postal matter to the Customs who have since carried
out the distribution satisfactorily.
It is however still a just matter for complaint
that the British community whose correspondence
amounts to about 90% of the whole have no separate
Post Office while the far smaller German and French
communities have each their own.
The present moment is not however a favourable
one for moving in this matter either.
(Signed)
I have &c.,
N. R. O'Conor.
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