AT THE TREASURY
To any one disposed to belief in omens it would seem that the
beginning of Rowland Hill's connection with the Treasury augured ill
for its continuance. Even the letter which invited him to office went
near to miss reaching its destination.
He had left town for a brief rest after the strenuous work of the
close upon three years' struggle for postal reform, leaving strict
orders at the South Australian Office that if any communication from
the Government intended for him arrived there it should be forwarded
without delay. The document did arrive, but was laid aside to await
the wanderer's return because it bore in the left-hand corner what
seemed to be the signature of a then well-known man connected with
Australian affairs who, at the meetings of the Association, was much
given to bestow on its members much unsought advice and worthless
criticism; and was therefore, by unanimous consent, voted an
insufferable bore. However, when a messenger came from the Treasury
to ask why no notice had been taken of a letter from the Chancellor
of the Exchequer, the alarmed clerk on duty hastened to send on the
belated dispatch, wrapped up as a brown paper parcel, by railway,
as being, to his mind, the most expeditious, apparently because most
novel mode of conveyance. But parcels by rail made slower progress
in those days than in these; and when at last this one reached its
destination its date was hardly of the newest.
[Illustration:
_From a Photograph by Messrs. Whiteley & Co._
No. 1, ORME SQUARE.
The residence of Rowland Hill when Penny Postage was established. The
Tablet was put up by the L.C.C.]
The first interview with the Chancellor of the Exchequer was scarcely
satisfactory, but through no fault of Mr Baring, who was but the
mouthpiece of the Cabinet. The Government, as we have seen, offered
a temporary (two years') engagement to a man already provided with
steady employment, and therefore in a fairly good financial position,
as things were then accounted; required him to devote his whole time
to the public service; and to this temporary engagement proposed to
attach the salary of a head clerk. This, too, to a man who, with the
help of thousands of supporters of every class, had just inaugurated
an epoch-making reform destined to confer lasting benefit on his
own country and on the entire civilised world; who was on the wrong
side of forty; and who had a wife and young children to support. The
offer—however intended—could only be described as shabby; and the fact
that during the interview the amount of emolument was twice increased
suggested a hard-bargain-driving transaction rather than a discussion
between friendly negotiators. We have also seen that in 1837 Rowland
Hill, through his friend Mr Villiers, offered to make a present to
the Government of his plan—willing, because he was convinced of its
soundness and workability, to let them have the full credit of its
introduction, but stipulating that if the gift were refused he should
refer his proposals to the Press, and to the country—a gift the
Government had not the courage to accept. It is therefore clear that
monetary greed found no place in my father's temperament, but only the
dread which every prudent husband and father must feel when confronted
with the prospect, in two years' time and at the age of forty-six, of
recommencing the arduous battle of life.
He told Mr Baring that while he was willing to give his services
gratuitously, or to postpone the question of remuneration till the
new system should have had adequate trial, it would be impossible
for him to enter on such an undertaking were he placed on a footing
inferior to that of the Secretary to the Post Office—a necessary
stipulation if the reformer was to have full power to carry his plan
into operation. He was well aware that the post officials viewed it
and him with unfriendly eyes; and his anxiety was not diminished by
the knowledge that his reform would be developed under another roof
than that of the Treasury, and by the very men who had pronounced the
measure revolutionary, preposterous, wild, visionary, absurd, clumsy,
and impracticable. His opponents had prophesied that the plan would
fail; and as Matthew Davenport Hill, when writing of this subject,
wittily and wisely said: “I hold in great awe prophets who may have
the means of assisting in the fulfilment of their own predictions.”
It was therefore imperative that Rowland Hill's position should be
a well-defined one, and he himself be placed on an equality with
the principal executive officer among those with whose habits and
prejudices he was bound to interfere. The labour would be heavy,
and the conditions were unusual. He must try to turn enemies still
smarting under the bitterness of defeat into allies willing as
well as able to help on the reform they detested; and to persuade
them not to place obstacles in its way. The innovations to be made
would be numerous, because, while reduction of postage and modes of
prepayment formed the principal features of the plan, they were far
from being the only features. The projected increase of facilities for
transmitting letters, etc., would cause an immense amount of extra
work; and as in this matter he would have to contend with the Post
Office almost single-handed, nothing would be easier than for its head
officials to raise plausible objections by the score to every proposal
made. Nor could the public, who had now secured cheap postage and an
easier mode of paying for it—to superficial eyes the only part of the
plan worth fighting for—be henceforth relied upon to give the reformer
that support which was necessary to carry out other important details;
the less so as the reformer would be debarred from appealing for
outside help or sympathy, because, when once the official doorways are
passed, a man's independence is lost, and his lips are perforce sealed.
The interview was brought to a close by Rowland Hill telling Mr Baring
that before returning a definite answer he must consult his friends;
and that as his eldest brother was away on circuit at Leicester, and
he proposed to start at once for that town to seek fraternal advice,
three days must elapse before the matter could be settled.
He found his brother lying on a couch in a state of exhaustion after
a very hard day's work, and Rowland proposed to delay discussion of
the question till the following day. But Matthew would not hear of
this; and, getting more and more moved as the younger man proceeded
with his tale, presently sprang upright, and, oblivious of fatigue,
threw himself with ardour into the subject of the offered appointment.
After a while, Matthew proposed to write a letter on his own account
to Rowland, which the latter should hand to the Chancellor of the
Exchequer. This was done the next day, the younger brother writing
to the elder's dictation; and the letter is given at full length in
my father's “Life” and in my brother's “The Post Office of Fifty
Years Ago.” In Matthew's own clear and eloquent language—for he was
as admirable a writer as he was a speaker—are expressed the views
enunciated above, which Rowland had already laid before Mr Baring at
the interview just described.
Before the Chancellor of the Exchequer and my father met again the
former wrote him a letter explanatory of the course of conduct to
be adopted on his engagement at the Treasury, stating, among other
things, that free access to the Post Office, and every facility of
enquiry as to the arrangements made would be given, but that all “your
communications will be to the Treasury, from which any directions to
the Post Office will be issued; and you will not exercise any direct
authority, or give any immediate orders to the officers of the Post
Office.” The explanation was said to be given “to prevent future
misunderstanding”; and this was doubtless the euphonious mode of
expressing apprehension of a state of things which, in view of the
well-known hostility of St Martin's-le-Grand, the writer felt was
likely to arise; and again mention was made of the condition that
“the employment is considered as temporary, and not to give a _claim_
to continued employment in office at the termination of those two
years.”[126]
The prospect was scarcely satisfactory; nevertheless, my father hoped
that by the end of his term of engagement, and by unceasing effort
on his part, he might find himself “in a recognised position, in
direct communication with persons of high authority, and entrusted
with powers which, however weak and limited in the outset, seemed,
if discreetly used, not unlikely in due time to acquire strength
and durability. I was far from supposing that the attainment of my
post was the attainment of my object. The obstacles, numerous and
formidable, which had been indicated in my brother's letter had all,
I felt, a real existence; while others were sure to appear of which,
as yet, I knew little or nothing. Still, I felt no way daunted, but,
relying at once on the efficiency of my plan, I felt confident of
succeeding in the end.”[127]
The goal at which Rowland Hill aimed was, as he told Mr Baring at
this second interview, the permanent headship—as distinguished from
the political headship—of the Post Office, then filled by Colonel
Maberly:[128] the only position in which the reformer could really
acquire that authority which was essential to the development of his
plan. But the Fates were stronger even than one strong-willed man; and
Colonel Maberly held the post for fifteen years longer. Thus, when the
helm came at last into Rowland Hill's hands, he was long past middle
life; and his years of almost unrestricted influence were destined to
be but few.
Further encouragement to accept the present position was given by
Mr Baring's friendly, sympathetic attitude; and it should here be
recorded that the longer Rowland Hill served under his chief the
more cordial grew the relations between them. Ample proof of this
confidence was seen in the Chancellor of the Exchequer's increased
readiness to adopt suggestions from the new official, and to leave to
him the decision on not a few questions of importance.
On the first day of my father's appointment he accompanied Mr Baring
to the Post Office, that being the first time the reformer had set
foot within its portals. He was much interested in the different
processes at work, such as date-stamping, “taxing”—the latter destined
soon, happily, to be abolished—sorting, etc. But the building, which
had been erected at great expense only ten years previously, struck
him as too small for the business carried on in it; badly planned,
badly ventilated, and deficient in sanitary arrangements—a monument
to the fatuity alike of architect and builder. This discovery led
him to think of practicable alterations in the existing edifice and
of devolution in the shape of erection of district offices; and by
Mr Baring's wish he drew up a paper giving his views in detail,
and including with his proposals that necessary accompaniment of
amalgamation into one force of the two corps of letter-carriers, the
general and the “twopenny post” men, which has already been alluded
to. But this greatly needed measure was, perforce, deferred till after
Colonel Maberly's retirement.
In order the better to get through as much of his projected work as he
could accomplish in the twice twelvemonths before him, my father rose
daily at six, and after an early breakfast set off for the Treasury,
where at first his appearance at an hour when many officials were
probably only beginning to rise caused considerable astonishment, and
where he stayed as long as he could. If even under these circumstances
the progress made seemed slow and unsatisfactory to the man longing to
behold his scheme adopted in its entirety, how much worse would not
the reform have fared had he kept strictly to the hours prescribed by
official custom!
A few weeks after his acceptance of office, and at Mr Baring's
suggestion, he visited Paris to inspect the postal system there. He
found it in many respects well ahead of our own. In France the old
system never weighed so heavily upon the people as did our own old
system upon us. The charges were about two-thirds of our own for
corresponding distances, but the number of a letter's enclosures
was not taken into consideration, the postage varying according to
weight. Though Paris was much smaller than London, its post offices
were more numerous than ours, being 246 against our 237. There was a
sort of book post, a parcel post for valuables of small dimensions at
a commission paid of 5 per cent.—the Post Office, in case of loss,
indemnifying the loser to the extent of the value of the article; and
a money order system so far in advance of our own that the French
people sent more than double as much money through the post as we
did. The gross revenue was about two-thirds that of the British Post
Office; the expenses 20 per cent. more; the nett revenue less than
half.
Street letter-boxes were an old institution in France; our own,
therefore, were but an adaptation. The larger towns of Germany
possessed them, as did also the towns and villages of the Channel
Isles. After his visit to France, Rowland Hill urged the Treasury to
adopt street letter-boxes, and one was put up in Westminster Hall.
But it was not till the early 'fifties that they were introduced to
any great extent. Before the establishment of penny postage there
were only some 4,500 post offices in the United Kingdom. In the year
of my father's death (1879), the number had grown to over 13,000,
in addition to nearly 12,000 pillar and wall boxes. And the advance
since 1879 has, of course, been very great.[129] But it is not alone
in number that the change is seen. In the case of post offices,
a handsome edifice full of busy workers has, in many towns and
districts, replaced an insignificant building managed by a few more or
less leisurely officials, or by even one person.
[Illustration: A POST-OFFICE IN 1790. By permission of the Proprietors
of the _City Press_.
AN OLD POST OFFICE.]
It was during this visit to Paris that my father became acquainted
with M. Piron, _Sous Directeur des Postes aux Lettres_, a man whose
memory should not be suffered to perish, since it was mainly through
his exertions that the postal reform was adopted in France. For
several years during the latter part of Louis Philippe's reign, M.
Piron strove so persistently to promote the cause of cheap postage
that he actually injured his prospects of rising in the Service, as
the innovation was strenuously opposed both by the monarch and by the
Postmaster-General, M. Dubost, the “French Maberly.” Therefore, while
the “citizen king” remained on the throne the Government gave little
or no encouragement to the proposed reform. But M. Piron, too much
in earnest to put personal advancement above his country's welfare,
went on manfully fighting for cheap postage. He it was who made the
accidental discovery among the archives of the French Post Office of
documents which showed that a M. de Valayer had, nearly two hundred
years before, established in Paris a private (penny?) post—of which
further mention will be made in the next chapter. Neither Charles
Knight, who first suggested the impressed stamp, nor Rowland Hill,
who first suggested the adhesive stamp, had heard of M. de Valayer or
of his private post; and even in France they had been forgotten, and
might have remained so but for M. Piron's discovery. One is reminded
of the re-invention of the mariner's compass and of many other new-old
things.
Nine years after my father's official visit to Paris, that is, with
the advent of the Revolution of 1848, the reforming spirit in France
had stronger sway; and M. Piron's efforts were at last crowned with
success. The uniform rate proposed by him (20 centimes) was adopted,
and the stamp issued was the well-known black head of Liberty. In
order to keep pace with the public demand, the first sheets were
printed in such a hurry that some of the heads—the dies to produce
which were then detached from one another—were turned upside down. M.
Piron sent my father one of the earliest sheets with apologies for the
reversals. These are now almost unobtainable, and are therefore much
prized by philatelists.
During this visit to Paris, or at a later one, my father also made
the acquaintance of M. Grasset, M. St Priest, and other leading post
officials; and, among non-official and very interesting people, M.
Horace Say, son to the famous Jean Baptiste Say, and father to the
late M. Léon Say, three generations of illustrious Frenchmen.
Although travelling in France—or, indeed, in England or any other
country—was in 1839 very different from what it has become in these
luxurious days, for railways were established later in France than
they were here, my mother had accompanied her husband. One day the
pair set off in a _calèche_ to visit some old friends who lived in a
rather distant part of the country. Darkness came on, and ere long
all trace of the road was lost. At last the wretched little vehicle
broke down in a field; and the driver, detaching the horse, rode off
to try to discover their whereabouts. The process was a slow one; and
the travellers were left alone for what seemed to be many hours. Near
the field was a wood in which wolves had been seen that day, and there
was good reason to dread a visit from them. When at last the driver,
having found the right road, reappeared, attached the horse to the
_calèche_, and pushed on again, he drove his party by mistake to the
back-door of their friends' house. It was now late at night, and the
family, who had retired to rest, and were waked by the driver's loud
knocking, mistook the belated travellers for robbers, and refused
to unbar the door. It was only after a long parley that the wearied
visitors were admitted, to receive, of course, the warmest welcome.
The master of the house had been the hero of an unusually romantic
story. As a young officer in the French army, he was captured at the
time of the unfortunate Walcheren expedition, and carried to England,
there to remain some years as a prisoner of war. While on _parole_ he
made many friends in this country, where he occupied part of his time
by the study of English law, in which he became a proficient. During
his novitiate he became acquainted with a young lady unto whom he was
not long in losing his heart. As he came to know her and her widowed
mother better, a suspicion crossed his mind that the daughter was
being kept out of a handsome property, rightly hers, by a fraudulent
relative. Examination of the case strengthened suspicion into
conviction, and he undertook to champion her cause, his knowledge of
English law coming in as a powerful weapon to his hand. On conclusion
of the trial, he and some of those who had acted with him set off for
the lady's home as fast as horses, post-boys, and money could take
them. “They are scattering guineas!” exclaimed a bystander. “They have
won the case!” It was so, and something more than the case, for the
gallant young Frenchman was rewarded for his prowess by receiving in
marriage the hand of the girl for whom he had accomplished so much.
When the war was over, M. Chevalier returned to France together with
his wife and her mother.
Heartily as Mr Baring approved of the new system, he still distrusted
the principle of prepayment. In this opinion he was, as we have seen,
not singular. By many people it was still pronounced “un-English” to
prepay letters. But my father was so confident of the wisdom of the
step that Mr Baring ultimately gave way, stipulating only that the
responsibility should rest, not on the Chancellor of the Exchequer,
but on the author of the reform. The condition was unhesitatingly
accepted.
To ensure use of the stamps, Mr Baring, later, proposed that it
should be made illegal to prepay postage other than by their means;
but Rowland Hill, hating compulsion, and feeling confident of their
ultimate acceptability, maintained that it would be better if at first
the two modes of payment, money and stamps, contended for public
favour on equal terms, and succeeded in convincing Mr Baring of the
soundness of that view.
The question of the stamps was therefore one of the first to require
my father's attention on his return from Paris; and he found much
to occupy him in dealing with the many suggestions contained in the
letters sent in by the public, and in the vast number of designs
accompanying them. As the succeeding chapter will show, the subject,
in one form or another, took up much of his time for a little over
twelve months.
Early in December, at his suggestion, the tentative postal rate of
1d. for London, and 4d. for the rest of the kingdom was introduced,
all tiresome extras such as the penny on each letter for using the
Menai and Conway bridges, the halfpenny for crossing the Scottish
border, etc., being abolished. This experiment was made to allow
the postal staff to become familiarised with the new system, as a
vast increase of letters, necessarily productive of some temporary
confusion, was looked for on the advent of the uniform penny rate.
Under the old system 4d. had been the lowest charge beyond the radius
of the “twopenny post”; therefore, even the preliminary reduction
was a relief. But although three years earlier a lowering of the
existing rates to a minimum of 6d. or 8d. would have been eagerly
welcomed, the public were now looking forward to yet lower charges;
and the prospect of paying 4d. was viewed with great dissatisfaction.
People began to suspect that the concession would go no further, that
the Government intended to “cheat the public,” and my father was
accused of having “betrayed his own cause.” Thus easily is a scare
manufactured.
The result of the first day of this preliminary measure was awaited
with some anxiety. The increase of the fourpenny letters was about 50,
and of the penny letters nearly 150 _per cent._, the unpaid letters
being about as numerous as usual, prepayment being not yet made
compulsory. This state of things my father considered “satisfactory”;
Mr Baring “very much so.” The next day the numbers fell off, and
this gave the enemies of postal reform a delightful, and by no means
neglected, opportunity of writing to its author letters of the “I told
you so!” description.
The 10th of January 1840, when the uniform penny rate came into
operation, was a busy day at the post offices of the country.
Many people made a point of celebrating the occasion by writing
to their friends, and not a few—some of the writers being entire
strangers—addressed letters of thanks to the reformer.[130] One of
these was from Miss Martineau, who had worked ably and well for the
reform; and another from the veteran authoress, Miss Edgeworth, whom,
some twenty years earlier, Rowland Hill had visited in her interesting
ancestral home.[131]
At that time, and for many years after, there was at St
Martin's-le-Grand a large centre hall open to the public, but,
later, covered over and appropriated by the ever-growing Circulation
Department. At one end of the hall was a window, which during part of
the day always stood open to receive the different kinds of missives.
These, as the hour for closing drew near, poured in with increasing
volume, until at “six sharp,” when the reception of matter for the
chief outgoing mail of the day ended, the window shut suddenly,
sometimes with a letter or newspaper only half-way through.[132] On
the afternoon of the 10th, six windows instead of one were opened;
and a few minutes before post time a seventh was thrown up, at which
the chief of the Circulation Department himself stood to help in the
receipt of letters. The crowd was good-tempered, and evidently enjoyed
the crush, though towards the last letters and accompanying pennies
were thrown in anyhow, sometimes separating beyond hope of reunion;
and though many people were unable to reach the windows before six
o'clock struck. When the last stroke of the hour had rung out, and
the lower sash of every window had come down with a rush like the
guillotine, a great cheer went up for “penny postage and Rowland
Hill,” and another for the Post Office staff who had worked so well.
So much enthusiasm was displayed by the public that the author of the
new system fully expected to hear that 100,000 letters, or more than
three times the number usually dispatched, had been posted. The actual
total was about 112,000.
The reformer kept a constant watch on the returns of the number of
inland letters passing through the post. The result was sometimes
satisfactory, sometimes the reverse, especially when a return issued
about two months after the establishment of the penny rate showed
that the increase was rather less than two-and-three-quarters-fold.
The average postage on the inland letters proved to be three
halfpence; and the reformer calculated that at that rate a
four-and-three-quarters-fold increase would be required to bring up
the gross revenue to its former dimensions. Eleven years later his
calculation was justified by the result; and in the thirteenth year
of the reform the number of letters was exactly five times as many as
during the last year of the old system.
Meanwhile, it was satisfactory to find that the reductions which had
recently been made in the postage of foreign letters had led to
a great increase of receipts, and that in no case had loss to the
revenue followed.
One reason for the comparatively slow increase in the number of inland
letters must be attributed to the persistent delay in carrying out my
father's plan for extending rural distribution. In the minute he drew
up, he says: “The amount of population thus seriously inconvenienced
the Post Office has declared itself unable to estimate, but it
is probable that in England and Wales alone it is not less than
4,000,000. The great extent of the deficiency [of postal facilities]
is shown by the fact that, while these two divisions of the empire
contain about 11,000 parishes, their total number of post offices of
all descriptions is only about 2,000. In some places _quasi_ post
offices have been established by carriers and others, whose charges
add to the cost of a letter, in some instances as much as sixpence. A
penny for every mile from the post office is a customary demand.”[133]
Of the beneficent effects of cheap postage, gratifying accounts were
meanwhile being reported; some told in conversation, or in letters
from friends or strangers, some in the Press or elsewhere.
One immediate effect was an impetus to education, especially among
the less affluent classes. When one poor person could send another
of like condition a letter for a penny instead of many times that
amount, it was worth the while of both to learn to read and write.
Many people even past middle age tried to master the twin arts; and
at evening classes, some of which were improvised for the purpose,
two generations of a family would, not infrequently, be seen at work
seated side by side on the same school bench. Other poor people,
with whom letter-writing, for lack of opportunity to practise it,
had become a half-forgotten handicraft, made laborious efforts to
recover it. And thus old ties were knit afresh, as severed relatives
and friends came into touch again. Surely, to hinder such reunion by
“blocking” rural distribution and other important improvements was
little, if at all, short of a crime.
Mr Brookes, a Birmingham home missionary, reported that the
correspondence of the poorer classes had probably increased a
hundredfold; and that adults as well as young people took readily to
prepayment, and enjoyed affixing the adhesive Queen's head outside
their letters.
Professor Henslow, then rector of Hitcham, Suffolk, wrote of the
importance of the new system to those who cultivated science and
needed to exchange ideas and documents. He also stated that before
penny postage came in he had often acted as amanuensis to his poorer
parishioners, but that they now aspired to play the part of scribe
themselves.
The servant class, hitherto generally illiterate, also began to indite
letters home; and a young footman of Mr Baring's one day told my
father that he was learning to write in order to send letters to his
mother, who lived in a remote part of the country; and added that he
had many friends who were also learning. Indeed, one poor man, settled
in the metropolis, proudly boasted that he was now able to receive
daily bulletins of the condition of a sick parent living many miles
away.
Charles Knight found that the reduced rates of postage stimulated
every branch of his trade—an opinion endorsed by other publishers and
book-sellers; and the honorary secretary to the Parker Society, whose
business was the reprinting of the early reformers' works, wrote, two
years after the abolition of the old system, to tell the author of the
new one that the very existence of the Society was due to the penny
post.
“Dear Rowland,” wrote Charles Knight, in a letter dated 10th May 1843,
“The Poor Law 'Official Circular' to which par. No. 7 chiefly refers,
is one of the most striking examples of the benefit of cheap postage.
It could not have existed without cheap postage. The Commissioners
could not have sent it under their frank without giving it away, which
would have cost them £1,000 a year. It is sold at 4d., including the
postage, which we prepay; and we send out 5,000 to various Boards of
Guardians and others who are subscribers, and who pay, in many cases,
by post office orders. The work affords a profit to the Government
instead of costing a thousand a year.”
After four years of the new system Messrs Pickford said that their
letters had grown in number from 30,000 to 720,000 _per annum_.
And testimony of similar character was given either in evidence
before the Committee on Postage of 1843, or, from time to time, was
independently volunteered.
The postal reform not only gave a vast impetus to trade and education,
but even created new industries, among them the manufacture of
letter-boxes and letter-weighing machines—which were turned out in
immense quantities—to say nothing of the making of stamps and of
stamped and other envelopes, etc.
In two years the number of chargeable letters passing through the post
had increased from 72,000,000 _per annum_ to 208,000,000. Illicit
conveyance had all but ceased, and the gross revenue amounted to
two-thirds of the largest sum ever recorded. The nett revenue showed
an increase the second year of £100,000, and the inland letters were
found to be the most profitable part of the Post Office business.[134]
It is a marvel that the new system should have fared as well as
it did, when we take into consideration the bitter hostility of
the postal authorities, the frequent hindrances thrown in the path
of reform, to say nothing of the terrible poverty then existing
among many classes of our fellow country people under the blighting
influence of Protection and of the still unrepealed Corn Laws; poverty
which is revealed in the many official reports issued during that sad
time, in “S.G.O.'s” once famous letters, and in other trustworthy
documents of those days, whose hideous picture has, later, been
revived for us in that stirring book, “The Hungry Forties.”
The hindrances to recovery of the postal revenue were in great
measure caused by the delay in carrying out the details of Rowland
Hill's plan of reform. Especially was this the case in the
postponement of the extension of rural distribution—to which allusion
has already been made—one of the most essential features of the plan,
one long and wrongfully kept back; and, when granted, gratefully
appreciated. Issue of the stamps was also delayed, these not being
obtainable for some months after the introduction of the new system;
and there was a still longer delay in providing the public with an
adequate supply.[135]
The increase of postal expenditure was another factor in the case.
The total charge for carrying the inland mails in 1835—the year
before “Post Office Reform” was written—was £225,920; and it remained
approximately at that figure while the old system continued in force.
Then it went up by leaps and bounds, till by the end of the first year
of the new system (1840) it reached the sum of £333,418. It has gone
on steadily growing, as was indeed inevitable, owing to the increase
of postal business; but the growth of expenditure would seem to be out
of all proportion to the service, great as that is, rendered. By 1868
the charge stood at £718,000,[136] and before the nineteenth century
died out even this last sum had doubled.
The following instance is typical of the changes made in this respect.
In 1844 the Post Office _received_ from the coach contractors about
£200 for the privilege of carrying the mail twice a day between
Lancaster and Carlisle. Only ten years later, the same service
performed by the railway cost the Post Office some £12,000 a year.[137]
Another form of monetary wastefulness through overcharge arose from
misrepresentation as to the length of railway used by the Post Office
on different lines, one Company receiving about £400 a year more
than was its due—although, of course, the true distance was given in
official notices and time-tables. Even when the error was pointed out,
the postal authorities maintained that the charge was correct.
This lavish and needless increase of expenditure on the part of
the Post Office made Mr Baring as uneasy as it did my father. Not
infrequently when explanations were demanded as to the necessity for
these enhanced payments, evasive or long-delayed replies were given.
Thus Rowland Hill found himself “engaged in petty contests often
unavailing and always invidious”;[138] and in these petty contests
and ceaseless strivings to push forward some item or other of his
plan, much of his time, from first to last, was wasted. Thus, at
the beginning of 1841, when he had been at the Treasury a year and
quarter, it became evident that, unless some improvement took place,
two years or even a longer period would not suffice to carry out the
whole of his plan.
Before 1841 came to an end he was destined to find the opposing powers
stronger than ever. In the summer of that year the Melbourne Ministry
fell—to the harassed postal reformer a heavy blow. For, if during the
past two years he had not succeeded in accomplishing nearly all he had
hoped to do, still the record of work was far from meagre. But if,
with Mr Baring as an ally, and under a Government among whose members,
so far as he knew, he counted but a single enemy, progress was slow,
he had everything to dread from a Ministry bound to be unfriendly.
With their advent, conviction was speedily forced upon him that the
end was not far off. The amount and scope of his work was gradually
lessened; minutes on postal matters were settled without his even
seeing them; and minutes he had himself drawn up, with the seeming
approbation of his official chiefs, were quietly laid aside to be
forgotten. On the plea of insufficiency of employment—insufficiency
which was the natural consequence of the taking of work out of his
hands—the number of his clerks was cut down to one; and all sorts of
minor annoyances were put in his way. Meanwhile, the demands from the
Post Office for increased salaries, advances, allowances, etc., which
during the past two years had been frequently sent up to the Treasury,
became more persistent and incessant than ever.
Rural distribution was still delayed, or was only partially and
unsatisfactorily carried out. Some places of 200 or 300 inhabitants
were allowed a post office, while other centres peopled by 2,000 or
3,000 went without that boon. This plan of rural distribution, whose
object was to provide post offices in 400 registrars' districts which
were without anything of the sort, was, after long waiting, conceded
by the Treasury before the break-up of the Melbourne Ministry; and my
father, unused till latterly to strenuous modes of official evasion,
believed the measure safe. He forgot to take into account the Post
Office's power of passive resistance; and several months were yet to
elapse ere he discovered that Mr Baring's successor had suspended his
predecessor's minute; nor was its real author ever able to obtain
further information concerning it.
Nor was this all. Letters written by Rowland Hill to the new
Chancellor of the Exchequer on the subject of registration and other
reforms remained unnoticed, as did also a request to be allowed to
proceed with one or two more out of a list of measures which stood
in need of adoption. Later, my father wrote urging that other parts
of his reform should be undertaken, drawing attention to the work
which had already been successfully achieved; and so forth. A brief
acknowledgment giving no answer to anything mentioned in his letter
was the only outcome. At intervals of two months between the sending
of each letter, he twice wrote again, but of neither missive was any
notice taken.
Among other projects it had been decided that Rowland Hill should go
to Newcastle-on-Tyne to arrange about a day mail to that town; and the
necessary leave of absence was duly granted. He was also desirous of
visiting some of the country post offices; but, being anxious to avoid
possible breach of rule, he wrote to Colonel Maberly on the subject.
The letter was referred to the Postmaster-General, and, after him, to
the Chancellor of the Exchequer: the result being that the sanction to
any portion of the journey was withdrawn.
One of the worst instances of the official “veiled hostility” to
reform and reformer appeared in a document which my father—who might
easily have given it a harsher name—always called the “fallacious
return,” published in 1843. In this the Post Office accounts were so
manipulated as to make it seem that the Department was being worked
at an annual loss of £12,000 or more. The unfriendly powers had all
along prophesied that the reform could not pay; and now, indeed, they
had a fine opportunity of “assisting in the fulfilment of their own
predictions.”
Till the new postal system was established, the “packet service”
for foreign and colonial mails had, “with little exception,” been
charged to the Admiralty. In the “fallacious return” the entire amount
(£612,850) was charged against the Post Office. Now, in comparing the
fiscal results of the old and new systems, it was obviously unfair to
include the cost of the packet service in the one and exclude it from
the other. Despite all statements made to the contrary—and a great
deal of fiction relating to postal arithmetic has long been allowed
to pass current, and will probably continue so to do all down the
“ringing grooves of time”—the nett revenue of the Department amounted
to £600,000 _per annum_.[139]
Another “mistake” lay in under-stating the gross revenue by
some £100,000. On this being pointed out by my father to the
Accountant-General, he at once admitted the error, but said that a
corrective entry made by him had been “removed by order.”[140] And not
only was correction in this case refused, but other “blunders” in the
Post Office accounts on the wrong side of the ledger continued to be
made, pointed out, and suffered to remain.
In one account furnished by the Department it was found, says my
father, “that the balance carried forward at the close of a quarter
changed its amount in the transit; and when I pointed out this fact
as conclusive against the correctness of the account, it was urged
that without such modification the next quarter's account could not be
made to balance.”[141] Not a very bright example of the application of
culinary operations to official book-keeping because of the ease with
which it could be detected. What wonder that to any one whose eyes are
opened to such ways, faith in official and other statistics should be
rudely shaken!
The effect of these high-handed proceedings was naturally to foster
mistaken ideas as to postal revenues.
In 1842 Lord Fitzgerald, during a debate on the income-tax, said that
the Post Office revenue had perished. The statement was speedily
disposed of by Lord Monteagle, who, after pointing out the falseness
of the allegation, declared that the expense of the packet service had
no more to do with penny postage than with the expense of the war in
Afghanistan or China, or the expense of the Army and Navy.[142]
In the House of Commons, Peel, of course only quoting memoranda which
had been provided for his use, repeated these misleading statistics;
and, later, they have found further repetition even in some of the
Postmaster-General's Annual Reports.
These frequently recurring instances of thwarting, hindering, and
misrepresentation showed plainly that the working of the postal reform
should not have been entrusted to men whose official reputation was
pledged not to its success but to its failure; and that the “shunting”
of its author on to a Department other than that in which if endowed
with due authority he might have exercised some control, was, to put
the case mildly, a great mistake.
One ray of comfort came to him in the midst of his troubles. In the
hard times which prevailed in the early 'forties diminution of revenue
was far from being peculiar to the Post Office. The country was
undergoing one of the heaviest of those periodically recurrent waves
of depression which lessen the product of all taxes (or the ability
to pay them) when, in April 1843, my father was able to write in his
diary that the Post Office “revenue accounts show an increase of
£90,000 on the year.... The Post Office is the only Department which
does not show a deficiency on the quarter.”[143]
In July 1842, the Chancellor of the Exchequer wrote to Rowland Hill
to remind him that his three years' engagement at the Treasury
would terminate in the ensuing September, and adding that he did not
consider it advisable to make any further extension of the period of
engagement beyond the date assigned to it.
Dreading lest, when the official doors should close behind him, his
cherished reform should be wrecked outright, its author offered
to work for a time without salary. The offer was refused, and the
intended dismissal was announced in Parliament. The news was received
with surprise and indignation there and elsewhere.
The Liberal Press was unanimous in condemnation of the Government's
conduct, and some of the papers on their own side, though naturally
cautious of tone, were of opinion that Rowland Hill had been harshly
used. The Ministers themselves were probably of divided mind; and
my father, when commenting upon a letter which the Prime Minister
about this time addressed to him, says: “I cannot but think that,
as he wrote, he must have felt some little of that painful feeling
which unquestionably pressed hard upon him in more than one important
passage of his political career.”[144]
At the last interview the postal reformer had with the Chancellor
of the Exchequer, Mr Goulburn's courteous manner also went “far to
confirm the impression that he feels he is acting unjustly and under
compulsion.”[145]
One of the most indignant and outspoken of the many letters which
Rowland Hill received was from his former chief, Mr Baring, who
stigmatised the conduct of the Government as “very shabby,” more than
hinted that jealousy was the cause of dismissal, and added that had
the Postmaster-General's plan of letter-registration been carried into
effect, it “would have created an uproar throughout the country.”
It was well known that the head of the Post Office did not feel
too kindly towards the reform, and was bent on charging a shilling
on every registered letter, while Rowland Hill stoutly maintained
that sixpence would be sufficient.[146] Hence the allusion. The
Postmaster-General is said to have demanded his opponent's dismissal,
and as he was credited with being in command of several votes in the
Lower House, his wishes naturally carried weight.
Cobden gave vent to his disgust in a characteristic letter in which
he suggested that the programme of the Anti-Corn-Law League should be
followed:—a national subscription raised, a demonstration made, and a
seat in Parliament secured. But the programme was not followed.
Among other letters of sympathy came one from the poet who, as his
epitaph at Kensal Green reminds us, “sang the _Song of the Shirt_.”
Said Hood: “I have seen so many instances of folly and ingratitude
similar to those you have met with that it would never surprise me to
hear of the railway people, some day, finding their trains running on
so well, proposing to discharge the engines.”[147]
The public, used to nearly four years of the new system, took alarm
lest it should be jeopardised; and the Mercantile Committee, well
entitled as, after its arduous labours, it was to repose, roused
itself to renewed action, and petitioned the Government to carry out
the postal reform in its entirety.
But the ruling powers were deaf to all protests; and thus to the
list of dismissed postal reformers was added yet one more. First,
Witherings; then, Dockwra; next, Palmer; and now, Hill.
While giving due prominence to the more salient features of the
intrigue against the postal reform and reformer, the painful narrative
has been as far as possible curtailed. It is, however, well worth
telling if only to serve as warning to any would-be reformer—perhaps
in any field: in the Post Office certainly—of the difficulties that
lie in the path he yearns to tread. Should the reader be inclined to
fancy the picture overdrawn, reference to the “Life of Sir Rowland
Hill,” edited by Dr G. B. Hill, will show that in those pages the
story is told with far more fulness of detail and bluntness of
truth-speaking.
More than thirty years after Peel had “given Rowland Hill the sack,”
as at the time _Punch_, in a humorous cartoon, expressed it, the real
story of the dismissal was revealed to its victim by one who was
very likely to be well-informed on the subject. It is an ugly story;
and for a long time my brother and I agreed that it should be told
in these pages. Later, seeing that all whom it concerned are dead,
and that it is well, however difficult at times, to follow the good
old rule of _de mortuis nil nisi bonum_, it has seemed wiser to draw
across that relic of the long-ago past a veil of oblivion.
But here a digression may be made into a several years' later history,
because, however chronologically out of place, it fits in at this
juncture with entire appropriateness.
It is obvious that no person could succeed in cleansing so Augean a
stable as was the Post Office of long ago without making enemies of
those whose incompetency had to be demonstrated, or whose profitable
sinecures had to be suppressed. Thus even when Rowland Hill's position
had become too secure in public estimation for open attack to be of
much avail, he was still exposed to that powerful “back-stairs”
influence which, by hindering the progress of his reform, had done
both the public service and himself individually much harm.
Of the reality of this secret hostility, ample proof was from time to
time afforded, none, perhaps, being more striking than the following.
When Lord Canning had been political head of the Post Office for some
months, he one day said to my father: “Mr Hill, I think it right to
let you know that you have enemies in high places who run you down
behind your back. When I became Postmaster-General, every endeavour
was made to prejudice me against you. I determined, however, to judge
for myself. I have hitherto kept my eyes open, saying nothing. But I
am bound to tell you now that I find every charge made against you to
be absolutely untrue. I think it well, however, that you should know
the fact that such influences are being exerted against you.”[148]
When, at the age of forty-seven, Rowland Hill had to begin the world
afresh, one dread weighed heavily upon his mind. It was that Peel's
Government might advance the postal charges to, as was rumoured, a
figure twice, thrice, or even four times those established by the
reformed system. It was a dread shared by Messrs Baring, Wallace,
Moffatt, and very many more. Great, therefore, was the relief when
the last-named friend reported that the new Postmaster-General had
assured him that there was no danger of the postage rates being
raised.[149]
After the dismissal by Peel, a long and anxious time set in for the
little household in the then semi-rural precinct of Orme Square,
Bayswater; and again my mother's sterling qualities were revealed.
Reared as she had been in a circle where money was plentiful and
hospitality unbounded, she wasted no time in useless lamentations, but
at once curtailed domestic expenses—those most ruthlessly cut down
being, as, later, our father failed not to tell us, her own. In his
parents' home he had lived in far plainer style than that maintained
in the house of which, for many years, owing to her mother's early
death, she had been mistress. Yet in all that ministered to her
husband's comfort she allowed scarcely any change to be made. At the
same time, there was no running into debt, because she had a hearty
contempt for the practice she was wont to describe as “living on the
forbearance of one's tradespeople.”
But at last anxiety was changed to relief. One morning a letter
arrived inviting her husband to join the London and Brighton Railway
Board of Directors. Owing to gross mismanagement, the line had long
been going from bad to worse in every way; and an entirely new
directorate was now chosen. The invitation was especially gratifying
because it came from personal strangers.
My father's connection with the railway forms an interesting chapter
of his life which has been told elsewhere. In a work dealing only with
the postal reform, repetition of the story in detail would be out of
place. One brief paragraph, therefore, shall suffice to recall what
was a pleasant episode in his career.
The “new brooms” went to work with a will, and the railway soon began
to prosper. The price of shares—notwithstanding the announcement that
for the ensuing half-year no payment of dividends could be looked
for—rose rapidly; ordinary trains were increased in speed and number,
expresses started, and Sunday excursion trains, by which the jaded
dwellers “in populous city pent” were enabled once a week to breathe
health-giving sea-breezes, were instituted; the rolling stock was
improved, and, by the building of branch lines, the Company was ere
long enabled to add to its title “and South Coast.” The invitation
to my father to join the Board met, at the sitting which discussed
the proposal, with but one dissentient voice, that of Mr John Meesom
Parsons of the Stock Exchange. “We want no Rowland Hills here,” he
said, “to interfere in everything; and even, perhaps, to introduce
penny fares in all directions”—a rate undreamed of in those distant
days. He therefore resolved to oppose the unwelcome intruder on
every favourable occasion. The day the two men first met at the
Board, the magnetic attraction, instinct, whatever be its rightful
name, which almost at once and simultaneously draws together kindred
souls, affected both; and forthwith commenced a friendship which in
heartiness resembled that of David and Jonathan, and lasted throughout
life. Mr Parsons, as gleefully as any school-boy, told us the story
against himself on one out of many visits which he paid us; and with
equal gleefulness told it, on other occasions and in our presence, to
other people.[150]
An incident which occurred four years after the termination of Rowland
Hill's engagement at the Treasury seemed to indicate a wish on Peel's
part to show that he felt not unkindly towards the reformer, however
much he disliked the reform. In the seventh year of penny postage, and
while its author was still excluded from office, the nation showed its
appreciation of Rowland Hill's work by presenting him with a monetary
testimonial. Sir Robert Peel was among the earliest contributors, his
cheque being for the maximum amount fixed by the promoters of the
tribute. Again Mr “Punch” displayed his customary genius for clothing
a truism in a felicitous phrase by comparing Peel's action with that
of an assassin who deals a stab at a man with one hand, and with the
other applies sticking-plaster to the wound.
FOOTNOTES:
[126] Letter to Rowland Hill from Mr Baring, dated “Downing Street,
14th September 1839.”
[127] “Life,” i. 371.
[128] An amusing character-sketch of Colonel Maberly is to be found in
the pages of Edmund Yates's “Recollections and Experiences.”
[129] In connection with the putting up of one receptacle in London
not many years ago, a gruesome discovery was made. The ground near St
Bartholomew's Hospital had been opened previous to the erection of a
pillar letter-box, when a quantity of ashes, wood and human, came to
light. “Bart's” looks upon Smithfield, scene of the burning of some of
the martyrs for conscience' sake. No need, then, to ponder the meaning
of these sad relics. They clearly pointed to sixteenth-century man's
inhumanity to man.
[130] The first person to post a letter under the new system is said
to have been Mr Samuel Lines of Birmingham, Rowland Hill's former
drawing-master, whose portrait hangs in the Art Gallery of that city.
He was warmly attached to his ex-pupil, who, in turn, held the old
man in high esteem, and maintained an occasional correspondence with
him till the artist's death. Determined that in Birmingham no one
should get the start of him, Mr Lines wrote to my father a letter of
congratulation, and waited outside the Post Office till at midnight of
the 9th a clock rang out the last stroke of twelve. Then, knocking up
the astonished clerk on duty, he handed in the letter and the copper
fee, and laconically remarked: “A penny, I believe.”
[131] Another well-known literary woman, the poetess, Elizabeth
Barrett Browning, according to her “Letters” recently published, wrote
to an American friend earnestly recommending adoption of “our penny
postage, as the most successful revolution since 'the glorious three
days' of Paris”—meaning, of course, the three days of July 1830 (i.
135).
[132] This window and the amusing scramble outside it are immortalised
in Dickens's pleasant article on the Post Office in the opening
number of _Household Words_, first edition, 30th March 1850. (Our
friend, Mr Henry Wills, already mentioned in the Introductory Chapter,
was Dickens's partner in _Household Words_, and brought the famous
novelist to our house at Hampstead to be dined and “crammed” before
writing the article. It was a memorable evening. No doubt the cramming
was duly administered, but recollection furnishes no incident of this
operation, and only brings back to mind a vivid picture of Dickens
talking humorously, charmingly, incessantly, during the too brief
visit, and of his doing so by tacit and unanimous consent, for no
one had the slightest wish to interrupt the monologue's delightful
flow. His countenance was agreeable and animated; the impression
made upon us was of a man, who, as the Americans aptly put it, is
“all there.” We often saw him both within doors and without, for one
of his favourite walks, while living in Tavistock Square, was up
to Hampstead, across the Heath—with an occasional peep in at “Jack
Straw's Castle,” where friends made a rendezvous to see him—and back
again to town through Highgate. Every one knew him by sight. The word
would fly from mouth to mouth, “Here comes Dickens!” and the lithe
figure, solitary as a rule, with its steady, swinging pace, and the
keen eyes looking straight ahead at nothing in particular, yet taking
in all that was worth noting, would appear, pass, and be lost again,
the while nearly every head was turned to look after him.) Whenever
visitors were shown over the Post Office, they were advised so to time
their arrival that the tour should end a little before 6 P.M., with
a visit to a certain balcony whence a good view could be obtained
of the scene. One day my father escorted the Duchess of Cambridge
and her younger daughter—better known since as Duchess of Teck—over
the Post Office. He was delighted with their society, being greatly
struck with the elder lady's sensible, well-informed talk, and the
lively, sociable manner of the younger one. Both were much amused by
the balcony scene, and Princess Mary entered keenly into the fun of
the thing. She grew quite excited as the thickening crowd pressed
forward faster, laughed, clapped her hands, and audibly besought the
stragglers, especially one very leisurely old dame, to make haste, or
their letters would not be posted in time.
[133] “Life,” i. 451. In 1841 the census gave the population of
England and Wales as a little under 16,000,000. The delay above
mentioned therefore affected at least a fourth of the number.
[134] “Report of the Committee on Postage” (1843), p. 29.
[135] See also chap. vi.
[136] “Life,” i. 412.
[137] “First Annual Report of the Postmaster-General, 1854.”
[138] “Life,” i. 414.
[139] “Life,” ii. 4, 5.
[140] “Life,” ii. 87.
[141] _Ibid_, i. 448.
[142] “Hansard,” lxiv. 321.
[143] “Life,” i. 460.
[144] “Life,” i. 471.
[145] _Ibid._, i. 468.
[146] The registration fee is one of the postal charges which have
become smaller since that time, to the great benefit of the public. It
is pleasant to know that the threatened plan of highly-feed compulsory
registration was never carried into effect.
[147] “Gentle Tom Hood,” as the wittiest of modern poets has been
called, was a friend of old standing. Though little read to-day, some
of his more serious poems are of rare beauty, and his _Haunted House_
is a marvel of what Ruskin used to call “word-painting.” His letters
to children were as delightful as those of the better-known “Lewis
Carroll.” Hood was very deaf, and this infirmity inclined him, when
among strangers or in uncongenial society, to taciturnity. Guests who
had never met him, and who came expecting to hear a jovial fellow
set the table in a roar, were surprised to see a quiet-mannered man
in evidently poor health, striving, by help of an ear-trumpet, to
catch other people's conversation. But, at any rate, it was _not_ in
our house that the hostess, piqued at the chilly silence pervading
that end of her table which should have been most mirthful, sent her
little daughter down the whole length of it to beg the bored wit to
“wake up and be funny!” Hood had many cares and sorrows, including
the constant struggle with small means and ill-health; and it is
pleasant to remember that when the final breakdown came, Sir Robert
Peel—concealing under a cloak of kindly tactfulness, so kindly that
the over-sensitive beneficiary could not feel hurt—bestowed on the
dying man some sorely-needed monetary assistance.
[148] This and the previous paragraph are contributed by Mr Pearson
Hill, who was always, and deservedly, entirely in our father's
confidence.
[149] “Life,” i. 436. The only time, later, when there seemed a chance
of such increase was during the Crimean War, “when,” said my father in
his diary, “being called upon to make a confidential report, I showed
that, though some immediate increase of revenue might be expected
from raising the rate to twopence, the benefit would be more than
counterbalanced by the check to correspondence; and upon this the
project was abandoned.”
[150] It was during Rowland Hill's connection with the Railway Company
that a riddle appeared in a certain newspaper which was copied into
other papers, and was therefore not slow in reaching our family
circle. It was worded much as follows: “When is Mr Rowland Hill like
the rising sun?—When he tips the little Hills with gold.” We never
knew who originated this delightful _jeu d'esprit_, but our father
was much amused with it, and we children had the best possible reason
for being grateful to its author. The riddle cropped up afresh in
Lord Fitzmaurice's “Life of Lord Granville” (i. 174); but the Duke of
Argyll, then Postmaster-General, is therein made the generous donor.