THE  CHINESE  EMPIRE

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Postal  Service,  and  her  formal  intention  to  join  the  Union
as  soon  as  organisation  permitted  ;  meanwhile  her  Post
Offices,  as  they  opened  at  the  Treaty  and  other  ports,  were
to  observe  Union  practice  and  rules.  These  declarations
she  confirmed  again  before  the  Universal  Postal  Congress
of  Washington  in  1897,  and  ever  since  she  has  acknowledged,
at  these  places,  Universal  Postal  Union  regulations  and
rates.  Consequently,  all  international  mail  matter,  to  and
from  Treaty  Ports  and  steam-served  places,  are  passed  free
at  Chinese  Offices  if  fully  prepaid  at  Union  tariffs,  and
when  a  tax  is  applied  for  insufficiency  of  postage,  it  is  done
in  conformity  with  Union  rules.  To  non-steam-served
places,  where  communications  have  to  be  maintained  by  a
costly  service  of  land  couriers,  the  rule  remains  the  same
for  light  articles—letters  and  postcards  ;  but  on  printed
matter  and  other  heavy  mail  articles  the  Chinese  Administration ­
  imposes  a  domestic  charge,  distinct  from  Union
rates,  to  cover  courier  expenses.  As  regards  more  particularly ­
  mail  matter  arriving  from  British  places  at  the
penny  postage  rate  or  from  the  United  States  at  American
domestic  rate,  if  received  for  distribution  at  Shanghai,  it
is  distributed  free,  but  if  received  for  further  transmission
through  the  Imperial  Post  Office  system,  it  is  taxed  in
conformity  with  Union  rules.
The  native  letter  hongs  present  a  far  more  difficult
problem.  Entrenched  in  monopoly  and  possessing  a
profitable  vested  interest  in  postal  work,  they  obtain  the
backing  which  is  always  given  in  China  to  vested  interests,
and  even  the  provision  of  cheaper  postal  facilities  to  the
public  does  not  prevail  against  their  plea  that  “  they  are
there,  and  wish  to  remain  there.”  Compulsion  and  the
monopoly  of  postal  transmission  to  the  Government  Office
are  out  of  the  question,  and  the  Imperial  Post  has  been
driven  to  invite  them  to  co-operate.  Registration  hurts  no
one,  and  they  have  been  given  practically  free  transport  *
for  their  closed  mails—called  “  clubbed  mails  ”—along  the
coast,  and  these  mails  they  have  consented  to  hand  over
*  A  charge  for  transport  was  imposed  from  November  1906