CO129-292 - Governor Sir Blake - 1899 [6-8] — Page 291

Lub-Enclosure 3...

C.O.

21463

289

REC 14 AUG 19

Post Master General.

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I beg to explain that the only reason I can give for the backward condition of certain sections of work in this Department, is the inadequate and inefficient staff at present at my disposal; in fact, from the first day this Department was opened up to the present time, the staff have never been thoroughly able to carry out the work as it should be carried out. In November last, one of the Senior Clerks employed here resigned his appointment, and his place was filled by Mr. Rangel, an ex-schoolboy with no experience. The heavy Xmas & New Year's work had to be gone through with practically one man short; no sooner was this work lightened when changes began to be made in the staff of this department, with the result that I have now two Clerks with a little over two years' experience, one clerk with barely one year's experience, and the other three, who constitute the remainder of my staff, joined this month. (One of them, however, has had several years' postal experience, but very little experience of the work done here.)

I may mention that the only work which is not kept up to date is the sorting of receipts that have been obtained for registered letters. These receipts have to be sorted out and pasted into the books out of which they were originally taken. The books are then marked up with the dates of the receipts and then locked up. These receipts are at present lying in bundles until some of the officers find time to get them sorted out. This work should be done by the Junior Officer in this Department, but he can only be spared two or three days per week, and very often not even that; the consequence is that a good deal of shelving has been done as regards these receipts. I may also add