19. Letters and packets totalled 123,075,056, an increase of 8,669,872 or over 7% over the previous year, These figures do not include those for parcels, registered or insured items.
20. Mention must be made of the large number of letters which, for lack of sufficient address or a variety of other reasons, cannot be delivered and are referred to the Dead Letter Office. The total of such letters was in the region of 363,000 or 1,000 for every day of the year. This total does not take into account the peak posting periods of Christmas and Chinese New Year.
SURFACE MAILS
21. Hong Kong continued to be served by excellent shipping services and the problem nowadays is not whether ships are available, but which ships provide the best service. This
• involves continual checks on circulation to determine the best routes.
22. Following the policy of decentralization and avoidance of double handling, new letter and parcel despatches were inaugurated from Kowloon Post Office to Mombasa (Kenya) and Kampala (Uganda).
23. New closed despatches from Hong Kong included Port of Spain (Trinidad), Accra (Gold Coast), Lusaka and Ndola (Northern Rhodesia), whilst direct despatches were received for the first time from Rotterdam (Holland). On the other hand, due to suspension of communications between India and Portuguese India, surface mails for the latter had to be re-routed via Karachi (Pakistan).
24. There were three incidents affecting surface mails, all beyond the control of this Administration. A mail from Canada for Hong Kong on 25th November, 1955, was damaged by fire aboard the ship whilst in Seattle. Another mail from U.S.A. and Canada was completely destroyed when the conveying vessel S.S. "Washington Mail" sank in the North Pacific on 3rd March,
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