GENERAL SURVEY
1. The financial year 1954/55 has been for the most part uneventful except for the delivery of passenger coaches ordered in 1947 which commenced to arrive in October 1954, and a through mail service with Canton. By January, seven third class coaches had been received which assisted materially in the conveyance of 124,519 passengers over 3 days at Chinese New Year.
In June, negotiations were commenced with the Chinese Section at the request of the Postmaster General to bring about the through conveyance of letter mail between the Colony and Canton.
Ever since the autumn of 1949, it had been the practice for mail to be dumped at the border in all weathers awaiting connecting trains. On December 16th, 1954 one of three British goods wagons, converted for the carriage of mail, started to run through to Canton alternating with Chinese pas- senger mail vans and a satisfactory and increased mail service is now in force between the two cities.
2. The local passenger traffic fluctuated more than in other years possibly due to an exceptionally hot summer but economic circumstances also played their part. At the beginning of the year the figure was 354,384. In June the total amounted to only 232,294, while at the close of the year there was a recovery to 333,889.
In the long run there was a slight increase over last year of 1.99%.
3. Non-local passengers, as will be seen in the Traffic Section of the report, declined markedly, a decrease of 47.92% in journeys and 48.93% in receipts. The number of persons travelling to and from China has thus reverted approximately to those for the year 1952/53 when 344,692 were carried.
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