Map
of Qing Post, published in 1907 Section 5 Development by Competition
When the official post office of the Qing Dynasty was established, large . amount of commercial and civil mail delivery was grasped by Public Post office. So the Qing Post always took public post Office as its main competition opponent. Post has priorities of state-owned which was rather convenient in developing post office and organizing postal route. By then "engine" postal route could be set up to deliver mails of official post offices wherever trains and ships could reached. Post administration signed contract with foreign ship companies, regulating that China customs could only carry out mails sent by China Post, all other foreign mails sent no matter by who or which post office shouldn't be carried. The Qing Post Regulations also regulated that all ship owners, sailors or passengers shouldn't carry any mails which should be sent through post office. Whoever violated would be punished. Thus, the Qing Post obtained priorities and monopolies in the places where trains and ships could reach. Promotion of Post to inland also got support from administration official.
Map
of Qing Post, published in 1907
In the competition with public Post office, the Qing Post assumed to make public post office as its agency' It regulated that public post office should report to official post office and deliver mails according to the regulations. When the Qing Post was established, because it has no its own network, it made use of Public post office to transfer mails from ports to inland and mails from foreign countries to inland, whose charges were collected from the ' receivers by public post office. But those methods were not effective in attracting public post office. Therefore, the Qing Post took administration measures to limit the development of public post office by raising total delivery fees, which was strongly opposed by public pos office and ended with failure. Even no total delivery fees were collected.
In competition with public post office, the most powerful measure for official Post to promote the development of post was to greatly decrease the charges on Ordinary mails. In the past, the postage for each ordinary mail was 4 fen, no matter the distance, which was higher than that of public post office. So from April 1902, post administration cut down the postage from 4 fen to I fen for ordinary mails within the counts and 0.5 fen within the local area, which had an obvious effect. The quantity of mails greatly increased year by year. The low price competition of the post office Promoted the great development not only of mail and parcel business, but also of the delivery of newspaper. At the beginning of 20th century, Private-owned newspapers were flourishing in China, there were over 200 kinds all over the counts. To undertake this business, post administration signed agreements with "Nanyang Newspaper", "Beiyang Newspaper" and "Business Newspaper" to act as their agency for selling and to deliver their newspapers for free. It drew up Preferential methods for all newspapers and provided convenience. In 1903, It drew up regulations with railway administration that only mails of China Post could be transported by railway. Thus, delivery of large amount of newspaper was transferred to Official Post Office.
In the development of post business, post administration energetically developed registered business and mail assurance. In 1905, it opened up express mail, to try it in 7 cities of Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, etc, then expanded it gradually. By 1910 there were 120 express mail post offices. The quantity of express mails had increased from 95,000 in 1906 to 2,690,000 in 1910. In large cities, it increased delivery frequency. In inland areas to increase delivery speed, it opened up day and night postal route which accelerated the speed by one time.
Under the support of government and local administration, the Qing Post adopts capitalistic management method to carry out diversified delivery business, with high efficiency and low charges, and continued to improve its services. Therefore public post office which was operated separately could by no means compete with it. After competition repeatedly, public post office gradually shrunk though it made tremendous efforts. From the statistics of the Qing Post, since 1901, quantity of mails of public post offices all over the country had been wavering between 7,(X)0,000 to 8,000,000 per year, by 1911 it decreased to 5,900, 000. During this Period, the amount of official post mails had increased from 10 billions to 420 billions.
When the Qing Post was established, it mainly undertook delivery of mails, parcels, remittances and newspapers. With the increase of post offices, extension of postal routes, expanding of post market and improvement of post services, post developed rapidly. Take the sum of mails sent, received and transferred as an example, it reached 10 billions from 1896 to 1901, 66 billions by 1904, over 100 billions by 1906. It increased by 50 millions to 80 millions from 1907 to 1911. By 1911 it reached 420 millions. Register mails increased from 640,000 in 1905 to 22,090,000 in 1911, parcels increased from 12,600 in 1901 to 4,230, 000 in 1911l, which showed that after it was established, Qing Post vigorously developed, especially during the last 10 years.
In the last years of the Qing Dynasty, foreign powers invaded frequently, society was unstable, national power was getting weaker and weaker. Under such situation, the reasons that modern post could develop rapidly were diversified, its experience was plentiful. By the time when the Qing Dynasty ended, modern post had developed and grew up vigorously. Public post office was gradually replaced and merged into post, which unified modern post to become an independent industry. That was a great progress in Chinese economic development history. Man of insight in the Qing Dynasty persistently proposed to set up post, post staff worked hardly, which gained great achievements.