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supplement the very inadequate transport then available, importers were soon able to bring in new vehicles on a com- mercial basis, both from America and the United Kingdom. By the end of the year, registration had been taken out for 1,450 private cars, 195 taxis and hired cars, and 1,152 load- carrying vehicles.

The Postal Service.

The surrender of the Japanese in August, 1945, found the Hong Kong General Post Office practically undamaged and in use by the Japanese for its normal purposes. Although pre-war postal records had been almost totally destroyed a large number of Colonial postage stamps and a quantity of British postal orders were recovered. No great difficulty was encountered in reassembling the Post Office staff or in recruit- ing sufficient personnel to replace resignations, and all the principal services were restored fairly shortly after the re- occupation of the Colony. The Mail Department, General Post Office, and the Central Post Office, Kowloon, were re- opened on the 1st September, 1945, and the first local deliver- ies were made 3 days later. For some weeks all postage was free but at the end of September stamps were placed on sale and the free service was confined to ex-internees and ex- prisoners of war. Two branch offices were re-opened during October and a further four, including two in the New Territor- ies, during November, 1945. When Civil Government was resumed on 1st May, 1946, seven of the ten branch offices had already been reopened and two were ready to open. Restora- tion of surface despatches was a gradual process: the first to be restored were the shortest and by October, 1945, regular despatches were being sent to South China and Macao. Mails to India and the United Kingdom were resumed about the same time and three weeks later the first postal communication was resumed with the United States of America and Canada. By the end of 1946 surface mails were being despatched to all parts of the world as opportunity offered. For some time limitations were imposed on the despatch of mails by the lack of shipping facilities but this situation improved steadily month by month. The first air mail services to be resumed were by Royal Air Force Transport Command aircraft to Calcutta, to connect with the British Overseas Airways Cor- poration for London, and to Australia via Leyte. In Novem- ber, 1945, air mail service to Singapore and Shanghai was resumed. By May, 1946, there was regular air mail commun- ication with London, Singapore, Sydney, Auckland, Saigon, Bangkok, Rangoon, Calcutta, Cairo, Johannesburg and various cities in China. The first direct air mail by British Overseas Airways Corporation to the United Kingdom began on the 27th August, 1946, and provided the Colony with a weekly service giving delivery in the United Kingdom within ten days. The volume of traffic passing through the hands of the Post