Sessional_Paper_1908 — Page 339

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TIENTSIN 'OST OFFICE.

· 27. This agency was established in October 1906. During the year 1907 the amount of correspondence despatched was 45,316 ordinary letters, 4,705 newspapers and packets, and 4,085 registered articles. Exclusive of the above 632 parcels of a nett weight of 2,174 lbs. were dispatched. The nett weight of annual outward mail exclusive of parcels does not exceed 5,000 lbs. while the nett weight of inward mail amounts to about 75,000 lbs. a ratio of fifteen to one.

28. A through service via Harbin was started on 17th October and the use of the Siberian route has come increasingly into favour.

29. The incoming mail consisted of 1,276 bags of letters and papers from Shanghai, 253 bags from Hongkong, 88 bags from Chefoo and 2 bags of letters only from London. Also 191 boxes and bags of parcels were received from various quarters.

30. The sale of stamps amounted to $6,025.92. Imperial Notes were sold to a value of £1,114.0.0 and Local Notes to a value of $1,466.75.

LOSSES OF MAILS.

31. The mail for London, ria Siberia from Shanghai on 30th March, 1907, was opened and ransacked on board the S.S. Baltica. The S.S. Dakota carrying a mail from America was wrecked off the coast of Japan. The S.S. Sullberg carrying a mail from Haiphong to Hongkong foundered during a typhoon and has never been heard of since.

RESULTS OF THE CONGRESS OF THE UNIVERSAL POSTAL UNION HELD AT ROME IN 1906.

32. The Rome Convention came into force on October 1st. The chief changes introduced by this convention were as follows :-

33. The transit charges were altered. Payments for land transit are fixed according to distance instead of one fixed amount for any distance. The Maritime transit charges have been reduced. The Russian Government is still allowed to charge 15 francs a kilogramme for transmission by the Siberian Railway.

31. The method of taking statistics has also been simplified. Under former conventions efforts were made to arrive at exactitude of statement, which experience has shown to be impossible, and which called for an expenditure of labour out of all keeping with the results attained. The new method will furnish results quite as satisfactory as those obtained under the former method, and with very much less trouble. The new method is to take gross weight of mails instead of nett weight and for offices of exchange on receiving open mails for forward transmission to other postal administrations to take credit according to the number of letters, post cards and other objects received and then to treat this correspondence as domestic. The transit charge for each letter sent in open mail being fixed at 6 centimes for each post card and other article 21⁄2 centimes.

35. Statistics were taken for all mails starting during the first twenty-eight days of November, and the results of such statistics are now being worked out so that transit charges for the next six years may be determined.

36. The postal rates have been altered, an important reduction having been made in the letter rate. For Hongkong the rate was formerly fixed at 10 cents for every ounce. The new rate is 10 cents for the first ounce and 6 cents for every additional ounce.

In the case of countries belonging to the Imperial British penny postage scheme, the unit of weight has been increased from half an ounce to one ounce. At the Postal Agencies in China maintained by the Hongkong Post Office, the unit of weight has been only raised to 20 grammes instead of half an ounce, (about 14 grammes), 20 grammes being the unit of weight for countries in the Postal Union which adopt the metrical measures. The advantage to the public of Hongkong from these rates is very great. In writing a letter of moderate length, it will no longer be necessary to use paper so thin as to make the writing almost illegible, and if one wants to send a heavier letter the diminution in the charge is very considerable. Thus a letter from Hongkong to Germany weighing just 4 ounces used to cost 80 cents, now it only costs 28 cents.