THE PLAN
“If in 1834 only a moderate reduction had been made in the
extortionate rates of postage which were then in force, Rowland
Hill might not have embarked upon his plan; and, even if he had
done so, that plan might have failed to evoke from the public
sufficient force to overcome opposition in high quarters.
In proportion to the extent of the evil did men welcome the
remedy.”—JOYCE'S “History of the Post Office,” p. 420.
The postal reform “perhaps represents the greatest social
improvement brought about by legislation in modern times.”—JUSTIN
M'CARTHY in “A History of Our Own Times,” chap. iv. p. 89.
For many years my father's attention had been turned towards the
question of postal reform; although in that respect he was far from
standing alone. The defects of the old system were so obvious that
with many people they formed a common subject of conversation; and
plans of improvement were repeatedly discussed. So far back as 1826
Rowland Hill's thoughts had outgrown the first stage on the road to
“betterment”—that of mere fault-finding with the things that are. He
had drawn up a scheme for a travelling post office. The fact that,
whereas the mails from all parts as a rule reached London at 6 A.M.,
while the distribution of letters only began three hours later, struck
him as a defect in need of urgent remedy. If, he argued, the inside
of the mail-coach, or “an additional body thereto, were to be fitted
with shelves and other appliances, the guard might sort and [date]
stamp the letters, etc., on the journey. By so doing, time would be
saved: the mails would either leave the provincial towns three hours
later, giving more time for correspondence, or the letters could be
delivered in London three hours earlier.” In January 1830 he suggested
the dispatch of mail matter by means of pneumatic tubes. But neither
project went beyond the stage of written memoranda; nor, in face of
the never-failing hostility manifested by the post officials towards
all reforms, especially those emanating from outsiders, was likely to
do more.
Early in the 'thirties reductions in certain departments of taxation
had been made; and my father's mind being still turned towards the
Post Office, he fell into the habit of discussing with his family and
others the advisability of extending similar reductions to postal
rates.
And this seems a fitting place to mention that while from every member
of his family he received the heartiest sympathy and help throughout
the long struggle to introduce his reform, it was his eldest brother,
Matthew, who, more than any other, did him yeoman service; and, after
Matthew, the second brother, Edwin.[66] Of the five Hill brothers
who reached old age, it has been claimed for the eldest that,
intellectually, he was the greatest. He had not, perhaps, the special
ability which enabled my father to plan the postal reform, a measure
which probably none of his brothers, gifted as in various ways all
were, could have thought out, and brought to concrete form; neither
had the eldest the mathematical power which distinguished Rowland.
But in all other respects Matthew stood first; and that he was one of
the wittiest, wisest, most cultivated, and, at the same time, most
tender-hearted of men in an age especially rich in the type there can
be no doubt. He was the first Birmingham man to go to the Bar, and for
twenty-eight years was his native city's first recorder.
The second brother, Edwin, was also an unusually clever man, and had
a genius for mechanics which placed him head and shoulders above his
brethren. His help in furthering the postal reform, as well as in
other ways, was given “constantly and ably,” said my father. Out of a
very busy brain Edwin could evolve any machine or other contrivance
required to meet the exigencies of the hour, as when, to make life
less hard to one who was lame and rheumatic, he devised certain
easily-swinging doors; and when in 1840 he was appointed Supervisor
of stamps at Somerset House he was quite in his element. Among other
things, he invented an ingenious method, said the First Report of
the Commissioners of Inland Revenue, by which the unwieldy, blank
newspaper sheets which, as we have seen, were obliged, before being
printed, to go to Somerset House to receive the impress of the duty
stamp, were separated, turned over, and stamped with a speed and
accuracy which had previously been considered unattainable.[67] He
was also the inventor of the envelope-folding machine known as De
La Rue's, and shown at the Great Exhibition of 1851. The process of
embossing the Queen's head on the postal envelopes was likewise his
invention; and, further, he published two once well-known works—the
one on “Principles of Currency,” the other on “Criminal Capitalists.”
He applied the latter title to those proprietors of houses and shops
who knowingly let them out as shelters for criminals or depots for the
sale of stolen goods; and he proposed that, in order to check crime,
these landlords should first be struck at.[68]
Matthew it was who, after many conversations with Rowland on the
subject so frequently in the latter's thoughts, advised him to draw up
his plan in pamphlet form. The advice was followed, and the detailed
scheme laid before the adviser, who approved of it so highly that he
suggested its publication by their mutual friend, Charles Knight. This
was done, with what far-reaching effect we know. But my uncle's help
did not end here. For him, who, self-aided, had won an influential
position both at the Bar and in the brilliant, intellectual society
of his day, it was easier than for his lesser known junior to have
access to men likely to prove powerful advocates of the scheme and
good friends to its author. Henceforth, as his biographers remind us,
the eldest brother devoted to the proposed reform all the time and
labour he could spare from his own work.[69] He introduced Rowland to
men of influence in both Houses of Parliament, to several of the chief
journalists, and other leaders of public opinion. Their sympathy was
soon enlisted, as was also that of many of my father's own friends,
and, ere long, that of the great majority of the nation when once the
merits of the plan came to be understood.
[Illustration: Facsimile of Manuscript Page (in Sir ROWLAND HILL'S
handwriting) of the Draft of his Pamphlet on Post Office Reform. See
3rd Edition (1837) page 49.]
When, in 1834, Rowland Hill joined the Association formed for the
total abolition of the odious “taxes on knowledge” there was a duty
of 1s. 6d. on every advertisement; a paper duty at 1-1/2d. the
lb.; and the newspaper stamp duty was at its highest—4d. This last
burden—undoubtedly a war-tax—was reduced once more to 1d. only in
1835, when we had been at peace for twenty years. So easy is it to lay
a war-tax on the nation: so difficult to take it off again. Weighted
after this fashion, how could journalistic enterprise prosper? The
Association was of opinion that if the Press could be cheapened
newspapers would increase, and advertisements multiply, while the
fiscal produce of journalism would be as large as ever. In estimating
this probable expansion Rowland Hill applied a principle on which he
subsequently relied in reference to postal reform, namely, that the
increased consumption of a cheapened article in general use makes up
for the diminished price.
The Revenue for the financial year which ended with March 1836 had
yielded a large surplus; and a reduction of taxation was confidently
looked for. Thus the time seemed ripe for the publication of my
father's views upon the postal question; and he set to work to write
that slighter, briefer edition of his pamphlet which was intended for
private circulation only.
It was in this year also that he made the acquaintance of one of the
greatest of all those—many in number—who helped to carry his proposed
scheme into accomplished fact—Robert Wallace of Kelly, Greenock's
first Member of Parliament and the pioneer postal reformer of the
nineteenth century. From the time Mr Wallace entered Parliament, at
the General Election which followed the passing of the great Reform
Bill of 1832, he took the deepest interest in postal matters, and
strove to reform the Department with a persistency which neither
ridicule could weary nor opposition defeat. He was in the field two
years before Rowland Hill; and while thus unconsciously preparing the
way for another man, was able to accomplish several useful reforms on
his own account.
In 1833 Mr Wallace proposed that postage should be charged by weight
instead of by number of enclosures, thereby anticipating my father
as regards that one suggestion. But nothing came of the proposal.
He was more fortunate when moving for leave to throw open to public
competition the contract for the construction of mail-coaches, which,
when adopted, led to an annual saving of over £17,000. He also secured
the appointment of a Commission of Inquiry into the management of the
Post Office. The Commission was established in 1835, continued to
work till 1838, issued ten Reports,[70] and by its untiring efforts
was, as my father always maintained, justly entitled to much of the
credit of his own later success. Mr Wallace was, of course, to the
fore in the Commission, and gave valuable evidence in favour of the
establishment of day mails, which subsequently formed a feature of
Rowland Hill's plan, and was eventually carried into effect with great
advantage to the public and to the Revenue. To Mr Wallace we also
owe the boon of registration of letters. He likewise pleaded for a
reduction of postal rates, and of more frequent communication between
different centres of population. In Parliament, during the session of
1836, and in the last speech he made there before the publication of
Rowland Hill's pamphlet, he urged the abandonment of the manifestly
unjust rule of charging postage not according to the geographical
distance between one place and another, but according to the length of
the course a letter was compelled to take.[71] As regards the question
of reduced postal rates, he said: “It would be proper not to charge
more than 3d. for any letter sent a distance of 50 miles; for 100
miles, 4d.; 200 miles, 6d.; and the highest rate of postage ought not
to be more than 8d. or 9d. at most.”[72]
A detailed plan of wholesale reform (as was my father's) Mr Wallace
never had, and he no more dreamed of postage stamps—though the
suggestion of these has been sometimes attributed to him as well as
to other men—or of prepayment than he did of uniformity of rate. He
was an older man than Rowland Hill, and of higher social standing; yet
was he so incapable of jealousy or other petty meanness, that when the
younger man, on completion of his scheme, laid it before the veteran
Scotsman, the latter threw aside all other plans and suggestions, took
up the only practicable reform, and worked for it as heartily as if it
had been his own.
To Mr Wallace every would-be postal reformer turned with unerring
instinct as to his best friend; and it was through the instrumentality
of this public benefactor that Rowland Hill had been furnished with
sundry Parliamentary Blue Books containing those statistics and other
valuable facts, mastery of which was essential to the completion of
his pamphlet, since it was necessary to understand the old system
thoroughly before destroying it.
“As I had never yet been within the walls of any post office,”
wrote my father of Mr Wallace's friendly act, “my only sources of
information for the time consisted of those heavy Blue Books, in which
invaluable matter too often lies hidden amidst heaps of rubbish. Into
some of these [books] I had already dipped; but Mr Wallace, having
supplied me by post with an additional half-hundred-weight of raw
material,[73] I now commenced that systematic study, analysis, and
comparison which the difficulty of my self-imposed task rendered
necessary.”
Basing his calculations on the information drawn from these and other
volumes, Rowland Hill found that, after the reduction of taxation
in 1823, the price of soap fell by an eighth, tea by a sixth, silk
goods by a fifth, and coffee by a fourth. The reduction in price was
followed by a great increase of consumption, the sale of soap rising
by a third, and that of tea by almost half. Of silk goods the sale had
more than doubled, and of coffee more than tripled. Cotton goods had
declined in cost during the previous twenty years by nearly a half,
and their sale was quadrupled.[74]
In his pamphlet Rowland Hill dwelt upon this fact of increased
consumption following on decreased price. It was clear, then, that the
taxes for remission should be those affording the greatest relief to
the public accompanied with the least loss to the Revenue; and that
scrutiny should be made into the subject in order to discover which
tax, or taxes, had failed to grow in productiveness with increase of
population and prosperity. The test showed that, whereas between 1815
and 1835 the nation had added six millions to its numbers, and that
trade had largely increased, the postal revenue was rather smaller in
the later than in the earlier year. During the same period the revenue
from the stage-coaches had grown by 128 per cent. In France, where the
postal charges were more reasonable, the revenue of the Department
had, in the same twenty years, increased by 80 per cent.
Reform in our own postal system was obviously a necessity.
But the fiscal loss to the country, as shown in the state of our
postal revenue, serious as it was, seemed to Rowland Hill a lesser
evil than the bar, artificial and harmful, raised by the high charges
on correspondence, to the moral and intellectual progress of the
people. If put upon a sound basis, the Post Office, instead of being
an engine for the imposition of an unbearable tax, would become a
powerful stimulus to civilisation.
Still delving among the Parliamentary Blue Books, he further gathered
that the cost of the service rendered—that is, of the receipt,
conveyance, and distribution of each ordinary missive sent from post
town to post town within the United Kingdom—averaged 84/100ths of
a penny only; 28/100ths going to conveyance, and 56/100ths to the
receipt and delivery, collection of postage, etc. Also that the
cost of conveyance for a given distance being generally in direct
proportion to the weight carried, and a newspaper or franked letter
weighing about as much as several ordinary letters, the average
expense of conveying a letter chargeable with postage must be still
lower, probably some 9/100ths of a penny: a conclusion supported by
the well-known fact, already alluded to,[75] that the chargeable
letters weighed, on an average, one fourth only of the entire mail.
He also found that the whole cost of the mail-coach service for
one journey between London and Edinburgh was only £5 a day.[76]
The average load of the mail diurnally carried being some six
hundred-weight, the cost of each hundred-weight was therefore 16s.
8d. Taking the average weight of a letter at a quarter of an ounce,
its cost of carriage for the 400 miles was but 1/36th part of a
penny—in the light of Rowland Hill's amended estimate actually less.
Yet the postage exacted for even the lightest “single” letter was
1s. 3-1/2d. The ninth part of a farthing—the approximate cost of
conveyance—is a sum too small to be appreciable, and impossible to
collect. Therefore, “if the charge for postage be made proportionate
to the whole expense incurred in the receipt, transit, and delivery
of the letter, and in the collection of its postage, it must be made
uniformly the same from every post town to every other post town in
the United Kingdom.”[1] In other words, “As it would take a ninefold
weight to make the expense of transit amount to one farthing, it
follows that, taxation apart, the charge ought to be precisely the
same for every packet of moderate weight, without reference to the
number of its enclosures.”[77]
The custom of charge by distance seemed self-condemned when a simpler
mode was not only practicable but actually fairer. Now, with increase
of the number of letters the cost of each was bound to diminish; and
with reduction of postage, especially the great reduction which seemed
easy of attainment, increase of number could not fail to follow.
The simple incident of the falling apple is said to have suggested
to Newton the theory of gravitation. So also the discovery that the
length of a letter's journey makes no appreciable difference to the
cost of that journey led Rowland Hill to think of uniformity of rate;
and in that portion of his “Life” which is autobiographic he said that
the “discovery” that such a rate would approach nearer to absolute
justice than any other that could be fixed upon was “as startling to
myself as it could be to any one else, and was the basis of the plan
which has made so great a change in postal affairs” (i. 250).
Mention has already been made of the time-wasting and costly mode in
which, during or after delivery of the letters, the postage had to be
collected, necessarily in coin of the realm. In rural districts the
postman's journey, when twofold, doubled the cost of its delivery,
its distance, and its time-duration. The accounts, as we have seen,
were most complicated, and complication is only too apt to spell
mismanagement, waste, and fraud. Simplicity of arrangement was
imperative. But simplicity could only be attained by getting rid of
the complications. The work must be _changed_. Time must be saved,
and unprofitable labour be done away with. But how? By abolishing the
tiresome operations of “candling” and of making the “calculations”
(of postal charge) now inscribed on every letter; by expediting the
deliveries, and by other devices. Above all, the public should learn
to undertake its due share of work, the share non-performance of which
necessitated the complications, and swelled the expenses. That is,
the _sender_ of the letter should pay for its transit before the Post
Office incurred any cost in connection with it, only, as under the
existing system and in numberless cases, to meet with a refusal on
the part of the should-be receiver to accept it.
In other words, prepayment must be made the rule. Prepayment would
have the effect of “simplifying and accelerating the proceedings of
the Post Office throughout the kingdom, and rendering them less liable
to error and fraud. In the central Metropolitan Office there would be
no letters to be taxed, no examination of those taxed by others; no
accounts to be made out against the deputy postmasters for letters
transmitted to them, nor against the letter-carriers. There would be
no need of checks, no necessity to submit to frauds and numberless
errors for want of means to prevent or correct them. In short, the
whole of the financial proceedings would be reduced to a single,
accurate, and satisfactory account, consisting of a single item per
day, with each receiver and each deputy postmaster.”[78]
Distribution would thenceforth be the letter-carriers' only function;
and thus the first step towards the acceleration of postal deliveries
would be secured. And while considering this last point, there came
into Rowland Hill's mind the idea of that now common adjunct to
everybody's hall-door—the letter-box. If the postman could slip his
letters through a slit in the woodwork, he need not wait while the
bell or knocker summoned the dilatory man or maid; and his round
being accomplished more expeditiously, the letters would be received
earlier.[79] The shortening of the time consumed on the round would
unquestionably facilitate the introduction of those hourly deliveries
in thickly populated and business districts which formed part of the
plan of postal reform.
How best to collect the prepaid postage had next to be decided; and
among other things, Rowland Hill bethought him of the stamped cover
for newspapers proposed by his friend Charles Knight three years
before, but never adopted; and, finally, of the loose adhesive stamp
which was his own device. The description he gave of this now familiar
object reads quaintly at the present day. “Perhaps this difficulty”—of
making coin payments at a post office—“might be obviated by using a
bit of paper just large enough to bear the stamp, and covered at the
back with a glutinous wash which, by applying a little moisture, might
be attached to the letter.”[80]
The disuse of franks and the abandonment of illicit conveyance, the
breaking up of one long letter into several shorter ones, and the
certain future use to be made of the post for the distribution of
those circulars and other documents which either went by different
channels or were altogether withheld,[81] should cause the number
of missives to increase enormously. Although, were the public, in
accordance with its practice in other cases, to expend no more in
postage than before, the loss to the nett Revenue should be but
small. Even were it to be large, the powerful stimulus given by easy
communication and low-priced postage to the productive power of the
country, and the consequent increase of revenue in other departments,
would more than make up for the deficiency. On all these grounds,
then, the adoption of the plan must be of incalculable benefit.
The uniform rate of a penny the half-ounce ought to defray the cost
of letter-carriage, and produce some 200 per cent. profit. My father
originally proposed a penny the ounce; and thirty-three years later,
being then in retirement, he privately advised the Government of the
day to revert to the ounce limit. His suggestion was adopted; but the
limit has since been brought up to four ounces—a reduction which, had
it been proposed in 1837, must inevitably have ensured the defeat of
the postal reform.
As regards the speedy recovery of the nett Revenue appearances seem to
indicate that he was over-sanguine; the gross Revenue not reaching
its former amount till 1851, the nett till 1862.[82] The reasons were
several, but among them can hardly be counted faulty calculations
on Rowland Hill's part. We shall read more about this matter in a
later chapter. Meanwhile, one cause, and that a main one, shall be
mentioned. As railways multiplied, and mail-coaches ceased to ply, the
expenses of conveyance grew apace.[83]
[Illustration:
_From a Photograph by Messrs. Whiteley & Co._
No. 2, BURTON CRESCENT,
Where “Post Office Reform” was written. A group of people stand
opposite the house.]
Under the increased burden the old system, had it endured much longer,
must have collapsed. The railway charges for carrying the mails,
unlike the charges for carrying passengers and goods, have been
higher, weight for weight, than the charges by the mail-coaches, and
the tendency in later years has by no means made towards decrease.
The pamphlet was entitled “Post Office Reform: Its Importance and
Practicability.”[84] Use of the words “Penny Postage” was carefully
avoided, because a reformer, when seeking to convert to his own way
of thinking a too-often slow-witted public, is forced to employ the
wisdom of the serpent in conjunction, not only with the gentleness of
the dove, but also with something of the cunning of the fox or weasel.
Thus canny George Stephenson, when pleading for railways, forbore to
talk of locomotives running at the tremendous rate of 12 miles an
hour lest his hearers should think he was qualifying for admission to
a lunatic asylum. He therefore modestly hinted at a lower speed, the
quicker being supposed to be exceptional. So also Rowland Hill, by
stating the arguments for his case clearly, yet cautiously, sought to
lead his readers on, step by step, till the seeming midsummer madness
of a uniform postal rate irrespective of distance should cease to
startle, and, instead, be accepted as absolutely sane.
In this way he engaged the attention, among others, of the once
famous Francis Place, tailor and politician, to whom he sent a copy
of “Post Office Reform.” Mr Place began its perusal with an audible
running accompaniment of “Pish!” and “Pshaw!” varied by an occasional
remark that the “hitch” which must inevitably destroy the case would
presently appear. But as he read, the audible monosyllabic marginal
notes ceased, and when he turned the last page, he exclaimed in the
needlessly strong language of the day: “I'll be damned if there
_is_ a hitch after all!” and forthwith became a convert. Leigh Hunt
expressed his own sentiments in happier form when he declared that
the pamphlet's reasoning “carries us all along with it as smoothly as
wheel on railroad.”
Through the kindness of Mr Villiers, the long-time senior Member
for Wolverhampton, the pamphlet, while still in manuscript, was
confidentially submitted to the Government. The author, through his
friend, expressed his willingness to let them have the entire credit
of introducing the plan if they would accept it. Otherwise he reserved
the right to lay it before the public. Many years after, Mr Villiers
wrote of the satisfaction he felt that the measure was left to the
unbiassed judgment of the people, for, after all, the Government
had not the courage to accept the offer, and the only outcome of a
rather pleasant interview, in January 1837, with the Chancellor of
the Exchequer, Mr Spring Rice, was the suggestion made by him and
adopted by Rowland Hill, that the penny rate should be charged not on
an ounce, but on half an ounce—to the cautious keeper of the national
purse seemingly a less startling innovation.
That the plan should be treated, not as a party question, but strictly
on its merits, was its author's earnest, oft-repeated desire. Nor
could it be properly regarded from a political aspect, since it
counted among its advocates in the two Houses, and outside them,
members of both parties. Yet, notwithstanding this support, and the
fact that the friends of the proposed reform daily grew more numerous,
the best part of three years was consumed in converting to recognition
of its merits not only a fairly large portion of the official world,
but the Prime Minister himself. However, the same Prime Minister, Lord
Melbourne, it was who declared that it was madness to contemplate as
possible the abolition of the Corn Laws.
“Post Office Reform” made no small sensation. It was widely read
and discussed, as indeed was but natural, seeing how thoroughly
dissatisfied with the old system nearly every one outside the official
circle was. The proposed reform was, as a rule, heartily approved,
although by some would-be clever people it was mercilessly ridiculed;
and a writer in the _Quarterly Review_ assailed it, declaring, among
other things, that “prepayment by means of a stamp or stamped cover is
universally admitted to be quite the reverse of convenient, foreign
to the habits of the people,” etc.—yet another illustration of the
folly of indulging in prophecy unaccompanied by knowledge. He further
professed to see in the proposal “only a means of making sedition
easy.”![85]
To this attack Matthew Hill made a scathing reply in the _Edinburgh
Review_, using, to flagelate the foe, the ready wit and unanswerable
logic of which he was a master. Then passing to the financial side
of the question, he pointed out that the temporary diminution of
income ought to be regarded as an outlay. The loss, he argued, would
be slight in comparison with the object in view. Even if the annual
deficit were one million during ten years, that would be but half what
the country had paid for the abolition of slavery; and _that_ payment
was made with no prospect of _money_ return. Should hope of ultimate
profit fail, a substituted tax might be imposed; and were it asked,
what tax? the answer should be, _any_—certain that none could operate
so fatally on all other sources of revenue as the present postal tax.
Time was on the side of the reformer, and before long the public,
having digested both the pamphlet and the debates thereon, took up the
question with enthusiasm. In the largest city in the kingdom as in the
smallest hamlet, meetings were convened in support and furtherance of
the proposed reform. Within twelve months two thousand petitions were
presented to Parliament, causing, on one occasion, a curious scene.
Mr Scholefield, having laid on the table a petition from Birmingham,
praying for adoption of the penny postage plan, the Speaker called on
all members who had charge of similar petitions to bring them up. At
once a “crowd” rose to present them amid cheering on all sides.
The number of signatures reached a quarter of a million; and as many
of the petitions proceeded from Town Councils, Chambers of Commerce,
and other such Corporations, a single signature in many instances
represented a considerable number of persons.
Grote, the historian of Greece, and an earnest worker for the
reform, presented a petition. One from the city contained over
12,500 signatures, bore the names of the Lord Mayor and many London
merchants, and was filled in twelve hours. In the Upper House, the
Lord Radnor of the time, an earnest friend to reforms of many sorts,
presented no fewer than forty petitions. The signatures were of many
classes, all sects, and both political parties.
In the City, on the proposal of Mr Moffatt, afterwards Member for
Southampton, the “Mercantile Committee” was formed. Its founder, whom
Rowland Hill has described as “one of my most zealous, steady, and
efficient supporters,” threw himself with great earnestness into the
formation of this Committee, raising funds, and gathering together the
able men, London merchants and others, who became its members. Its
principal aim was to collect evidence in favour of the plan; and to
its ceaseless energy much of the success of the movement was due. Mr
Ashurst, father to a late Solicitor to the Post Office, was requested
to become Solicitor to the Committee. He accepted the invitation,
declined to receive remuneration for his services, and worked with
unflagging industry.[86] Mr Bates, of the house of Baring Brothers,
acted as Chairman; Mr Cole as Secretary. In addition to the above, and
to Mr Moffatt, may be mentioned the names of Messrs William Ellis,
James Pattison, L. P. Wilson, John Dillon,[87] John Travers, J. H.
Gladstanes, and W. A. Wilkinson—all warm supporters of the plan from
the beginning.
Mr Cole excelled in the invention of pictorial devices of the sort
which are far more likely to convert the average citizen to faith
in a newly propounded reform than all the arguments, however able,
that were ever spoken or written; and are therefore most valuable.
He drew, for instance, a mail-coach with a large amount of postal
matter piled, by artistic licence, on the roof instead of inside
“the boot.” Six huge sacks contained between them 2,296 newspapers
weighing 273 lbs.; a seventh sack, as large as any of its fellows,
held 484 franked letters, and weighed 47 lbs.; while a moderate-sized
parcel was filled with Stamp Office documents. They were all labelled
“go free.” A bag of insignificant dimensions leant up against one of
the sacks. It held 1,565 ordinary letters, weighed 34 lbs., and was
marked “pay £93.” This tiny packet paid for all the rest! Cole was too
sensible a man to make use of an illustration which, if untrue, could
only have inspired ridicule. His figures were absolutely correct, and
represented the actual proportions of the mail matter carried from
London to Edinburgh on 2nd March 1838. His Brobdingnagian “single”
and Lilliputian “double” letters, whose names are indicative of their
relative size, were one evening handed round the House of Commons with
telling effect. They were, of course, designed to satirise the old
system practice of “taxing” letters according to number of enclosures.
Both had passed through the post that day, the giant having been
charged just half what was paid on the dwarf.
In all the large centres of population the great mercantile houses
were foremost among those who took up the good cause, and the Press
also threw itself into the struggle with much heartiness except in
those cases where the cue given was—attack! Happily these dissentients
were soon outnumbered and outvoiced. A few journals, indeed, achieved
marvellously sudden conversions—behaviour which even in the present
more enlightened days is not absolutely unknown. Twenty-five London
and eighty-seven provincial papers—there were far fewer papers
then than there are now—supported the proposed reform, and their
championship found an echo in some of the foreign Press. In London
the _Times_ (after a while), the now defunct _Morning Chronicle_,
and the _Spectator_ were pre-eminent. Mr Rintoul, founder and first
editor of the _Spectator_, not only championed the reform long before
its establishment, but continued to give the reformer constant
support through trials and triumphs till 1858, when, to the great
loss of journalism and of all good causes, death severed Mr Rintoul's
connection with that paper.[88]
Outside London, the _Scotsman_—then renowned for its advanced
views—the _Manchester Guardian_, the _Liverpool Mercury_, and
the _Leeds Mercury_—then in the hands of the well-known Baines
family—were, perhaps, especially active. Their support and that of
other ably conducted provincial papers never varied, and to the end of
his life Rowland Hill spoke gratefully of the enlightened and powerful
aid thus given.
FOOTNOTES:
[66] “All the members of his family,” says Mr John C. Francis in
_Notes and Queries_, 10th Series, No. 141, 8th September 1906, “were
proud of Rowland and his scheme. There was no jealousy: each worked in
harmony. The brothers looked at all times to each other for counsel;
it was a perfect home, with the good old father as its head. Truly
have his words been verified: 'The union of my children has proved
their strength.'” ... “Never did a family so unite in working for the
common good.”
[67] “By his inventive mechanical skill,” says Mr Francis, “he greatly
improved the machinery [at Somerset House]. My father frequently
had occasion to see him, and always found him ready to consider
any suggestion made. Especially was this the case when he obtained
permission for a stamp to be made with the sender's name round the
rim. This was designed for him by Edwin Hill.”
[68] Of Edwin's kindness of heart many instances are remembered. Of
these, two, characteristic of the man, shall be selected. The head
gardener at Bruce Castle lived in the (then) village of Tottenham
down a narrow entry at a corner of which stood one of the inevitable
drink-traps which in this civilised country are permitted to be set
up wherever the poor most do congregate. John simply could not pass
that public-house. He was too good a man to be allowed to sink into a
sot; and eventually my uncle bethought him of building a gardener's
cottage in a corner of the Castle grounds. The plan succeeded: John
lived to a hale old age, and some of his children did well in the
world. One afternoon, when my uncle was walking along the Strand on
his way home from Somerset House after an arduous day's work, he saw
a shabbily-dressed child sobbing bitterly. Now, Edwin Hill could
never pass a little one in distress, and therefore stopped to ask
what was the matter. The child had wandered from home, and was lost.
The address it gave was at some distance, and in quite an opposite
direction from that in which my uncle was bound. Most men would have
made over the small waif to the first policeman who came in sight. But
not this man. He took the wearied mite in his arms, carried it home,
and placed it in its anxious mother's arm.
[69] “Matthew Davenport Hill,” p. 142. By his daughters, R. and F.
Hill.
[70] In the Ninth of which was embodied the Commissioners' examination
of Rowland Hill made in February 1837. It is curious that even these
able men, when discussing the plan with its author, spoke with most
hesitation of that detail of whose wisdom so many officials were more
than doubtful, yet which, from the first, never presented any real
difficulty—the practicability of prepayment—“Life,” i. 274.
[71] As we have seen, in the chapter on “The Old Postal System,” Sir
Walter Scott has made a somewhat biting remark upon the “few pence”
which the Post Office added to its revenue on letters which were sent
a long round in order to meet Departmental convenience.
[72] “Hansard,” xxxv. (2nd Series), 422.
[73] “Raw material by the half-hundred-weight” and “by post” in
non-prepayment days is suggestive of heavy demands upon my father's
purse. But no demand was made. Mr Wallace's frank as an M.P. would
cause the packages he sent to be carried free of charge. It was
literally a _cabful_ of books which arrived, thus adding yet another
item to the oft-quoted list of huge things which could “go free” when
sent by a member of the privileged classes. One trembles to think what
would have been the charge to one of the _un_privileged.
[74] After the adoption of free trade the prices of foreign produce
fell still further, and their consumption since Rowland Hill drew
up his estimates has grown enormously. With increase of business
following on increase of consumption, came necessarily increase of
employment and of national prosperity. So also when the old postal
system was abolished, and the business of the Department advanced
by leaps and bounds, a very large addition had to be made to the
number of employees. That fact is obvious, but another, perhaps
because it is less obvious, is but little known. “The introduction of
penny postage,” wrote my father in 1869, “was really followed by a
reduction in the hours, and an increase in the remuneration to nearly
every man in the Department, save only the Postmaster-General and
the Secretary”—himself. In some quarters the reverse was erroneously
believed to be the case.—“Life,” ii. 345.
[75] Chap. i. p. 50.
[76] “When at length I obtained precise information, I found that
in taking care not to make my estimate too low, I had made it
considerably too high; and I think the history of this rectification
too curious and characteristic to be omitted. Two years later, the
Parliamentary Committee appointed to consider my plan ordered, at
my suggestion, a Return on the subject, when, to my surprise and
amusement, the Report of the Post Office gave as the cost of the mail
the exact sum estimated by me—viz., £5. Struck with this coincidence,
the more so as I had intentionally allowed for possible omission, I
suggested the call for a Return in detail, and, this being given,
brought down the cost to £4, 8s. 7-3/4d. In the Return, however, I
discovered an error, viz., that the charge for guards' wages was that
for the double journey instead of the single; and when this point was
adjusted in a third Return, the cost sank to £3, 19s. 7-3/4d. When
explanation of the anomaly was asked for, it was acknowledged by the
Post Office authorities that my estimate had been adopted wholesale.”
(Rowland Hill in the “Appendix to the Second Report of the Select
Committee on Postage, 1838,” pp. 257-259.) In estimating the real
cost of a letter between London and Edinburgh we must therefore seek
for a fraction still smaller than the one indicated by my father's
calculations.
[77] “Post Office Reform,” p. 19.
[78] “Post Office Reform,” pp. 24, 25.
[79] This proposal was by no means received at the outset with
universal favour. When the public was notified, after Government's
acceptance of the plan of postal reform, of the advisability of
setting up letter-boxes, many people—the majority, no doubt—adopted
the suggestion as a matter of course. But others objected, some of
them strongly; and one noble lord wrote in high indignation to the
Postmaster-General to ask if he actually expected him, Lord Blank, “to
cut a hole in his mahogany door.”
[80] “Post Office Reform,” pp. 45, 94-96.
[81] Among these he included small orders, letters of advice,
remittances, policies of insurance, letters enclosing patterns,
letters between country attorneys and their London agents, documents
connected with magisterial and county jurisdiction, and with local
trusts and commissions for the management of sewers, harbours, roads,
schools, charities, etc., notices of meetings, of elections, etc.,
prices current, catalogues of sales, prospectuses, and other things
which, at the present time, are sent by post as a matter of course.
[82] Cobden was even more optimistic. In a letter to Rowland Hill he
said: “I am prepared to find that the revenue from the penny postage
_exceeds_, the first year, any former income of the Post Office.”
[83] It was in 1838 that the mails began to go by rail.
[84] This was not my father's first pamphlet. In 1832 he published
“Home Colonies: Sketch of a Plan for the Gradual Extinction of
Pauperism and for the Diminution of Crime.” The pamphlet advocated the
settlement of able-bodied paupers on waste lands—a proposal frequently
revived by different writers—by the cultivation of which the men would
be made self-supporting, and the State be saved their charge. The
successful working of similar experiments in Belgium and Holland was
instanced as proof that the theory was not mere Utopianism.
[85] No. 128, p. 531. The author of the diatribe was John Wilson
Croker, whose name is preserved from oblivion by Macaulay's fierce
criticism in one of his famous “Essays,” that on Croker's edition of
Boswell's “Life of Johnson”—criticism which in severity rivals that
on the poet Montgomery in the same series. Many years later Gladstone
said to Dr Hill: “You have succeeded in doing what Macaulay attempted
to do, and failed—you have suppressed Croker.”—(Mrs Lucy Crump's
“Letters of George Birkbeck Hill.”)
[86] Mr Ashurst, as we are reminded in Mr Bolton King's “Mazzini”
(pp. 88 and 104), was a solicitor who had been a friend of Robert
Owen, and who made Mazzini's acquaintance at the time of the once
famous Governmental letter-opening scandal which agitated the far-off
'forties, and caused Carlyle, Duncombe, Shiel, Macaulay, and many
more people both in the House of Commons and out of it to denounce
a practice which, as was only too truly said, through sending “a
warning to the Bourbons, helped to entrap hapless patriots,” meaning
the brothers Bandiera. The agitation led to the abolition of the
custom of opening private letters entrusted for conveyance to the Post
Office; or did so for a while. It is a custom that is very old, and
has not lacked for apologists, as what evil custom ever did? During
Bishop Atterbury's trial in 1723, a Post Office clerk deposed on oath
that some letters which were offered in evidence were facsimiles made
of actual documents stopped, opened, and copied in the office “by
direction”; and on Atterbury's asking if the witness had received
warrant for the act, the Lords put in the plea of public expediency,
and the enquiry came to an end.
[87] Mr John Dillon, of the once famous old firm of Morrison, Dillon,
& Co., was probably one of the last wealthy London merchants who lived
above their place of business. The Dillons were hospitable people,
and their dwelling was commodious and beautifully furnished; but not
many merchant princes of the present day would choose as a residential
quarter—Fore Street, E.C.
[88] Mr Rintoul was fortunate in being father to a devoted daughter
who, from an early age, gave him valuable assistance in his editorial
work. While still a young girl, and for the space of some few weeks
when he was suffering from severe illness, she filled the editorial
chair herself, and did so with ability. At the present day we are
frequently assured by people who did not live in the times they
criticise so freely that the “early Victorian” women were inferior
to those of the present day. The assertion is devoid of truth. The
women of half a century and more ago were bright, witty, unaffected,
better mannered and perhaps better read than their descendants, often
highly cultivated. They dressed simply, not extravagantly—happily
for the bread-winning members of their family—did not gamble, were
self-reliant, original-minded, and _not_, as has been asserted,
absurdly deferential to their male relations. Indeed, it is probable
that there were, proportionately, quite as many henpecked husbands
in the land as there are now. If in some ways the Victorian women
had less liberty than have the women of to-day and travelled less,
may it not, as regards the former case, have been partly because the
community was not so rich as it is at the present time, and because
the facilities for travel were fewer and the conditions harder? In
intellectual power and noble aims the women of half a century ago were
not inferior to those of to-day. Certain it is that the former gave
less time to pleasure and more to self-culture, etc. There are to-day
many women who lead noble, useful lives, but their generation does
not enjoy a monopoly of all the virtues. To take but a few instances
from the past: has any woman of the present time excelled in true
nobility of character or usefulness of career Elizabeth Fry, first
among female prison reformers; Florence Nightingale, pioneer of the
nursing sisterhood, and indefatigable setter to rights of muddle in
Crimean War hospitals and stores; Caroline Herschel, distinguished
astronomer; Mary Somerville, author and scientist—though three of
these belong to a yet earlier generation—and Barbara L. S. Bodichon,
artist, foundress of Girton College, and originator of the Married
Women's Property Act? The modern woman is in many ways delightful,
and is, as a rule, deservedly independent; but it is not necessary to
accompany insistence on that fact by cheap and unmerited sneers at
former generations of the sex. It is also not amiss to ask if it was
not the women of the past age who won for the women of the present the
liberties these latter enjoy.