Sessional_Paper_1886-1887 — Page 306

303

No.19

87.

No. 62.

HONGKONG.

RETURN OF UNSTAMPED CORRESPONDENCE.

Presented to the Legislative Council, by Command of His Excellency the Officer Administering the Government,

SIR,

on the 25th March, 1887.

Postmaster General to Acting Colonial Secretary.

GENERAL POST OFFICE, HONGKONG, 23rd December, 1886.

I have the honour to enclose a copy of a Postal Notice which I

propose to issue in case it should be approved by His Excellency the Officer Administering the Government. I may say that the measures indicated in that Notice are simply the carrying out of Ordinance No. 6. of 1884, Section 16 (1) and might therefore legally be put in force without any notice at all, but as they are of the nature of a new departure, and as they will at first provoke some criticism and a good deal of inevitable grumbling, I feel bound to explain their necessity and advantage, and to make sure that, in the brief period of discontent which will ensue, I shall be sup- ported by the Government.

2. The evil which it is sought to check rises chiefly at Swatow, Amoy and Foochow. It is the fashion at these ports no to post letters, but to send them on board the steamers. The consequence is that, when the Coast Mail arrives here, over and above the mail bags, there is a large box full of what are called loose letters, all of which are thrown upon this Office pell-mell, very often within an hour or two of the departure of the mail for Europe.

3. Now, so long as these letters bear postage stamps, this practice is not open to serious objection. To verify the postage and obliterate the stamps takes but a few minutes, and the letters are ready for delivery or transmission.

4. Suppose, however, that out of the whole mass, two or three hundred letters are not stamped. They first have to be picked out, then each one must be weighed and the postage marked upon it. Then they must be distributed to the boxes of the various firms to which they are addressed, so many for this bank, so many for that, and so on. The total postage due by each firm must be added up, and an entry made in the account of that firm. Then the letters can be delivered. And all this, perhaps, at 10 o'clock on French Mail morning.

5. The consequence is that the delivery of those letters which are prepaid is delayed by those which are not; in other words the mercantile houses here suffer a delay in the delivery of their correspondence for the sake of the easy-going habits of firms at Swatow, Amoy and Foochow, who, so long as their letters get delivered, do not care who pays the postage; in fact they probably prefer that it should be charged to their correspondents here.

6. A considerable number of the Coast Firms, perhaps two-thirds, do stamp all their letters. There is no reason why all should not do so. I may say, moreover, that the work of this Office has increased so much, and has become so pressing, that it is very undesirable to allow precious time to be wasted in this system of charging letters to accounts, a relic of a state of things to which I am about to refer.

The Hon. FREDERICK STEWART,

Acting Colonial Secretary,

&c.,

&c.,

&c.