Sessional_Paper_1899 — Page 368

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The reduction in postage does not therefore appear to have prejudicially affected the total of the sale of stamps. The increase $7,000 doubtless, however, represents largely enhanced transit charges to be paid in the future.

19. The internal fittings of the present Post Office could be materially improved at comparatively slight cost by the substitution of skeleton presses with wire netting instead of the present wooden ones. They could be seen through, would be cleaner, would not obstruct light and air, and could be transferred to the New Post Office when built. Other suggestions for economising space and facilitat- ing despatch of mails have been made in another report.

20. Five of the Chinese staff were prosecuted in August last, two for removing stamps-imprisoned for 4 and 6 months respectively, and three for detaining letters, one was sentenced to 4 months' hard labour and two others to six months' imprisonment each with hard labour.

21. At present the Chinese coxswain of the Post Office launch a man on $10 a month who can neither write nor speak English receives and takes off the mails. Complaints are frequent as to delay in the discharge of the mails from contract steamers. Vessels leaving are constantly missed and opportunities for the despatch of mails lost. No log is or can be kept of the movements of the launch. Two launch officers are urgently needed. Responsible men not boys.

Responsible men not boys. Men of this description could be obtained at an initial salary of $45 a month, lower wages would only attract incompetents or men who would merely utilize the situation to look out for better appointments. In view of the vast importance attaching to the safe carriage of mails the prompt creation of these appointments is strongly urged.

22. Six more clerks are needed in the General Office, two to attend to the Poste Restante work, which has increased and is largely increasing, and four to attend to the drop boxes, keeping the keys in their pockets and being responsible for the clearing of them and the proper attendance of the Public at the windows.

In another report their duties have been elaborated. At present there is no oue to detail for these duties, and "what is everybody's business is nobody's business.'

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23. One more clerk is wanted for the Registration Department; in the other report referred to his duties have been detailed.

24. The wages paid to the Post Office clerks on joining, $20 a month, are not such as to attract, men who intend to remain in the service. Nearly all the applicants are boys from school. The brightest and best of them just stay long enough to begin to be useful and then, in the language of their letters of resignation, "having prospects of better pay and promotion," they go.

25. In the cases of clerks that have joined older and at higher wages the results have been satisfactory.

26. Should the staff be increased as indicated the services of soldiers for sorting papers could be dispensed with. Missorting of papers is a chronic source of complaint. When it is considered that four soldiers (not the same ones every mail) sort all the papers by the contract mail for every place North of Hongkong, missorting is explicable. Soldiers sort the papers by contract mails because the staff is admittedly too slender numerically to undertake it.

27. Another fruitful source of complaints is the loss of unregistered letters, principally by contract mails to Europe. On days of despatch of contract mails, for the last hour and more before the mail closes, the Post Office windows are besieged by a crowd of coolies with boxes, bags, and packets of letters which are being dumped in a continuous stream on a table by the window, and books are thrust forward to be chopped.

28. As a matter of fact these letters are not posted at all. They do not pass through the drop boxes supplied for the reception of Postal Matter, nor are they presented at the registration counter.

29. The chopping of the books is an attempt to obtain a "quasi" receipt for unregistered matter. Registered letters are not lost. In the case of locked boxes there is some guarantee that the number of the letters sent bave reached the Post Office (there is no proof as to what was put in). In the case of bags, and sheaves of letters handed in there is nothing to show that the identical letters sent have been received. In the hurry of mail morning doubtless, frequently, the clerks do not accurately check the numbers with the chit-books presented, nor is it, strictly speaking, part of their duty to search for dishonest practices on the part of messengers sent with letters.

30. The Public in Hongkong have become accustomed to grand-motherly looking-after; for instance, if letters are too late they expect the book to be chopped "too late" and the letters returned. The chopping of books is a check on the honesty of the messenger and a direct attempt, as previously stated, to get a receipt without paying a fee.