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THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 21st APRIL, 1880.
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2. It has been a year of very severe and incessant work in this Department, which, from sickness and other causes, has also been somewhat short-handed. The pressure experienced arose, however, ot so much from the amount of work, as from its uneven distribution. All through the year the French and English mails arrived within a day or two of each other. The French packet would come first, then, perhaps even before her mails for the North were disposed of, it would be necessary to spatch the mail for Europe. Hardly was that done ere the peak gun would announce the English mail.
A day is recollected, only one out of several, on which nearly every officer of the Department was hard at work for thirteen continuous hours, from six in the morning till seven at night, with rely time to snatch a hurried mouthful of food. Nearly the entire work of a fortnight would be led into about three or four days. The fact that there was little but routine to occupy the rest the time scarcely made up for these seasons of severe pressure, the effect of which on the health of me members of the staff has been only too obvious. The mails are now, however, beginning to arrive at weekly or nearly weekly intervals, and it is hoped in future to have the work of the Depart-
ut less crowded together.
3. The incessant changes to which Postal business has been subject during the last three years tave naturally entailed a great amount of labour and correspondence upon this Office. Three times at Last every detail of the service has had to be rearranged. There is no comparison between a period of such continual change and the tranquil years of the past, when perhaps there was nothing to be orded in the Annual Report more important than that postage to some German Principality or Im Duchy had been doubled, or that various South American republics had declined to admit terus. The present transition state of the service will probably continue (it is to be hoped it will) til the Postal Union is universal in reality as well as in name, and until the goal of all progress Etherto is reached, viz., when all countries contribute to a central fund for the reimbursement of those which provide transit, and all accounts of the actual weights of mails transmitted are swept away.
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4. A still further reduction of International postage was offected during the year, and certain r changes, the outcome of the Convention of Paris in 1878, were introduced. Some of these have become very popular. Post Cards for instance, which it is now obligatory for every Union coun- ry to issue, will probably never be much used in the East. Return Receipts for Registered letters also seldom demanded, as the public seem rightly to consider the Registration system completely without them. A most perplexing distinction between Printed and Commercial Papers has been established, which probably no amount of explanation will make generally understood. People are. to ask somewhat impatiently why such arrangements are made. But the present system, under Fach the same Postal Rules are applied over nearly the entire civilised world, naturally requires some rence to the views of other countries. It is no longer merely a question of what suits Hongkong what suits England, but of what suits every country, and against such little inconveniences as the itation of patterns to eight ounces in weight may be set the fact that a man who knows Post Office tice in one Country of the Union knows it in all. The traveller has no longer to consult a fresh le of rules in every town he enters, the facilities he finds in Canada he will equally find at St. Bersburgh, or in Japan.
5. The most recent changes in the service have enabled this Department to accomplish what has a its aim for years, viz., the establishment of an absolutely uniform Postal Tariff, free (except in solitary instance of the Australasian Colonies) from all differences of charge on account of route, with all its rates (except as above) decimal in amount. It will now, it is hoped, be possible ually to reduce our overgrown category of Stamps, and replace them by about half a dozen values,
decimal.
6. The Registration fee has not been lowered to anything like the small amounts adopted by e countries, as it is found that such low fees throw an immense amount of responsible work on Post Office concerned, to which the sums paid seem disproportionate. A Registered letter can be sent for considerably less than an ordinary letter cost three years ago, and it may perhaps refore be said that reasonable cheapness has been attained.
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7. A
money Order system with most of the Australasian Colonies has been established, and the son to believe it will be of use to the Chinese who have emigrated there and who are constantly money to their friends, hitherto by enclosing sovereigns in Registered letters, a practice which times leads to unpleasant questions, as the contents of the letters do not always correspond with ounts written outside. In one instance the envelope purported to contain three sovereigns, but it did contain was a piece of tea lead, of the exact weight required, neatly folded up. It is a
of regret that Victoria has held aloof from this Money Order Convention.
The close of the year was marked by the withdrawal of British Post Offices from Japan, a which this Department never deprecated before its completion, nor has regretted since. Had Jamuese continued as indifferent to Postal matters as Chinese are still, it would have been desira-
1. Shce fic above was written a steady demand for the 1-cent cards recently issued bas set in.
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