It was estimated that, with the provision of all necessary appliances and conveniences for dealing rapidly with the work on shore, a staff of about 150 well-trained and efficient sorters could do within a period of two and a half hours from the time of the _landing_ of the mails the whole of the work then done by the sea post office. This number could be easily provided from among the sorters already employed in the sea post office, in the Bombay General Post Office, and in sections of the Railway Mail Service working into and out of Bombay. The provision of suitable accommodation for the sorting to be done on shore, which was formerly a matter of much difficulty owing to the want of space in the General Post Office, Bombay, no longer existed as the new General Post Office near the Victoria Terminus, the building of which was then well advanced, had ample room for this purpose. It was unnecessary to enter into any examination of the question in respect of the outward mails from India as the whole of the work done by the sea post office in connection with those mails could just as easily be performed, without any public or postal inconvenience and at very little extra cost, by the Railway Mail Service and in the various large post offices in India. In view of the increasingly unfavourable conditions under which the sorting had to be performed at sea and of the greater security and efficiency that would be secured by having it done on shore, it was admitted that the best course would be to abolish the sea sorting service, but to do so gradually in order to avoid any dislocation in the disposal of the foreign mails. The various Indian Chambers of Commerce were consulted in 1911, and the general opinion was that no change should be made until the Alexandra Docks at Bombay were completed. The authorities of the Bombay Port Trust were accordingly requested to provide a sorting hall for the Post Office on the new pier. On the completion of the new mole in the harbour the mail steamer, instead of discharging its mails in the stream, would be able to berth alongside the pier; the delay in transhipment would be greatly reduced, and with a sufficient staff of sorters on the spot the mails would be ready for despatch by the special trains due to leave Bombay within four and a half hours of the signalling of the steamers.