Page:Japan by the Japanese (1904).djvu/602
66,000 employés. Some 150,000,000 letters and 350,000,000 postcards are handled yearly. Sixty-eight per cent. of the receipts go towards the expense of maintaining the Department. There is no central Dead Letter Office—such business is looked after in Yokohama, Kobe, Nagasaki, Tokyo, and Sapporo.
Postal routes, which consist in Japan of ordinary routes and railway routes, were originally divided into principal and secondary routes; but since 1883 they have been divided into three classes: the first class comprising the principal routes establishing communication between the large cities, the principal ports and other localities of first importance, and forming the Empire’s great artery of communication; the second class comprising the secondary routes which branch off from the routes of the first class; and the third class serving only for communication between two or more localities of lesser importance.
The annual increase in the postal matter passing through the mails is remarkable in Japan. The number of letters, which during the first year of the European system was only 565,934, was in the following year raised to 2,510,650. This was caused by the fact that the first year the postal service was limited to the more important towns of the Empire, and the second year it increased in proportion to the increase in the extension of postal routes, and to the reduction of the postal charges.
In 1873 the amount of postal matter was nearly quadruple that of 1872, and in 1874 double that of the preceding year. The cause of this rapid increase was attributable to the adoption of the system of uniform charges, to the cessation of private postal transportation, to the considerable increase of post-offices, and also to the increased use of the postcards issued at the close of the preceding year. The increase was less in 1875, the work of extending and perfecting the system being retarded. The amount of correspondence before 1882 still presented an increase of 20 per cent., but in 1883 and 1886 the rate of increase had diminished, especially in 1885, the principal cause of which was the crisis in commercial and industrial circles—a condition happily only momentary. Activity increasing again in 1887, the number of letters augmented annually over 10 per cent., except during the year 1897–98. The war between Japan and China in 1894–1895 increased the correspondence.
The interchange of telegrams with foreign countries began in 1875, after the conclusion of a postal convention with the United States. Before this, sending and receiving posts was effected through the intermediary of the British,