16th August, New comers to Shanghai who see the yellow vans with "C. I. P. 0." on them being driven about the streets cannot be expected to realise, unless they make special enquiries, what a comparatively new institution iv is, how it has attained its present widespread usefulness without any expert assistance, and what a constant flood of criticism and occasional obloquy it has.passed through before ranching its present position of solid achievement. Mr, Pity begins his report, just issued, on the Working of the Post Office for the year 1904, by telling us that "the Chinese Post Office' was, established' by Imperial D-cree on the 20th March 1896, as the result ofa long experiment begun as far back as 1861 by the Inspector-General of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs Service, Sir Robert Hart;" from which, however, it must not be assumed that Sir Robert was Inspector-General in 1861.
Mr. Pity mentions how, early in the sixties, the Customs undertook the transmission of mails, by river steamer and courier overland, between Shanghai, Chinkiang, and Peking, in the winter, when the coast steamers stopped running. The service was so useful, "that in 1876, "when the Chefoo Convention wns being negotiated, the Tsuagli Yamen authorised" the Inspector-General to inform the British Minister, Sir Thomas Wade, thai it was prepared to sanction the establishment of a National Postal system, and willing to make it a treaty stipulation that postal establishments should be opened at once. Unfortunately, through, so to speak, a conspiracy of silence, the insertion of the postal clause was omitted in. the official text of the treaty, and thus the project was postponed sine die." However, more Customs post offices were opened, wud in 1878 Customs postage stamps were issued, and in the same year China was formally invited to join the Postal Union. The French were ready to draw their post office in Shangand so was the Bri master-General at Hongkong, while the acquisition by the Customs of the Shanghai Local Post Office, belonging to the Municipal Council, was also discussed. But nothing definite was done until, twenty: years after the Chefoo -Convention, the decree of 1896 appeared, creating an Imperial Post for all China, under the Inspector-General of Customs.
The hesitation on the part of the Chinese Government was due to the existence of the Imperial Government Courier Service, which carries Government dispatches all over China and to indisposition to.interfere with the native letter hongs, "long used and respected by the people. Both give employment to legions of couriers aod are still necessuy to the requirements of an immense nation; they can neither be suppressed, transformed, nor replaced at a stroke, Lhe Imperial decision therefore only gave final sanction to a new and vast undertaking, but abolished nothing; it is through competition and long and persevering efforts that the two older systems must be gradually superseded, and the implantation of the National Post Office patiently pursed." The account which Mr Pity gives of these two. institutions, the growth of centuries among an essentially practical people, is very well worth reading, but is too long for quotation; what is perhaps more interesting isthe way in which the new Customs Post Office has dealt with them. The Government Courier Service is gradually disappearing altogether, as the authorities find that the new service, itself, of course, a Government institution, fulfils all their requirements. As to the native letter hongs, Mr. Pity says From the first a most considerate policy was adopted towards them and the ordinary native establishments of the -interior; this policy was sketched out in 1897 -by the Inspector-General himself in "the following words: Chisese mercantile firms have for ages been doing postal work all over the Em+ pire, nob only at the few ports where the Imperial Post Office is now beginning to func: ion, but at, driven into the soil of China, innumerable places at which if cannot be established -for many a year, and have been making both a goo: t livelihood and handling correspondence, parcels, &c., in a suitable and convenient manner for-a very large public: they are thus necessary. It was therefore decided to encourage' their continuance and development, and in order to regularize matters and "bring all into line, to begin by the registration of such firms as have business houses at the treaty pons, to arrange for the carriage of their interport mails, to require all who thus registered to send such interport mail matter, etc., through the Imperial Post Office for the conveyance of letters, ete. 40 and from places inland, Special regulations have been drain upon this sense for their guidance and observance, and while their constituents will continue to pay them as before for transmitting correspondence a native rates fixed by themsel: such firms, on the other hand, are to pay a transit fee to the Imperial Post. Office, which has undertaken the conveyance of their interport mails according to special tariff, Accordingly, these native establishments—of which more than 300 have already been registered—will function for some time to come almost: independently alongside the Imperial Post Office, but they will eventually be absorb-d and' gradually merged in the public Postal Service of the Empire without being inconvenienced or suppressed,". How circumstances have permitted this liberal progratame to followed hitherto and with whap results will be found explained fur-, ther on in the course of this report.
"Another difficulty, also special to Ghina, is found in the foreign post offices established at the treaty ports. At the present day their presence and mereasitig number affect and concern not a little the Imperial administration. Two or three of. different nationalities were originally established at Shanghai, the terminus port of forei: n mail boats, and were required there, and are still so, for the passing of -international correspon-elenge nbroad. But they have since extended atid opened at numerous ports, where French, British, German, and Japanese post offices are now found doing a work for which the national post office alone would suffice. Not only do they curtail the legitimate share of the latter in the, interport carriage of correspondence, but the spreading of alien establichments at places where they are nob wanted is. resented, and retards ip this country the popularity of an institution so closely "resembling them." There is some "reason to suspect, however, that many of these post offices, though incidentally postal are primarily political; they are poys
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.