CO129-315 - Public Offices & Others - 1902 — Page 122

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Address reply to The Secretary, General Post Office,"

quoting Registered No. 399,481.

Copy

PRESSING.

sir,

Commo

38610

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121

GENERAL POST OFFICE, LONDON,

11th

With reference to your letters

Womens

November 1902.

C. O.

40676

12 NOV

the 1st and 7th

Geoth

of last month, No. 38,510, and No. 40,596, in which were

Whw enclosed copies of despatches from the Officer Administering the Government of Hong Kong and the Commissioner of Wei-hai- -Wei on the subject of the British Postal Agencies in China and of the postal status of Wei-hai-Wei, I am directed by the Postmaster General to offer the following observations.

As regards the correspondence between His Majesty's Consul at Tientsin and the District Postmaster of the Imperial Chinese Post Office at that port, Major General Gascoigne has already pointed out that political consider- ations would affect the suggested abolition of the existing Hong Kong Postal Agencies (except Shanghai) in Chinese Treaty Ports. Apart from these the Postmaster General

doubts whether the Imperial Chinese Post Office is yet fully

capable of undertaking complete responsibility in those postal matters which concern the British community in China, especially at the Treaty Ports. Though it might be inferred

from the Consul's report of the 12th of August that the

Chinese Post Office at Tientsin conducts its business

efficiently, and that the only advantage which the British

Community there would gain by the establishment of a British

Post Office would be that of benefiting by the penny postage

arrangement, it would not be safe to assume this of the general working of the Chinese Post Office. His Majesty's Consul at Che foo, in his report of the 18th of June (copy

enclosed in the Colonial Office letter of the 1st of October)

Under Secretary of State,

draws

COLONIAL OFFICE.