Sessional_Paper_1896 — Page 495

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Post Office, Sorting Room to include Registra- tion, Money Order, parcels delivery, letter and newspaper delivery, sorting of mails in and mails out, Shanghai mails, and

newspapers

Assistant Postmaster and Enquiry

Postmaster

Store,....

Tiffin Room,

...........8,000 Square feet.

Accommodation to be provided for a clerk to

live on the premises and for 30 coolies and 1 watchman in connection with Block No. 2.

Public Works Department:--

Plan Room,

600

600

!)

300

150

95

400 Square feet.

Engineers 5 @

.each 550

Drawing Office,

.1,800

""

Surveyor,

..1,000

"

Accountant and Clerks,.

.2,400

Director of Public Works,

.1,000

Land Bailiff,

450

Overseers,

700

"}

Telegraph Store,

250

>>

General Store,

800

季节

491

Suitable latrine and lavatory accommodation to be provided for each Department.

F. J. BADELEY,

Secretary,

Government Offices Committee

(Despatch from the Secretary of State to the Governor.)

HONGKONG.

No. 126.

SIR,

DOWNING STREET,

5th June, 1896.

With reference to your despatch No. 111 of 28th April last and to my telegram of the 3rd instant, I have the honour to inform you that before sanctioning the proposed erection of new Government Buildings at Hongkong, I desire to receive further information as to the necessity for the Buildings, and to be more fully satisfied, than I now am, as to the financial ability of the Colony to meet the expenditure out of current revenue,

2. I request you therefore to forward to me the Report of the Committee, which considered the question of the Government Offices, together with any further explanations you may wish to give.

3. As regards the financial position of the Colony, I should be glad to know the precise grounds upon which the Acting Colonial Treasurer confidently anticipates that the ordinary expenditure of the current year will be largely exceeded by the Revenue, in view of the fact that the Estimates sent home in December last only show a surplus of $6,500. It appears moreover, from the Returns forwarded in your despatch No. 92 of 14th April last, that the Revenue last year fell considerably short of the Expenditure (excluding Expenditure charged

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