ENG-1948 — Page 157

The

Many of the roads deteriorated badly as a result of neglect during the Japanese occupation and the large number of vechicles at present in the Colony, about double the pre-war number, pro- vides an added burden on the already weakened surfaces. urgent necessity of repairing these roads has precluded the construction of any new roads during the year. The delivery of road rollers and of some spares for quarry plant has enabled satisfactory progress in repair work to be made especially on main roads carrying the greatest volume of traffic. Some of these repairs, when completed, will permit buses to revert to their original routes thus relieving congestion on other routes; one bus route has already been re-opened. Other repairs have re-opened a shorter route to Kai Tak airfield. Several minor roads

have

been re-surfaced. The shortage of steel still prevails and no major works were done on bridges during the year..

The Post Office.

The Postmaster General is responsible for the Postal Services, within the Colony and for

and for the Government broadcasting organisation "Radio Hong Kong" which is dealt with in Part II, Chapter 10 of this Report. On the 1st November, 1948, the non-commercial Telecommunications services which had hitherto been under the control of the Postmaster General were. transferred to Cable & Wireless, Ltd.

Postal Services are provided through the General Post Office in Victoria, the Central Post Office in Kowloon and eight branch offices of which four are on the Island and four on the mainland. There is also a small post office on Cheung Chau Island and an office for the reception of air mails at Kai Tak Airport. Special arrangements have been made for the delivery and collection of correspondence at Sha Tau Kok and Sai Kung, There is still a two out-lying towns in the New Territories.

pressing need for a considerably larger General Post Office, the present building having been erected 37 years ago, and for more branch post offices. It is expected that the building of four of the latter will be begun in the course of next year.

The total number of bags of mail received and despatched was 374,414 or over 1,000 per day, and in addition there were 164,146 bags of transit mail or over 400 bags per day. The handling of transit mail is one of the greatest problems since there is no available storage accommodation near to the principal wharves. As all transit mail has to be stored in the General Post Office, most of it has to perform a double journey across the harbour and very serious congestion is caused in the General Post Office. The public space in the General Post Office needs

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