Post_Office_1948-1949 — Page 3

Annual Report of the Postmaster General for the Period 1st April 1948-31st March 1949.

The year under review has provided the Postal Department with many problems accentuated by acute difficulties of accommodation, equipment and staff, and my thanks are due to all members of the Department for their loyal co-operation and highly credible work in trying circumstances.

Staff

(a) Post Office

Mr. E. I. Wynne-Jones retired on pension and his place as Postmaster General was taken by Mr. J. H. B. Lee.

Mr. S. Randle, retired on pension and his place as Controller of Posts was taken by Mr. D. C. W. Fitches.

Mails (Registered Artioles and Parcels)

2. Full details are shown in Tables I, II, and III.

3.

Without exception all classes of mail showed a marked increase and some further records were established.

4. Several new services were inaugurated and to cope with the attendant difficulties minor modifications in the layout of the office were effected.

5. The opening of a bi-weekly air parcel and A.O. service between U.S.A. and Hong Kong on the 6th of September, 1948 proved popular with the public and shows a steady increase in volume." This service has since been extended to the Philippines, Hawaii and Guam.

6. An air parcel service from Switzerland, by Braathens Air Lines, opened on July 1st, 1948. This service is not reciprocal but "closed" transit despatches are accepted for Canton and Shanghai.

On the 28th of November, 1948 a weekly air service by B.O.A.C. was extended to Japan (Iwakuni) and on the 21st of Decem- ber a bi-weekly service with Shanghai was inaugurated.

8. Shipping services have greatly improved, though they have not yet returned to the pre-war scale. The P. & O. fleet now main- tains a regular monthly service between Hong Kong and the United Kingdom thereby making it possible for the United Kingdom to discontinue the routing of parcel and book packet mails via U.S.A. in September 1948.

Parcels

9. But for unsettled conditions and trade restrictions in China, which resulted in a decrease of 30,000 parcels to that country, the total increase would have been greater than the 2,118 (or .63% over 1947-48) recorded in this report. There were substantial increases with U.K., U.S.A. and other countries.