There is an extraordinary interest in all things philatelic, related to China. In this account taken from The Postage Stamp (Feb 1911), we have valuable information regarding the early postal rates and arrangements from 1834 onwards. Postal historians of China and Hong Kong will find much of interest in this article.
It is undoubtedly desirable that extracts of interest to philatelists should be preserved to them and their successors through the medium of the philatelic press; how often it is that some paragraph of great value to the student lies hidden in some volume, which the philatelist would never dream of opening for the purpose of gleaning stampie information.
I have accordingly taken the liberty of extracting the following paragraph from a very interesting book, which has just recently been published by Messrs Longmans, Green & Co.; the book is entitled “The International Relations of the Chinese Empire (The Period of Conflict, 1834.1860)” and is by Hosea Ballou Morse: the dedication is to Sir Robert Hart, Bart., Inspector-General of Chinese Imperial Customs and Posts. I can cordially recommend it to every student of history :-
“§3. Postal facilities were non-existent in the early days, each writer or recipient of a letter being dependent on the ships of his own firm, or the courtesy of others. Letters came, of course, by every ship for all persona; but those addressed to persona not in the firm were commonly delivered only after the departure – a month, or two, or even three months, later – of the ship which brought them, lest news of commercial value should be brought to the detriment of the firm to which the ship was consigned. To have exclusive news for a few days, or even a few hours, had a high money value, which could not be carelessly risked from a mere desire to be obliging. On his arrival in Canton in 1834 Lord Napier organised a British post office, working without fee or postage; and on April 15th, 1842, Sir H. Pottinger notified the opening of the post office at Hong Kong, but ‘for the present no charge of any description is to be made on letters or parcels.’ When the P. & O. organised its steam packet service the rates of postage charged were as follows:-
to England, 1s.; to the United States, 2s.; to Singapore, ls. per ½ oz,; to France, 1s. per & ½ oz., and 10d. added for each ¼ oz., making 2s. 8d. for a letter under 1 oz..; newspapers to England and France were free, and to the United States were charged at letter rates.
In October, 1852, the postage to the United States, Atlantic coast, was reduced to 1s. 8d. per ½ oz., the rates to Canada being 2s. 2d., and to California, 3s. 4d.
From May, 1854, postage to England was put at 5d. per ½ oz. direct, with surcharge of 5d. per ¼ oz., via Marseilles.
In 1857, the postage to Singapore was 8d. per ½ oz., via Southampton to England 6d:; to the United States, 1s. 2d., to the continent of Europe, 6d. per ½ oz. prepayment optional; via Marseilles there was a surcharge of 5d. per ¼ oz., prepayment optional, and to the continent of Europe a charge of 1s. per ¼ oz., prepayment compulsory; newspapers to France free, to England 1d. each, to the United States at letter rates.
In 1861, the service, from being monthly was made fortnightly, and the postage to England was increased to 1s. per ½ oz. via Southampton, with a surcharge of 3d. per ¼ oz. via Marseilles. Captain Elliot’s despatches on important events in 1839 took from five to seven months to reach London; in 1844, the average of the times taken by the thirteen mails to reach Hong Kong was 84 days, by the steam communication of later years five days being added to Shanghai.
On August 10th, 1850, with steam communication right through to Shanghai, the latest mail advices which had been received at Shanghai were 78 days from London, 95 days from New York, and 15 days from Hong Kong; on April 2nd, 1859, they were 66 days from London, 84 days from New York, and 14 days from Hong Kong; and on April 9th. 1859, they were 59 days from London, 70 from New York, and 9 from Hong Kong.”
