ITALY—THE EASTERN MAILS—SICILY.
Arrived in Italy, either by the Mont Cenis Railway, or by that through
the Tunnel of the Alps, we have in front of us a Peninsula which juts
for an extent (taking Susa as the extreme northern point and Otranto
as the extreme southern) of 765 miles into the ocean. On the east, the
ocean is called the Adriatic; on the south as well as on the west,
the Mediterranean, a sea that contains within its limits a surface of
579,000 square miles.
We have already described the mighty railway company, _Alta Italia_,
2,565 miles in length, of which, since the close of the war of 1866,
1,349 belong to the South Austrian Division, and 1,216 to that of _Alta
Italia_ proper. If we are on our road to Brindisi, we arrive at the end
of _Alta Italia_ at Bologna, and, at that station come upon _Ferrovia
Meridionale_. From Bologna, the line, proceeding southwards but also
verging towards the eastward, gets to the Adriatic at Rimini, and
thence, hugging the shore, it touches at Ancona, distant 127 miles from
Bologna. From Ancona it still follows the shore of the Adriatic, except
that at the Spur of the Boot it passes inwards through Foggia, 331
miles from Bologna. It is at this point that the line which is to unite
Naples by the shortest possible railway connection, with the Adriatic,
branches off. Its total length will be 124 miles; 43 are now open for
traffic, 68 will be finished in the summer of 1868, leaving only a
blank of 12 miles to be continued. Unfortunately, however, on these 12
miles, situated in the very heart of the Apennines, are concentrated
the greatest works of the railway—three tunnels, one of which will be
2 miles and 17 yards long, and when completed will be the longest
railway tunnel in Italy; the two others will be of the united length of
2 miles and 890 yards.
Reverting to Foggia, the main line, proceeding southerly and easterly
for 145 miles, reaches Brindisi, 470 miles from Bologna, 711 from Susa,
1,180 from Paris, and 1,477 from London.
Captain Tyler, in his interesting Report of 1866, reviews the relative
capabilities of the several harbours of Italy for the receipt and
despatch of our Eastern mails, and without hesitation, names Brindisi
as the one that should be selected. The harbour is composed of an outer
port of about 1¼ mile long by about half that distance at its greatest
width. It is connected by a channel 290 yards, or the sixth of a mile,
with two inner harbours or arms, the western of which is to be the
Packet Harbour. The Italian Government have important works going on
at Brindisi, and their objects are the security of the outer port, the
deepening of the channel, and the facing of the channel that connects
the outer and inner ports, as well as the sides of the latter, with
solid masonry. During 1865 and 1866, 1,800,000 cubic feet of excavation
were accomplished and very considerable progress has been made with
the masonry, but at the present moment the works rather flag. It is
stated, however, by the Government authorities, that as soon as it is
decided that the British Contract Steamers carrying the Eastern mails
to and from Alexandria, shall make Brindisi their port, the works will
be resumed with great vigour. The present depth of the channel is 19½
feet, but this depth is to be increased to 26 feet at low water, not
only at the channel, but at the passenger jetty (to which the railway
will be extended), and alongside the coal depôt. This depth would be
sufficient for the largest steamers of the Peninsular and Oriental,
or of any other company, and with the view to affording suitable
accommodation for large ships in case of need, it has been decided to
construct immediately a dry dock, 380 feet long, at an estimated cost
of £100,000. At the entrance of the outer port, and for a quarter of a
mile within it, the depth of water will be from 28 to 37 feet. The rise
and fall of tide at Brindisi is not more than 1½ foot. A plan of the
harbour is appended.
Whilst at Brindisi, it is impossible to omit reference to its future
with respect to the conveyance of our Eastern mails to and from
Alexandria. This subject is divisible into two portions—conveyance of
the fast and conveyance of the heavy mails. These mails go at present
respectively _viâ_ Marseilles and _viâ_ Southampton. A contract now
in course of completion between the Post Office and the Peninsular
and Oriental Steam Navigation Company is about to bind the nation to
the Southampton route for _twelve years_. It admits, however, of the
transfer of the fast mails _viâ_ Marseilles being likely to take place
at a period more or less proximate. If the reader will be so good as
to refer to Appendix No. 3 in this volume, he will see a memorandum
in which the course of the Eastern mails, both fast and heavy, is
indicated, and the vast difference between the time that letters take
in their conveyance by the two routes—that is, _viâ_ Southampton and
_viâ_ Marseilles. This difference will continue until all mails, both
fast and heavy, are carried (as eventually they will be) by Brindisi.
The following table exhibits the relative distances between London and
Alexandria by the three routes. The computation is in English miles.
Viâ. Land. Water. Total.
Southampton 78 3,353 3,431
Marseilles 833 1,701 2,534
Brindisi 1,477 954 2,431
There is therefore a less distance _viâ_ Brindisi than _viâ_ Marseilles
of 103 miles; than _viâ_ Southampton of 1,000 miles; but, as Captain
Tyler says—“Apart from contingencies, which must be always greater by
sea than by land conveyance, the speed on a railway is usually double
that at sea,” hence the captain strongly recommends the Brindisi route,
not only on account of its being the shortest between London and
Alexandria, but likewise because the land portion exceeds that _viâ_
Marseilles by 644 miles, and that _viâ_ Southampton by 1,399 miles. As
a question of time, the computation made is as follows:—Southampton
fifteen days, Marseilles eight days one hour, Brindisi six days seven
hours.[143]
The contrast between the weight of the Eastern mails carried in 1850
and at the present time is marvellous. Then the annual number of boxes
despatched, the average weight of each of which was about 60 lbs., was
under 2,500; in 1867 it is at the rate of 25,152. It is true that
since 1858 the Australian mails are conveyed by the overland route—they
are only despatched once a month, both _viâ_ Southampton and _viâ_
Marseilles, but then they form nearly two-thirds of the total weight of
the mails; they swell the number of boxes from the average of 524 to
1,347.
But we must ask our reader to continue his land journey a little
further south than Brindisi, just for a moment, so that he may get
to Leece, twenty-five miles. This is as far as he can go by railway
towards Otranto, twenty-nine miles farther at the very extremity of
the heel of the boot of Italy, the Castle of which used, in the days
of our boyhood, thanks to Horace Walpole, to enchain, enchant, delight
and to terrify us. We feel bound to acknowledge the fact that we are
exactly forty-five years older than we were forty-five years ago. We
fear we must also confess to a sense of terror about Otranto that can
only cease with our own cessation. We are therefore not surprised
that even Captain Tyler, stout, resolute and brave as he is, did not
wish to go to Otranto. “I did not,” says Captain Tyler in his report
of 1866, “even consider it worth while to visit Otranto, although I
made a personal inspection of all the other Italian Ports to which I
have referred, as well as those of Naples and Genoa.” In other words,
Captain Tyler visited every Italian Port except one, and that one was
Hob-gob-lin!
The connection of the _Ferovia Meridionale_ with the net-work of the
_Calabro-Sicula_ is effected by means of a branch given off at Bari,
half way between Foggia and Brindisi, and running for seventy-two miles
south to Tarento, situated at the very top of the front of Italy’s
heel. Whilst Brindisi is intended to be the commercial port of Italy
towards its southern extremity, Tarento is to be its great southern
port for military purposes. The extent and depth of the outer harbour,
its great natural advantage in a military as well as in a naval point
of view, and the extent of the “_seno interno_” or inner expanse of
deep water, render it admirably applicable for a naval arsenal. It
will therefore eventually fulfil for Italy the purposes which Plymouth
fulfils for England, while Spezzia on the Mediterranean, half way
between Genoa and Leghorn, may be considered as Italy’s Portsmouth.
The main-land as well as the Sicilian portions of the _Calabro-Sicula_
are at the present time very much longer on paper than on _terra
firma_. The longest of the Calabrian sections is, when completed,
to extend from Tarento all along the undersole of Italy as well as
to the ball of the foot, and thence to its very tip-toe at Reggio,
a distance of 300 miles; but although ten years have elapsed since
the railway works were taken in hand, only the ten miles nearest to
Reggio have as yet been completed. As, however, the Italian Government
has recently made a loan of £720,000 to the company, the works are
carried on actively, and it is probable that half-way in 1868 (portions
perhaps earlier) 127 miles, in two sections, of which one from Tarento
westward will be 90 miles, and the other will extend the line from
Reggio 47 miles, will be ready for traffic. Of the remaining 163 miles
to complete the continuous railway tie along the sole of Italy, some
slight progress has been made on 56 miles, none on 107.
In reply to a question put by us to a gentleman of the administration
of the company, to whom we are mainly indebted for the foregoing
information, “Quando sar[=a] terminata la Linea—Tarento—Reggio?” we
were told, “Non è dato respondere a questa domanda senza conoscere di
quali mezzi la societa potrà disporre;” and we received precisely the
same answer in respect of the Sicilian lines of the company.
The distance between Reggio and Messina is exactly 7½ miles. As we
are here on the dominions of Scylla and Charybdis, it is no wonder
that the steamers of the company, which ply backwards and forwards in
connection with its trains, are often impeded by the numerous currents
and the heavy gusts of wind that prevail in the Straits of Messina.
Nevertheless, the passage from port to port is usually made in less
than an hour, although at times the navigation is so difficult and
dangerous, that, in winter, the Royal Postal Steamers of the Italian
Government are occasionally unable to land their mails at Reggio, and
are compelled to carry them on to their next port of call.
We live in an age of wonders. M. Oudry, one of the engineers of the
_Ponts et Chaussées_ of France, proposes to cross over the Straits of
Messina with a suspension bridge of four spans, each 1,000 metres,
or 3,281 feet long. The bridge (which is to be made available for
railways) would thus be 4,200 metres, or two miles and five-eighths
long, exclusive of the great sustaining piers at each edge of the
water. M. Oudry selects this width in preference to the narrowest part
of the Straits, which is 3,200 metres, exactly two miles wide, because
at the spot of his selection the depth of his two central piers, _under
water_, would he only 110 metres; whereas, if he took the narrowest
part of the Straits, his two piers must be of the under-water depth of
130.
The lower surface of the platforms should, in M. Oudry’s opinion, be 50
metres above high water, and to that elevation he proposes they should
be carried. The towers of the piers being, say, 40 metres higher, the
total pier elevation to be constructed, exclusive of foundations, would
be about 200 metres, exactly half as high again as the top of the
cross of St. Paul’s. Semiramis, after a repose of nearly 4,900 years,
should be started into life again, together with her two millions of
Assyrians. Her greatest elevation, however, was only 350 feet—the walls
of Babylon—270 feet short of the piers of M. Oudry. To be sure the
walls were said to be seventy miles long, and wide enough at top for
five chariots.
Of the total length of railways contemplated and sanctioned for
Sicily—347 miles, 82 are opened for traffic, of which 59½ are from
Messina (passing in its course at the foot of Mount Etna) to Catania,
in the direction of Syracuse; and 22½ from Palermo to Marsala. It is
a striking illustration of the rapid development which takes place
through the opening of railways in a fertile country, that the traffic
receipts per mile on the Sicilian sections opened have, since the
commencement of 1867, been at the rate of £640 per annum. The directors
of the company consider (apparently with justice) this amount as
indicating very satisfactory results for the future.
Whilst upon the railways in the extreme Southern Italy, we wish to
mention a non-feasible theory that has been propounded to us during
a visit we paid to Italy in July last. As England is to have her
overland route to her Eastern possessions through Brindisi, why should
not France find her way to Algeria by Reggio, and thence to Marsala,
from which latter port the city of Tunis is only separated by some 90
miles of water? From Tunis to Constantine, and thence to Algiers, the
measurement is 400 miles. But while the distance from Paris to Algiers,
_viâ_ Marseilles, is 1,100 miles, that _viâ_ Reggio is 2,297, in which
are comprised 500 miles of intended railway, the construction of which
is not likely to be accomplished for several years to come.
“The world,” says the _Pall Mall Gazette_ in its recent review of
Alfred Von Reaumont’s Work, _Geschichte der Stadt Rom_,[144] “may
be divided into those who have been to Rome, and those who wish to
go there, with more or less of looming hope that the wish may be
gratified.” For the wishful and the hopeful there are facilities that
did not exist even twelve months ago. The “Roman Railways” Company
is the second, both in length and importance on Italian soil, as it
consists of 1,024 miles “_en exploitation_,” and by it, not only Rome,
but Naples may be approached from the north, either _viâ_ Florence or
_viâ_ Ancona, and there is a net-work of lines running farther south
than Naples, which will ultimately join at the Sole of the Boot, with
the Calabro-Sicilian Railways. Summed up, the railway mileage of the
whole Italian Peninsula now open for traffic is 3,040 miles. There will
be further openings of them, to the extent of about 250 miles before
the end of 1868; but as regards lines projected, or to which even
the words “_en construction_” may be applied, we must wait for their
realisation until the whole system of Italian finance and of Italian
credit has been put upon a more solid basis than that upon which it is
at present founded. But thanks to railways as they now exist towards
and in Italy, the traveller, bent on tip-top speed, can leave London on
any morning of the week, and even now, before the opening of the Mont
Cenis Railway is accomplished, he can reach Turin before the chimes of
the innumerable, and not always correctly-going public clocks in that
city have struck twelve the following night. Of these clocks it is said
that a person knowing them well, may start on a perambulation through
the city as the first commences striking twelve and complete a circuit
in which he shall never be out of public clock hearing, just as that
from which he started is striking one. “When the Mont Cenis Railway
is opened, the traveller in search of haste can reach Turin in time
to start that night for Florence, and arrive there at eight o’clock
the following morning—forty-eight hours from London to Florence—What
distance? 1,122 miles. Resting in the city for thirteen hours, he can
proceed at 9.10 p.m. to Rome, the distance of which from Florence,
233 miles, he can accomplish in nine hours and twenty minutes, which
includes Frontier Visa, both of luggage and of passport. If he be
determined not to tarry at the Eternal City more than four hours, he
can proceed on his way for Naples, 163 miles farther, and be there 21
hours after he has left Florence, and (including his 13 hours pause
there) 44 after he has left Turin, 70 after he has left Paris, 83 after
he has left London; from which Naples is distant by railway measurement
exactly 1,518 miles.
The railway distance from Florence to Rome will be lessened some thirty
miles by the opening early next year of the line _viâ_ Orvietto. It
will also, of course, lessen to the same extent the journey between
Florence and Naples, but in some years hence the railway between
Southern and Northern Italy, avoiding Florence altogether, will be
shortened by 93 miles, that is, when two unfinished portions of line
along the west coast of Italy, one between Genoa and Spezzia 57 miles,
and the other, the portion of the line between Civita Vecchia and
Leghorn, nearest to the former, 36 miles, are completed. The works
required upon these lines will be extremely heavy and extremely costly.
How the money is to be found for them passes even conjecture, at the
time of our present writing.
“_Vede Napoli e mori._” We have seen her; we obey the injunction, and
we depart in peace with but one word on dying lips,
FINIS.
APPENDIX, No. 1.
REPORT BY MR. EDWARD PAGE, INSPECTOR-GENERAL OF MAILS, ON SOME POINTS
CONNECTED WITH THE RELATIONS BETWEEN THE POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT AND
RAILWAY COMPANIES.
(_See page_ 85.)
GENERAL POST OFFICE,
_29th February, 1856_.
SIR,
In the First Annual Report of the Postmaster-General, presented to
Parliament last year, it is stated by Lord Canning as one of the
reasons for instituting such a report, that “many misapprehensions
arise from an imperfect knowledge of matters which might, without any
inconvenience, be placed before the public.”
That such misapprehensions do exist as to several matters connected
with the railway branch of the Post Office Service has lately been
exemplified in an address by Mr. Robert Stephenson, M.P., on his
election as President of the Institution of Civil Engineers.
In that address Mr. Stephenson (no doubt without any intention whatever
to mislead) puts forward, in effect, the following statements, which I
believe to be inaccurate:—
1st. That the scheme of penny postage, to the extent to which it has so
far been developed, would have been impracticable, or, if practicable,
unremunerative, but for the facilities afforded by railways for
conveying bulk.
2nd. That railway companies, instead of being liberally treated by the
Post Office, are called upon to perform the service of that department
at a rate of remuneration which affords little or no profit.
3rd. That the Post Office has lately entered into a competition which
is injurious to railway companies, by conveying books and other parcels
at very reduced rates.
My object in this Report is to direct your attention to the facts
on which, in my opinion, the Post Office is entitled to rely in
opposition to the above allegations, the last of which has likewise
been recently adopted in the Report of the Committee of Consultation
of the London and North-Western Railway. It may perhaps be the desire
of the Postmaster-General to furnish, in his Report for the current
year, some corrections of these misconceptions, the more especially
as Mr. Stephenson states, in the very outset of his address, that his
chief object is to suggest topics for communications and discussion at
future meetings over which he may have to preside. Such a correction
is the more necessary, because there is reason to apprehend that these
and other similar opinions which have been at various times promulgated
have, by being made the ground for claiming special additional payment
for the mail service, affected to a certain extent the arbitrations
between the Post Office and railway companies, and have thus acquired
practical importance.
On the first point (taking the subjects in the order in which they are
named above), it is hardly to be wondered at that the public generally
should be led to form erroneous impressions, seeing how imperfectly
the details of the Post Office are usually understood. But it will not
be difficult to prove that the conclusion arrived at by Mr. Stephenson
cannot be supported, and to show that the increase which has taken
place in the weight of the mails would have presented no difficulty to
their conveyance by mail coaches, and that since the transfer of the
mails from coaches to railways, the cost of transmission has increased
in a _far greater degree_ than it would probably have done had railways
never been constructed.
I should premise that it has been ascertained from returns kept by the
department, that while the whole number of chargeable letters delivered
in the United Kingdom has increased about six-fold, the increase has
been about nine-fold with respect to letters to and from London;
and the same remark applies, although the increase is in a somewhat
different ratio, to newspaper and book parcels. If, therefore, it can
be shown that the weight of mails at present despatched from London
(which greatly exceeds that of mails brought to London) could have
been carried by mail coaches, it follows that no difficulty would have
arisen with the mails in other parts of the country, where the increase
of weight has not been so large.
The actual increase in the weight of the mails has been much less
than is generally believed. It is often supposed that, because the
whole number of letters has, since the introduction of penny postage,
increased six-fold, therefore the whole weight of the mails has also
increased six-fold. But when it is recollected that by far the larger
portion of the mails has always consisted of newspapers, which were not
in any way affected by the scheme of penny postage, it will be obvious
that it would require a very large increase in the weight of the small
or letter portion of the mails before the total weight would exhibit
more than a small per centage of increase.[145]
In 1838 the gross weight of the night mails despatched from London in
a single evening was about 4 tons 6 cwt. 1 qr. At the present time the
total weight of the night mails despatched in a single evening may be
stated at about 12 tons 4 cwt. 3 qrs. It will be seen, therefore, that
the total increase in the weight has been only 183 per cent., or less
than three-fold.
Mr. Stephenson correctly states that in 1838 the number of mail
coaches leaving London each evening was twenty-eight, giving an
average load for each coach of 3 cwt. 9 lbs., supposing the weight
to have been equally distributed, which I am far from assuming was
the case. Taking the present weight of mails, and assuming that these
twenty-eight mail coaches were still running, the average load for
each coach would be 8 cwt. 3 qrs. Now a reference to the Third Report
of the Select Committee on Postage in 1838, pages 48 and 50, will show
that, according to the testimony of the Post Office witnesses[146]
(the general tendency of whose views was certainly not at that time
favourable to the practicability of penny postage), a weight of bags
amounting to 18 cwt., or more than double what the present average load
would have been, was sometimes carried on one mail coach, and that a
load of 15 cwt., in addition to the usual limited number of passengers
and luggage, was by no means too high a maximum to fix for mail coaches
generally.
Admitting, however, that the weight was not equally distributed over
all the mail coaches, and recollecting, at the same time, that this
average load of 8 cwt. 3 qrs. would be above the average ordinary load
on any other than weekly newspaper nights, when it would no doubt be
higher, the inference is still a fair one that the greater part of
the mail coaches would have borne the increase of weight without any
difficulty, although there can be no doubt that, on some of the lines,
additional coaches would have been required for a portion of the
distance.
But the result which the above calculations justify is a great deal
more favourable than is at all necessary for the purpose of disproving
Mr. Stephenson’s argument, that the expenses of carrying out penny
postage would have been so large as to have entailed a certain loss.
Let us suppose that, partly to meet the increase of weight, either
daily or on the heavy newspaper night only, and partly to provide
for the establishment of additional day mails (they were already in
existence on some of the lines), the number of mail coaches would have
been doubled all over the kingdom, and that their cost would also have
been doubled (an improbable supposition, considering the increase in
the number of passenger coaches which must, in the absence of railways,
have necessarily taken place to meet the increase of traffic). The
expenditure of the department for mail-coach service would in that
case have been advanced from £155,000[147] to only £310,000 per annum,
while the present expenditure for the railway and mail coach service of
the department is £443,000, of which sum £400,000 is paid to railway
companies alone. Not only, therefore, would penny postage without
railways have been both practicable and remunerative, but it would have
been even more profitable (assuming the existing increase of letters)
than it now is.
In order to show the impracticability of carrying out the penny postage
system without the use of railways, Mr. Stephenson states, while
speaking of the mails now carried by the London and North-Western
Railway, that “not one mail coach alone, but fourteen or fifteen mails
would have been needed to carry on with regularity the Post Office
traffic.” It is probable that Mr. Stephenson is not very far wrong in
this assumption, although he deduces from it the erroneous conclusion
that penny postage must have entailed a certain loss. The facts of the
case are, that in 1838 twelve or thirteen mail coaches from London
were actually employed to carry the mails which now leave London by
the London and North-Western Railway; so that, on Mr. Stephenson’s
own estimate, only two or three additional mail coaches would have
been required for forwarding those mails, which, it may be observed,
constitute about one-half of the whole of the night mail leaving London.
The mail coaches which formerly carried the mails now leaving London in
a concentrated form by the London and North-Western night mail train,
were as follows, viz.:—
London and Edinbro’ Night Mail.
London and Leeds ”
London and Halifax ”
London and Holyhead ”
London and Liverpool ”
London and Manchester ”
London and Glasgow ”
London and Carlisle ”
London and Derby ”
London and Birmingham ”
London and Birmingham } ”
(Dublin Express) }
London and Hull }[148] ”
London and Worcester }
In alluding to the advantages which have been conferred by railways,
Mr. Stephenson is unfortunate in putting forward as an illustration,
the cheap transmission of the printed proceedings of Parliament. Under
the old postal system, and during the existence of mail coaches,
Parliamentary reports and proceedings _were conveyed by post free of
all charges_. On the introduction of penny postage, a postal charge for
their conveyance was imposed, and this charge has continued up to the
present day.
Referring to the relations between the Post Office and railway
companies as to the remuneration for mail service, I should observe,
that under the old mail-coach system, the Post Office was protected
from undue demands for the transmission of its mails along the public
highways of the kingdom by means of _competition_. The principle of
free trade in locomotion operated as a safeguard against extravagant
charges. Coach proprietors, who had established themselves on any
road, were prevented from taking advantage of their occupation of the
line to levy unreasonable charges for either passengers or mails, by
a wholesome fear of opposition. The result was, that by constantly
offering its contracts to public competition, the Post Office insured
the performance of its service on terms which afforded only a fair and
moderate profit to the contracting parties.
The introduction of railways practically destroyed competition, and
placed large monopolies in the hands of a few private companies; but,
to compensate for this, Parliament took the precaution of insuring
moderate charges for passenger conveyance, by special provision in
each Railway Act. Strange to say, a similar provision as regards the
remuneration for Post Office service was omitted, and it was deemed
sufficient to specify that the remuneration should be “reasonable;” a
most indefinite term, and one which has given rise to infinite variety
of opinion.
It is true that, failing an amicable settlement, provision is made
for a reference to arbitration; but, in the absence of any general
principles to guide the arbitrators or umpire in their judgment of
what is or is not reasonable, the question resolves itself into one
of individual opinion, and the consequence has been that the most
conflicting decisions have been arrived at in cases which, if not
identical, have been so nearly alike as to render it impossible to
reconcile the strange variation in the rates awarded.
Without, however, dwelling upon the uncertainty of arbitration, which
is by no means its least objectionable feature, it can readily be
shown that this mode of determining payments has led to results very
different from those implied by Mr. Stephenson, who states that for
trains put on to suit the Post Office service, very little remuneration
is allowed beyond the absolute outlay which the service entails, and
that the Post Office insists on the right of travelling at the mere
actual cost.
It can hardly be necessary to point out that the Post Office has no
more power than a railway company has to fix any particular rate, or
to insist upon any principle of its own in regard to payment. The
department can do no more than give expression to the views which it
believes to be fair and just, leaving the final decision to the umpire.
But that those decisions have allowed to railway companies the mere
actual outlay, with little or no profit, is a misapprehension which a
brief examination of some recent awards will suffice to remove.
It fortunately happens that Mr. Stephenson furnishes in his address the
data for checking his own accuracy on this particular point. He says
that locomotive expenses on railways do not on an average exceed 9½d.
per mile, and that the cost of running a train may be assumed in most
cases to be about 15d. per mile. Compare this with some of the rates
actually paid by the Post Office to different companies at various
periods within the last few years, amounting, it will be seen, in one
instance to the enormous price of 4s. 6d. per single mile.
s. d.
Chester to Birkenhead 2 0 per single mile.
Dublin to Drogheda 2 0 ”
Leeds to Selby 2 0 ”
London to Bristol & Gloucester 2 0¼ ”
Ipswich to Colchester 2 0½ ”
Ely to Yarmouth 2 1 ”
Peterboro’ to Grimsby 2 2 ”
London to Dover 2 3 ”
Londonderry to Strabane 2 4 ”
Arbroath to Aberdeen 2 6 ”
Lancaster to Carlisle 2 6 ”
Southampton to Dorchester 2 8¼ ”
Perth to Dundee 3 0 ”
Dublin to Galway 3 0 ”
York to Berwick 3 0 ”
Dundee to Arbroath 3 1 ”
Preston to Liverpool 3 1 ”
Dundalk to Castleblayney 3 2 ”
Parkside to Preston 3 6 ”
Exeter to Plymouth 3 7 ”
Grange Court (near Gloucester)
to Haverfordwest 3 7 ”
Drogheda to Dublin 3 9 ”
Drogheda to Dundalk 4 0 ”
Dublin to Cork 4 6 ”
Limerick Junction to Limerick 4 6 ”
In these cases it will be seen that the rates paid by the Post Office
for the use of only a fraction of the train exceeded the whole cost
of running, as calculated by Mr. Stephenson himself, by from 60 to
260 per cent. But these rates, while they no doubt include in some
cases special elements of expense not covered by the average of 15d.
per mile, are independent of the receipts obtained from passengers,
parcels, and in some cases from goods, earnings which, added to the
Post Office allowance, have, in many instances, rendered the mail train
one of the most profitable trains on the line.
It should be mentioned that the rates of payment quoted above applied,
in some few of the cases, to trains which were running as passenger
trains before the Post Office employed them for the mails, the times of
departure and arrival, places of stopping, &c., being adopted by the
Post Office almost exactly as the company had arranged them for their
own convenience. In these instances the extravagance of the charge for
the mails becomes of course the more remarkable.
I should imagine that the Post Office department would be well
satisfied if those mails, the hours of which are absolutely fixed by
notice, were conveyed at rates based on Mr. Stephenson’s estimate of
the actual running cost, making some allowance, on the one hand, for
the benefit derived by the company from the train, and adding, on
the other hand, compensation for any special extra expenses to which
the company may be subjected by the requirements of the Post Office,
together with a full allowance for profit. I believe that some basis
such as this has long been considered a desideratum by this department,
and it is to be hoped that Parliament may see fit ere long to place the
question on a footing of this nature.
It may not be inappropriate to mention here, in further refutation
of Mr. Stephenson’s charge of illiberal treatment, that although the
law officers of the Crown have given an opinion that Government can
claim exemption from toll on railways, such claim has for many years
been abandoned by the Post Office. The arbitrators acting for the
department always considered the railway companies both as carriers and
proprietors of the road, and from their calculations accordingly. It
may also be observed that the strongest desire is usually evinced by
railway companies to obtain the conveyance of the mails, a desire which
is certainly incompatible with the assumption that no profit is allowed
for that service, and strangely at variance with Mr. Stephenson’s
theory that railway companies are indifferent to postal traffic.
Before dismissing this branch of the subject, I must refer to a
description of postal service by railway which has now become very
extensive throughout the kingdom. I allude to the cases in which the
Post Office sends a certain weight of mail in charge of the companies’
guards, by an ordinary train, over the working of which no control
whatever is claimed by the department. For a service of this nature,
the payment awarded under arbitration has, in a recent case, amounted
to the exorbitant sum of 7d. per single mile, the weight of the mail
averaging for the whole line not more than 1 cwt., or about half that
of a second-class passenger and his luggage. For this trifling weight
of mail the Post Office was thus made to bear very nearly half of the
whole cost of running the train; while it has been ascertained that the
average charge made by various railway companies for ordinary parcels
carried beyond short distances very little exceeds one half-penny per
cwt. per mile, the average charge for ordinary goods being of course
even less.
I may add, that, although in a few cases, railway companies have
been induced to accept moderate sums either for the use of one or
two passenger trains, or for the general use of all their trains, it
constantly happens that the department is prevented from increasing
postal facilities by the refusal of companies to accept rates equal to,
and often exceeding, the charges made to the public for the occasional
transmission of a corresponding weight of such ordinary light goods as
are frequently sent by passenger trains.
At page 7 of his address, Mr. Stephenson gives the total earnings of
railways from passengers, for the year 1854, at £9,170,000. The sum
paid to railway companies by the Post Office during the year was about
£392,000, or about 1/23 part of the gross earnings of all the passenger
trains. He estimates the gross weight of passengers conveyed during
the year at 8,000,000 of tons; while the gross weight of mails for the
entire kingdom (including guards, clerks, &c.) was considerably under
20,000 tons, a large portion of which was not conveyed by railways at
all. Assuming, however, that the whole of it had gone by the railways,
it would appear that the Post Office paid 1/23 part of the total
earnings for the conveyance of less than 1/400 part of the total weight.
In connection with this branch of the subject, it may not be immaterial
to mention, that in the finance accounts printed by order of Parliament
last year, the gross amount of the passenger tax paid to the Government
by railway companies in the preceding year is stated to have been
£309,000. As the amount paid by the Post Office to railway companies
for the postal service of the year 1854 was £392,600, it follows that
the Government paid to railway companies for the carriage of the mails
very nearly one-third more than it received from them in the shape of
passenger tax.
The third allegation of Mr. Stephenson is that the Post Office has
lately entered into a competition which is injurious to railway
companies, by conveying books and other parcels at very reduced rates.
Without stopping to inquire whether railway companies (most of whose
Acts of Incorporation are of a later date than the Penny Postage Act,
and several of whose lines have been opened since the commencement
of the book parcel regulations) have any legal or equitable right to
the monopoly of parcel traffic, it may be sufficient to state, that
with very trifling exceptions it is only to books and other printed
matter (the general circulation of which is so intimately connected
with the diffusion of knowledge and the promotion of education), that
any reduction below the ordinary postal charges for letters has been
applied. Now, even assuming for a moment, that every book parcel
that the Post Office carries is abstracted from parcels which would
otherwise be conveyed by railway, it is obvious that the companies
would not sustain any loss by such parcels becoming part of the mail,
if the Post Office paid to the companies for its mail rates only as
high as the booksellers pay them for their parcels, in which, for
the most part, such books would be conveyed, if they were sent at
all. But it is a matter of fact, that the general rates paid by the
Post Office to railway companies are largely in excess of those paid
by the booksellers for their parcels. It follows, therefore, that
the companies, instead of being injured, would be benefited by any
such abstraction, seeing that, besides receiving a higher rate of
remuneration for the carriage of those book parcels, they are entirely
relieved of the cost of collection and delivery, a cost which, as Mr.
Stephenson shows, renders goods traffic less profitable to railway
companies than passenger traffic.
But a more careful consideration of this question will establish good
grounds for the opinion that by far the larger portion of the book
parcels which the Post Office carries would not be sent at all, but
for the peculiar facilities offered by the extensive organisation of
the Post Office, contrasted with which the facilities which railway
companies can of themselves afford sink into insignificance.
As bearing strongly upon this comparison of facilities, I may mention
the somewhat remarkable fact, that copies of the very Report of the
Committee of Consultation of the London and North-Western Railway, in
which the Post Office is represented as unduly competing with railway
companies for the carriage of books and parcels, were extensively
circulated to that company’s shareholders through the medium of the
Book Post, not merely to towns and villages at a distance from their
railway, but even to Liverpool to which the company’s own trains might
have carried them without any charge whatever. When it is recollected
that there are about 10,500 Post Offices scattered throughout the
United Kingdom, that there is scarcely a village without a Post Office,
and scarcely even a hamlet without a regularly-established official
means of communication with a Post Office, and that consequently
persons even in the most secluded districts, can communicate by post
with all parts of the kingdom with tolerable certainty, and with very
little trouble or expense, it will readily be seen that such facilities
as these must lead to the transmission of books and documents which
otherwise would never be sent.
In fact, the book post service is one so different in its character
and objects from that to which the parcel arrangements of the railway
companies are adapted, that it may fairly be assumed it would hardly
exist at all, but for the extensive facilities for its development
which the Post Office possesses. The evidence given before the Select
Committee on Conveyance of Mails by Railways (1854), especially that
of Mr. Charles Knight, the eminent publisher, is very decided on
this point. He says (3872) that the cases in which books are sent
by post may be nearly all considered as exceptional cases to the
ordinary commercial operations of publishing; and again (3870 and
3892) that the book post may be looked upon as a mere auxiliary to the
conveyance of parcels by other means; and (3860) that if the existing
regulations were stopped, the public would not be able to derive the
same advantages through any other channel. The Select Committee, in
their Report, admitted their conviction that “a large proportion of the
parcels would not be sent but for the facilities offered by the Post
Office in their distribution.”
Following, however, another line of argument, let us again assume for a
moment that all the book packets conveyed by Post have been abstracted
from the companies’ vans. It can on the other hand, be shown, that
the imposition of a postal charge on Parliamentary proceedings,—the
limitation as to size of packets passing through the Post,—and lastly
(the most important alteration of all), the abolition of the compulsory
newspaper stamp,—are changes, the combined operation of which must have
been to give to the companies a far greater weight of parcel traffic
than the weight of the whole of the book packets passing through Post
Office. It has been ascertained, with regard to the night mails from
London, by which by far the largest proportion of books is conveyed,
that the reduction in the number and total weight of newspapers
conveyed by these mails since the alteration in the Newspaper Stamp
Act is more than six times the total number and weight of all the book
parcels. To show the extent to which weight has thus been abstracted
from the mails, I may mention that the number of carriage-loads of
bags sent from the General Post Office to the Euston Square Station on
Friday nights, has, since the recent Newspaper Stamp Act took effect,
been five less than previously; and that the average nightly reduction
of weight of newspapers despatched from London is upwards of two tons
and a half. At the same time it is beyond doubt that the effect of the
Act in question has been largely to increase the newspaper circulation
of the kingdom, and consequently to add still further to the earnings
of the railway companies.
If, as Mr. Stephenson states, uncertainty, irregularity, and delay are
observable in the service at the Post Office, they result to a great
extent from the irregularity which often occurs in the working of the
mail trains by the companies, and not from any difficulties experienced
at the Post Office in dealing with its vastly and rapidly increasing
business.
Admitting, however, that slight detentions do occasionally occur from
pressure of Post Office work, it is right to mention that the Post
Office has long since urged upon the principal companies the adoption
of a plan by which they and the Post Office shall be mutually bound to
pay certain penalties for delay, from whatever cause; the Post Office
further offering to pay in addition a premium to the companies in every
instance in which the prescribed time is not exceeded. This proposal
was, however, rejected at the time by every company to whom it was
submitted, and since that date (1851) it has only been agreed to by one
of the Scotch companies. It should be mentioned, that the Post Office
offered in each case to reopen the award, and to readjust the payment
by an arbitration, in which the proposed agreement for fines and
premiums should be taken into consideration, the object being to render
the arrangement as equitable as possible to the companies. I believe
that the department is willing to renew this offer on the former
basis, or, indeed, to adopt any equitable scheme for insuring greater
punctuality.
Before concluding this report, it is but just to record a brief
admission of the points in regard to which railways have, to a material
extent, improved the postal communication of the kingdom.
The most important of those benefits is unquestionably the increased
rapidity of communication, which has practically brought Edinburgh
and Dublin almost as near to London as Birmingham and Bristol were in
the days of mail coaches. But the acceleration of speed, great as it
has been, has not been the sole cause of the saving of time; for the
use of railways has led to the avoidance of many of the stops which
formerly took place at what were termed “forward offices,” for sorting
purposes, that duty being now performed in travelling sorting offices,
during the progress of the train. For this boon the public are clearly
indebted to railways, and the Post Office is equally indebted to them
for the consequent simplification of its system. The chief of the other
benefits which railways have given to the Post Office and the public is
greater frequency of postal communication; for, although there would
no doubt have been established more numerous day mails, as well as
frequent postal communication between certain large towns, if coaches
had remained the fastest means of transit, it is scarcely probable that
we should ever have been able to concede the very extensive additions
to the number of communications throughout the kingdom generally, of
which the use of railways has admitted; and the effect of which has
doubtless been to cause a greater increase in the number of letters
than would otherwise have taken place.
The vast advantages comprised in those two improvements can scarcely be
overrated; but, having briefly acknowledged them, it hardly devolves
upon me, in the present Report, to dilate upon them at any greater
length.
I am, Sir,
Your obedient faithful servant,
EDWARD J. PAGE,
_Inspector-General of Mails._
To ROWLAND HILL, Esq.,
&c. &c. &c.
APPENDIX, No. 2.
REPLY OF ROBERT STEPHENSON, ESQ., M.P., PRESIDENT OF THE INSTITUTION
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS, TO OBSERVATIONS IN THE SECOND REPORT OF THE
POSTMASTER-GENERAL. DELIVERED AT THE MEETING OF MAY 20TH, 1856.
GENTLEMEN,
You will no doubt remember, that on taking this chair for the first
time after election to it, I addressed you, according to the custom of
the President of the Institution, upon matters of interest connected
with civil engineering. The special points to which I directed your
attention, were connected with the rise and progress of the railway
system in this country; and amongst other matters referred to, were
the facilities afforded by railways to the Post Office, which were
described “as of the highest public consequence.” In enumerating those
facilities, I observed that speed might, at first sight, appear to be
the greatest item in the catalogue. But I said, “it may be doubted if
it is the most important”:—“What is really of the greatest value to the
Post Office, is the facility afforded of carrying bulk.” And then I
went on to state that, “without railway facilities, it was not too much
to say, that the excellent plans of Mr. Rowland Hill for the reduction
of the rates of postage, could not have been carried out to their full
extent,” and to give a variety of reasons in support of that position.
I had hoped that throughout the section of the Paper in which this
subject was considered, I had guarded myself very carefully against the
slightest appearance of impugning the merit of Mr. Hill’s plan, or its
influence for good upon the British people, as no one can appreciate
more thoroughly than I do the value of the penny postage system, and
the boon it confers upon the public. It has been, therefore, with
regret that I have seen in the “Second Report of the Postmaster-General
on the Post Office,” dated the 30th January 1856, observations upon the
Railway companies of England and upon my own statement, which appear to
misconstrue the object of my remarks.
The tendency of the Post Office Report is to depreciate the advantages
afforded to the Post Office by Railways. It is said that the railway
working is “so irregular as to require from the Post Office serious and
repeated remonstrances,” and also that against the advantages afforded
by railways “there is an important set-off in increased expenses,”
that “that change, which to the public at large has so much reduced
the charge for the conveyance, whether of persons, or goods, has had
precisely the reverse effect as regards the conveyance of mails.” It is
also alleged, that the claims of the companies are often exorbitant,
and that the loss inflicted upon the companies by the Post Office, in
undertaking the carriage of parcels by their book post, is not, as
the railways allege, “an injury, but is, in reality, a benefit,” and
that even if it were otherwise, the companies “are compensated by the
law relieving newspapers from the compulsory stamp, which has largely
transferred the conveyance of newspapers from the mail bags to the
luggage vans.” Annexed to the Report, which contains these statements,
is a letter from Mr. Page, the Inspector-General of Mails, who carries
these allegations still further.
I shall endeavour in reply, not only to sustain my own argument, but
to show, that the assertions contained in the Report are fallacious;
and that on the contrary, railways, viewed in reference to postal
facilities, are “the great public instructors and educators of the day.”
The Post Office Report commences with certain admissions. It introduces
the subject by the following sentence:—“Increased use has been made of
several of the railways.”
Now, if the railways are so irregular, if their claims are so
exorbitant, and if, as the Report says, the same work could be done by
the old mail coaches at much less expense, why is “increased use made
of the railways?”
The next sentence states, that “By means of the establishment of an
additional express mail train from London to Dover, ... a much later
despatch from London of the day mail to France has been afforded, the
time being now as late as 1·30 p.m. This change, besides affording to
the merchants in London the opportunity of replying, the same morning,
to letters from France, received by the night mail, admits of letters
from Scotland, Ireland, and the north and south-west of England, which
arrive in London by the day mail, being sent forward by the day mail to
France, instead of being detained, as previously, for the night mail.”
The Post Office claims the merit of this. Nothing is said of the
facilities afforded by the railway. The mail, here referred to,
leaves London at half-past one in the afternoon. It stops only at the
four junction stations on the line;—Reigate, Tunbridge, Ashford, and
Folkestone;—reaching Dover at four o’clock, and thus, in two hours and
a-half, carrying all the correspondence with Europe to the confines of
England. Twice a month this train carries the Indian Mail. It conveyed,
last year, nearly two million letters, exclusive of newspapers, to and
from the army and navy in the Crimea. It will thus be seen, that this
train performs important services for the Post Office and the public,
and that it travels with great speed. The Post Office complains that
the South-Eastern Railway Company are exacting “enormous prices,”
because they pay for the service of this train at the rate of 2s. 3d.
per mile! But when it is considered that this train was put on purely
for Post Office purposes, and that the ordinary train, which previously
left at the same hour, has not been superseded, but has been put back,
in order to give facility to this train, the rate charged cannot be
considered unreasonable:—in my opinion it is too low.
“Experience,” says the Report, “has confirmed the advantages to
be derived from the use of Travelling Post Offices, and several
additional offices of this kind have been provided. Much greater use
has also been made of the apparatus for exchanging mail bags.”
The Report argues, that Mr. Rowland Hill’s plans would have been
as well carried out, under the old mail coach system, as under the
railway system. If so, what are “the advantages derived from the use
of Travelling Post Offices”? There was no “Travelling Post Office”
on the Holyhead road: why should there be a Travelling Post Office
on a railway? The answer obviously is, that the immense increase of
correspondence renders necessary new appliances; that if the letters
all remained to be sorted when they arrived at what are called the
“forward” offices, the delay would be so great that the public would
have to wait much longer for their letters.
It is further said: “Against these great advantages, there is an
important set-off in increased expense; for, strange as it may seem,
the change which to the public at large has so much reduced the charge
for the conveyance, whether of persons or of goods, has had precisely
the reverse effect as respects the conveyance of mails.”
Now, I am prepared to show that, notwithstanding the enormous increase
in their bulk, there has been no real increase in the charge for
conveying the mails.
The charge for conveyance of the mails by railway is stated at page 14
of the Report, to be as follows:—
┌——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————┐
│ MAILS CONVEYED BY RAILWAYS. │
├—————————————————┬————————————————┬————————————┬——————————┤
│ │ Average charge │ Maximum. │ Minimum. │
│ │ per mile. │ │ │
├—————————————————┼————————————————┼————————————┼——————————┤
│ │ _s._ _d._ │ _s._ _d._ │ _d._ │
│England │ 0 9¼ │ 4 10 │ 0¼ │
│Ireland │ 1 5½ │ 4 6 │ 0¼ │
│Scotland │ 0 8¾ │ 3 2 │ 0¾ │
├—————————————————┼————————————————┼————————————┼——————————┤
│United Kingdom │ 0 10 │ 4 10 │ 0¼ │
└—————————————————┴————————————————┴————————————┴——————————┘
The rates, therefore, for conveying the mails on railways are very
unequal: varying from ¼d. a mile to 4s. 10d., according to the services
performed. The rates paid to the old mail coach proprietors were also
very unequal: varying from nothing to 1s. per mile. But the fact is,
that whilst the payments by the Post Office to the railways, represent
all they get for conveying the mails, the payments by the Post Office
to the mail coach proprietors only represented, in a very minor degree,
the cost to the public of conveying the mails, and the advantages to
the coach proprietors consequent on carrying them.
All mail coaches in England were entirely free from tolls for the
maintenance of turnpike roads, the cost of which is now, in effect,
transferred from the public to the railways. Mr. Harker, the Surveyor
and Superintendent of Mail Coaches, gave evidence before the House of
Commons, in 1811, that “the toll duties from which the mail coaches
were exempted amounted to nearly £50,000 a year,” upon the very limited
mileage then performed. This evidence was confirmed by Sir Francis
Freeling; and, taking all the data that can be obtained upon the
subject, no doubt remains that the tolls on turnpike roads in England
and Wales averaged, for a coach with four horses, nearly 5d. per mile.
From this heavy payment the mail coaches were free; though, of course,
the charge had to borne in another shape by the public. Besides this,
it is to be remembered, that the mail coach was, in many cases, paid
for by the Post Office, at the rate of 1-1/16d. per mile. I will not,
however, include that as a distinct item in my computation, but will
reckon tolls and coach together as costing 5d. per mile. Beyond this, I
may add, that whenever the bags were large and bulky, the Post Office
paid extra. They then took the places of the two outside passengers,
allowed to be carried on the roof of every mail coach (exclusive of the
box seat), and whose fares probably averaged 2d. per mile each. In many
cases, also, the Post Office was obliged to employ extra post-chaises
and coaches, to carry the mails. The Greyhound Coach, from London to
Birmingham, was permanently engaged for the carriage of newspaper-bags
between London and Birmingham, at the rate of 1d. per pound, or £9. 6s.
8d. per ton, for the newspapers carried.
The old mails, therefore, cost as follows:—
Payment by Post Office for working 2½d. per mile.
Exemption from toll, with coach, say 5d. ”
————
7½d.
without occasional extra payments. So that the real sum allowed for
mail coaches was nearly as large as the sum allowed to railways.
But the Post Office Report admits that the mails, which were formerly
carried by coaches, now leave London “in a concentrated form”—that
for example, the North-Western Railway does the work of no less than
thirteen of the old mail coaches: _i. e._ the mails to Edinburgh,
Leeds, Halifax, Holyhead, Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow, Carlisle,
Derby, Birmingham, Hull, Worcester, and Dublin. The cost per mile,
therefore, must be multiplied by thirteen, on the North-Western line
alone, in order to represent the actual payment the Post Office would
have had to make to the old mail coaches, as contrasted with the
payment they are now making to the railway. And so as to the other
railways, in proportionate degree.
It is to be borne in mind, also, that the Post Office authorities
obtain facilities and advantages from the railways which they could not
exact from the mail coach proprietors; and for which they pay nothing.
Not only have they the power, under Act of Parliament, of ordering the
trains at any time, at any speed, and to stop at any place, but they
have, also, the power to direct the railway companies to provide all
the carriages they require; and the railways actually find carriages
for the Post Office, which cost, not the £120 which the old mail
coaches cost, but no less than £500 each. In many cases the mail trains
are run, under Post Office direction, at such inconvenient hours,
that only three, or four ordinary passengers ever travel by them, for
any part of their journey; so that the only remuneration received by
the railway is the payment made for carrying the mails. It happens,
also, on some railways,—such for example, as the line from Shrewsbury
to Stafford—that the mail train is the only train run in the night.
The consequence is, that clerks, porters, sidesmen, gate-keepers,
telegraph clerks, and nearly all the staff of the railway must be kept
at night-work solely for Post Office purposes, for which the railway
company has to pay.
“No doubt,” says the Report, “this result (_i. e._ high rate of charge
on railways) is attributable partly to the necessity for running
certain mail trains at hours unsuitable for passenger traffic; but
even when the Post Office uses the ordinary trains established by
the companies for their own purposes, the rate of charge, especially
considering the regularity and extent of custom, is almost always
higher, than that made to the public for like services.”
What are the “like services” rendered to the public? The public are
conveyed as the mails are conveyed; but do the public take the control
of the trains into their own hands, choosing where they will stop, and
when they will go on, and preventing alteration of times? The public
accommodate themselves to the regulations of the railways; but the Post
Office takes its own time, and interferes in any way it pleases with
the conveyance of the public and their goods. What are the charges
made for conveying mails by “the ordinary trains established by the
companies for their own purposes?” The Post Office has not furnished
a list of these charges; but it appears from the table, which I have
before quoted, that there are trains which carry mails in England at
as low a rate as one farthing per mile. These are, no doubt, “ordinary
trains established by the companies for their own purposes,” and if
that charge is “almost always higher than the charge made to the public
for the like service,” all I can say is, that I can hardly conceive how
a smaller coin could be substituted for such a service.
“It fortunately happens,” says the Report, “that Mr. Stephenson
furnishes, in his address, the data for checking his own accuracy
on this particular point. He says, that the locomotive expenses on
railways do not, on an average, exceed 9½d. per mile, and that the cost
of running a train may be assumed, in most cases, to be about 15d. per
mile. Compare this with some of the rates actually paid by the Post
Office to different companies at various periods within the last few
years, amounting, in one instance, to the enormous price of 4s. 6d. per
single mile.”
This is not a correct deduction from my observation. Although
locomotive expenses do not, on an average, exceed 9½d. per mile, and
although the current expenses of running a train may he assumed,
in most cases, to be about 15d. per mile, you are all aware that
“locomotive expenses” and “the cost of running a train” are not to be
taken as representing the cost of supplying the service required by the
Post Office. These charges were estimated for different purposes. They
are the bare cost of power, &c. They do not include any calculation
for establishment charges, wear and tear of road, interest on capital,
or payment of expenses of station officers and porters. Of course the
estimate does not include any compensation for extra services, such
as are required by the Post Office, nor any allowance of any sort for
profit.
A somewhat unfair use has been made, by the Post Office, of my
statement with regard “to the cost of running a train.” That statement
was made, as you will see by reference to my Address, for the purpose
of enabling you to consider the broad principles which ought to govern
railway companies in respect of passenger traffic. It is palpable that
I never contemplated, in that estimate, what would be the cost of
running a train, put on without reference to the convenience of the
public, or to the advantage of the railway company, and yet entailing
all the charges of a special engine and night-service. The Post Office
has, however, quoted and made use of this expression, as if it was
applicable to all cases.
The Report gives a list of railways and branches, twenty-five in
number, to which Post Office rates of from 2s. to 4s. 6d. a mile are
paid. The list commences with the line from Chester to Birkenhead, and
concludes with that of the Limerick Junction to Limerick. Only two of
the lines in this list are railways running out of London, and the
payments to those lines are made under very special circumstances,
one of them being for the Foreign Mail. The rest are all small cross
lines, such as the Leeds and Selby, Perth and Dundee, Peterborough
and Grimsby, and Dundalk and Castle Blayney, upon many of which the
mail train is a special train, put on in the middle of the night,
exclusively for the purpose of carrying a small quantity of letters.
Wherever there is the least service performed, it is obvious that the
proportionate rate of charge must be the highest; and in each of these
petty cases, the arbitrators, no doubt, found some good reason why
rates above the average should be paid. Upon cross roads, wherever
a mail cart had formerly to be used, the Post Office was obliged to
pay its whole expenses. And upon cross lines of railway, in the same
manner, it is to be expected that the whole expenses of a special train
will have to be borne by those who use it.
“The Post Office department,” says the Report, “would be well satisfied
if the mails, the hours of which are absolutely fixed by notice, were
conveyed at rates based on Mr. Stephenson’s estimate of the actual
running cost, making some allowance, on the one hand, for the benefit
derived by the company, from the train, and adding, on the other hand,
compensation for any special extra expenses to which the company may be
subjected, by the requirements of the Post Office, together with a full
allowance for profit.”
If by the “benefits derived by the company from a train,” the Report
means the amount received for passengers and parcels by a mail train,
I agree with those who think that the conveyance of passengers and
parcels, by such a train, may be of no benefit to a company. If those
passengers and parcels did not go by the mail train, they would go by
some other train, probably at a more convenient time to the company,
and nothing is gained by sending them by the mail. But, apart from
this, I should imagine, that the railway companies will, one and all,
willingly accept any proposal from the Post Office to convey the mails,
based on my “estimate of the actual running cost, with the addition of
compensation for any special extra expenses to which the company may be
subjected by Post Office requirements, together with a full allowance
for profit.”
I am informed, that the claims of the Post Office upon the railway
companies are continually increasing. The old mail coach carried
only one Post Office officer, the guard, who also assisted in the
performance of the duties of the coach. But the Post Office claims of
the railway companies, under penalty, to carry, free of charge, all
guards, clerks, and officers of the Post Office, “when employed in
fetching the bags, or in returning back from carrying the same, and
the inspectors of mails and such other officers and servants of the
Post Office as the Postmaster-General shall from time to time require.”
Thus an unlimited number of free passengers may be conveyed at the
Postmaster-General’s discretion, and however unreasonable the number
may be, the company have no redress. It is to be observed also, that
instead of assisting the train, these passengers require assistance
from the officers of the company. The Post Office insists that the
porters of a railway are bound to place their bags in their vans and
remove them from their stations.
The nonpayment of fares for these officials is not the only objection
to their conveyance. Although deriving no profit from their carriage,
the companies, under a recent decision, are declared to be liable to
make them compensation for any accident, or injury they may sustain
whilst travelling; and recently on the North-Western line, a sum
of £1,200 had to be paid to an officer of the Post Office who was
accidentally hurt. Was this the case with the old mail coaches?
“It constantly happens,” says the Report, “that the department is
prevented from increasing postal facilities by the refusal of companies
to accept rates equal to, and often exceeding, the charges made to the
public for the transmission of a corresponding weight of such ordinary
light goods as are frequently sent by passenger trains.”
The Report cites no one instance in support of the case which, it is
said, so “constantly happens.” In the absence of such evidence I may be
permitted to doubt whether the Post Office has been well informed. If
such cases have occurred, it must be under extraordinary circumstances,
for the Post Office itself has power to prevent such occurrences. There
is nothing to prevent their sending their mail bags, as a parcel, by
any train they like. They may have them carried, if they please, by a
goods train, at 6d. per ton per mile; and that goods train will travel
at least as fast as the old mail coach. A mail guard, with his bag of
letters, may take his second-class ticket and walk into the railway
carriage, with his bag, like any other passenger. On most of the lines
on which it is complained that the railway rates are so heavy, the
correspondence must be comparatively trifling. For instance, between
Dundalk and Castle Blayney, the distance is 18½ miles. The Post Office
rate paid, according to the Report, is 3s. 2d. a mile, or £2. 18s.
7d. for the whole distance; but the railway fare is only 2s. 7d. for
the distance. If the Post Office insist on a special train and a
travelling mail to carry a few letters, it is clear that they must pay
in proportion, however minute may be the service rendered.
The Report complains, that whilst the gross weight of passengers
conveyed by railway, during a year, is 8 millions of tons, the gross
weight of mails (including guards, clerks, &c.), is under 20,000
tons,[149] so that “the Post Office contributes less than 1/400 part to
the total weight, whilst it contributes 1/23 part to the total earnings
of the railways.” But this is a fallacy. The mails are not to be
estimated by their weight. The tables in the Report show, that the very
cases, in which the Post Office carries the smallest weight, are those
in which they are obliged to make the largest mileage payments.
The Report states, “the total payments to the companies for the year
1854, were £392,600, which, it may be observed, exceeds by £83,000 the
5 per cent. passenger tax for the same period.”
It would therefore appear, that what the Government really pays for
all the postal service of the kingdom, even on this showing of the
Postmaster-General, is £83,000 a year. For this they carried Four
Hundred and Fifty-six Million of letters, without reckoning newspapers
and parcels.
I now come to the second branch of the subject. I ventured to say,
and I do not hesitate to repeat, that “without railway facilities the
excellent plans of Mr. Rowland Hill for the reduction of the rates of
postage could not have been carried out to their full extent.” But it
is contended, that “not only would the penny postage without railways
have been both practicable and remunerative, but that it would have
been even more profitable than it now is.” Upon that I join issue.
Would it have been practicable,—would it have been more profitable than
it now is?
1st.—As to Practicability. I argued that question, solely and
exclusively, and, I will add, fairly and properly, upon the question
of bulk. “The old mail coaches,” I said, “were never planned for bulk.
Bulk, indeed, would have been fatal to that regularity and speed, upon
which the Post Office could alone rely, as the means of securing the
monopoly of the letter carriage of the nation.” How is this reasoning
met in the Post Office Report? The Report argues the question as a
question of weight. “The increase,” it is said, “which has taken
place in the weight of the mails has presented no difficulty to their
conveyance by mail coaches.” Seventeen times in one page the word
weight is reiterated, whilst the word bulk is carefully avoided. The
reply to my argument that the bulk would have been fatal is that the
weight would have presented no difficulty. Until my argument is met on
the question of bulk, I must maintain that my argument is untouched. We
all know that letters weigh very little. But unpressed, sent in bags,
as they are, by the Post Office, what is the bulk of the mails? I told
you in my address, that “On a Friday night, when so many thousands of
weekly papers are sent into the country, the Post Office requires,
on the London and North-Western Railway, not only the use of the
travelling post office, which is provided for its convenience, but of
six or eight additional vans.” This is not denied in the Report. But it
is argued, nevertheless, as if all these letters could have been packed
into the old mail coaches. What are the facts? On Saturday week the
1.30 p.m. Dover train carried down the Indian mail. That mail consisted
of no less than 170 boxes,[150] each about 1 foot 9 inches long by 1
foot broad and 1 foot deep. How could these have been carried by a mail
coach? I have caused an old Dover mail to be measured, for the purpose
of ascertaining the space allotted to bags. The box under the guard’s
feet was 2 feet 10 inches long by 2 feet 1 inch deep, and 3 feet 5
inches broad; the boot (usually assigned to passengers’ carpet-bags and
private parcels) was 2 feet 11 inches wide, 2 feet 6 inches deep, and 2
feet 7 inches long. The space on the roof, including the roof seat, was
5 feet long by 4 feet broad. Giving all this space to the Post Office,
without reservation, had that mail coach carried last Saturday’s mail
from London, it would have carried on its top a pyramid of mail boxes
12 feet high from the roof of the mail, or 20 feet from the ground!
Yet the Report tells you, that there would have been no difficulty
in providing for the conveyance of the present mails by the old mail
coaches.
On Friday night (May 16), the mail from the Euston Square Station
consisted of one Post Office van and six very large tenders, containing
large sacks of letters, newspapers and parcels (many of them as large
as sacks of corn). The vans each measured 660 cubic feet; if we say
600, we shall have a total cubic contents of 4,000 feet. This is equal
to the displacement of a vessel of more than 1,000 tons burden. I said,
in my Address, that it would take fourteen or fifteen mail coaches to
carry the Friday night’s mail from London to Birmingham: that every
coach that ran in 1830 between London and Birmingham would now have
been needed for Post Office purposes, if the London and North-Western
Railway had not been brought into existence. It turns out that I was
much under the mark. 4,000 cubic feet, the extent of accommodation
required to be provided by the railway company, could not have been
afforded by less than fifty of the old mails, even allowing that
the two passenger-seats on the roof were devoted to the Post Office
service, and the bags were packed to the height of 3 feet above the
roof. And yet the Report tells us, that this extent of accommodation
could have been afforded by the mail coaches that formerly ran on the
North road; thus assuming for each old mail the same capacity as half
an ordinary fly canal boat, or as two of our largest London omnibuses.
2nd. I proceed to the next question—the question of Expenditure.
The Report states, that Mr. Hill’s plan would have been even more
profitable under the old coach system than it now is.
“Supposing,” says the Report, “that the number of mail coaches, all
over the kingdom, had been doubled, the expenditure of the department
for mail coach service would, in that case, have been advanced from
£155,000 to only £310,000 per annum, whilst the present expenditure for
the railway and mail coach service of the department is £443,000, of
which sum £400,000 is paid to railway companies alone.”
Now, I beg you to mark these figures. £155,000, says the Report, was
the sum paid for the entire old mail coach service, whilst £443,000 is
the sum now paid for railway and mail coach service, of which £400,000
is paid to railways alone, leaving £43,000 as the charge incurred by
the side mails. Now, at page 14 of the Report, you will find it stated,
that the branch mail coaches at the present time convey the mails over
31,667 miles per day at an average charge of 2¼d. per mile. 31,667
miles at 2¼d. per mile gives a total of £108,000 a year. Here is a
total then of £108,000 a year paid at the present time merely for the
conveyance of the side mails by coaches, in place of £43,000 as the
Report leaves us to infer.[151] Now, if £108,000 a year is paid, at the
present time, only for the conveyance, by two horse coaches and mail
carts, of the side mails where railways do not run, how is it possible
that the total cost of all the mail coach transit of England could have
been only £155,000 a year?
It is clear there must be some serious error in the Post Office
figures, and that error is of such a character as really to invalidate
all the calculations of the Report. Either £155,000 could not have
represented the cost of carrying the mails formerly, or £108,000 a
year, instead of £43,000 a year, must be deducted, for the side mails,
from the total sum of £443,000, assumed to be the cost of postal
conveyance at the present time.
But, it is also to be remarked, that the payments to mail coach
proprietors for working, did not represent anything like the amount
borne by the public for the mails. The Post Office treats this question
as if the working at 2¼d. a mile is all the expense the public have to
bear. They forget the tolls. They forget that a mail coach could not
pass over a road without wear and tear, and that the Post Office paid
nothing for that wear and tear. The public in another shape bore that
expenditure. Under the old system, indeed, as the Postmaster-General’s
table shows, many of the old coaches were only too glad to “carry a
bag” (as it was termed), merely for the sake of obtaining exemption
from toll, which cost on the average 5_d._ per mile to the coach
proprietor. You must remember that this toll was levied on the public
using the turnpike road, for those purposes of repair, which are now
defrayed by railway companies, in the shape of reparation of permanent
way. The wear and tear of a railway line is solely paid for by the
railway company, who can receive nothing in the shape of an equivalent
for remission of tolls, except by direct payment.
The Post Office forgets, again, that under the old system, the roads,
to some extent, were made at the cost of the public. Nearly a million
of money was expended by Government in making and improving the old
Holyhead line of road. Why was this expenditure incurred? It was
incurred to save six hours in the delivery of the mails between Dublin
and London. This, be it recollected, was the measure of the value of
time by the State. They spent a million of treasure to save six hours
of time. Contrast the time occupied in the transmission of mails now
and in the year after that expenditure was incurred? The Holyhead
mail, after a million of public money had been spent in expediting
it, still took 26 hours on the road. The same mail by railway only
occupies 8½ hours[152] on its whole journey. Nearly 18 hours have been
thus saved on this one line of road; and yet though the Government
could spend a million to save 6 hours, they complain of paying
£30,000 a-year, or only the interest at 5 per cent. upon £600,000,
for a railway service passing over a line of road which they did not
expend a farthing to construct, and which is kept in repair by private
individuals, who have incurred the enormous expense of spanning the
Menai Straits by a railway bridge.
In estimating the comparative cost of conveyance by road and by
railway, not only are the Government officers, as I have shown you,
wrong in their figures and calculations, but they suppress the great
items which entailed expense on the public under the old mail coach
system, and which are now saved to the State. Let me mention another
saving. Under the old system, the Post Office packets were a source of
well ascertained loss to the State. The old Holyhead mail coach could
not bring down a sufficient number of passengers to pay the cost of
the passage from Holyhead to Dublin. The packet service with Ireland
entailed a loss of more than £100,000 a-year. At the present time,
the railway saves the Government nearly all this loss. In consequence
of the travelling facilities now afforded by the railway, the boats
between Holyhead and Dublin contract to perform the service of the
Government for a payment of £25,000 a-year.[153] And yet the department
complains that it pays £30,000 a-year, for carrying its mails, to the
railway company which has enabled it to effect this enormous annual
saving.
This example proves this part of the case. The Report omits to take
into account the amount thus saved; or any similar savings, such
as £25,000 a-year formerly paid for conveyance of mails by steam
packets from London to Rotterdam and Hamburgh, now sent to Dover by
the South-Eastern Railway. If I admit that which the Report does not
establish, that £400,000 is paid to railway companies for postal
service, at any rate I am entitled to have the public savings put
against that amount. If I consider the vast total of those savings, I
cannot doubt, for a moment, that railways are in reality not getting
what they are fairly entitled to, for performing the duties for which
the State formerly had to pay so largely. Considering the enormous
item of turnpike tolls remitted to the old mail coaches,—the vast
saving effected in the maintenance of the roads themselves,—the
greatly increased facilities demanded by the new postal system,—the
incalculable gain in consequence of the increased speed,—and the
diminution of heavy loss upon steam packet and such like traffic,
I should really be tempted to say, that if the Government paid to
railways double what they paid to the proprietors of old stage coaches,
they would still be gainers by the use of railways for the purposes of
the Post Office. But when I consider, that according to the showing of
this Report itself, they pay no more, if so much to railways, as they
paid under the old system, whilst they carry five-and-a-half fold more
letters, to say nothing of newspapers and parcels, I am surprised at
the assertion that “The penny postage, without railways, would even
have been more profitable than it now is.”
I stated, in my address, that not only was the Post Office dealing
illiberally with the railway companies, but that it was absolutely
entering into competition with them, as carriers, by undertaking the
conveyance of books and other parcels, at very reduced postal rates.
The Post Office authorities open their reply by saying, that they
shall not stop to inquire whether railway companies have any legal,
or equitable right to the monopoly of parcel traffic.[154] I shall
not stop to inquire, by what policy a Government department steps in
to interfere with the free course of trade. But, argues the Report,
the companies sustain no loss, “for the general rates paid by the
Post Office to railway companies are largely in excess of those paid
by the booksellers for their parcels.” The Post Office has never paid
one farthing to the railway companies in respect of these parcels. The
Post Office pays the companies so much per mile for the whole service.
It carries what it pleases. It chooses to carry books. Those books
formerly went by the companies’ luggage vans, and were paid for to
the companies by the public. The Post Office undertakes the carriage
of these parcels, puts them into its letter bags, and carries them,
under its contract with the railways, without paying the railways a
single farthing extra. The railways suffer all the loss: the Post
Office obtains all the profit. And then the Report tells you that “the
companies, instead of being injured, are benefited by the abstraction.”
“By far the larger portion of the book parcels,” says the Report,
“which the Post Office carries, would not be sent at all, but for
the peculiar facilities offered by the extensive organisation of the
Post Office.” But there is one remarkable fact in the Report which is
inconsistent with this theory. Since the stamp duty has been removed
from newspapers, the Post Office, on their own showing, has lost the
annual delivery of nearly 28,000,000 of newspapers, which formerly
passed through the post;[155] and there is reason to believe, that the
number of such transmissions is daily decreasing. Now, if the superior
facilities of the Post Office induce the public to get their book
parcels by post, how is it that they are gradually relinquishing the
use of the post as a means of getting their newspapers? The superior
facilities, if there are any, are precisely of the same description
both for newspapers and book parcels; yet, nevertheless, the public,
who best know how to appreciate superior facilities, are gradually
giving up the facilities of the post in respect to newspapers, and
employing the facilities afforded by the railway. The superior
facilities, are, therefore, not estimated by the public as equivalent
to 1d. per newspaper parcel.
It would appear, therefore, that the question was rather one of
“charge” than of superior facilities. The Post Office chooses to
undersell the railways, availing itself of the facilities railways
afford it for the purpose of so doing. The public always buy in the
cheapest market. They send their books by post, because the post
takes them cheaper than the railways took them. And I told you, in
my Address, why the Post Office is able to do this. The Post Office
insists on the right of travelling over the railways at a fixed cost
per mile; and, as I have just observed, without paying anything
additional whatever for book parcels. The railways have to pay, not
only expenses, but interest on capital; and it is to be expected
therefore, that they cannot compete, in respect to this traffic, with a
public department which contributes to neither. But how far this use of
the railways for the purpose of the Post Office, and to the detriment
of the railways is equitable, or proper, is another question.
The Post Office itself seems to feel that it is not quite equitable or
proper, for the Postmaster-General, in the body of the Report, treats
the question solely on the ground that “a benefit” is conferred on
the railway companies by this abstraction of their traffic, and that,
even if that is not the case, the companies are compensated by the
transference to the luggage vans of the newspapers previously carried
by the mails. I think it is in “Gil Blas” that the gentleman who
takes the canon’s purse, is made to prove that the abstraction was a
“benefit” to his soul’s health, and would keep him free from many of
the pomps and vanities of this wicked world. Upon the same principle,
I suppose it is intended to be argued, that the abstraction of their
traffic is a benefit to the railway companies. But, with regard to the
second part of the argument, I deny that the railways are “compensated”
for their loss by the transference to their vans, of the newspapers
which the Post Office used to carry for nothing, and which it is
admitted the officers would be “only too glad to see removed from the
Post Office altogether.”[156] The stamp duty, you will remember, never
was a postal duty under the old system; it went into the accounts of
another branch of the revenue. The Post Office consequently never
benefited, but, on the contrary, was only taxed for the performance of
its duty as the carrier of newspapers. Latterly, this duty became so
onerous, that the Post Office felt itself almost incompetent to its due
performance. To save itself the trouble and expense of receiving all
the papers, at the last moment, at the Post Office, it was in the habit
of sending its own vans to the offices of the great news publishers,
and carrying their papers in bulk to Euston Square, where an office was
assigned to the Post Office for newspaper purposes. The change effected
by the removal of the stamp might have been taken advantage of as a
great source of revenue to the Post Office, which failed, however, to
work out a system that would have been remunerative to itself, and
advantageous to the public; and the consequence has been, that the
public have resorted to what I may call, in the words of the Report,
the “superior facilities” of the railway. But the railway gets for the
carriage of these parcels nothing like the amount that the Post Office
would get. The Post Office is bound, under Act of Parliament, to charge
1d. per paper, but the railways take these papers in bulk, several
hundreds in a package; and carry them at the rate of so much per ton.
To tell us, that an act of their own, by which they threw off an excess
of labour which had become not only burdensome, but overpowering to the
Post Office, was done out of consideration for the railways, and as a
compensation for the abstraction of the book parcels, is not likely to
be entirely acquiesced in.
The number of book parcels that passed through the Post Office last
year was a million and a-half. Captain Huish, in his evidence before
Parliament in 1854, has shown, that the loss of revenue to railways,
by the abstraction of book parcels has, in some cases, borne a large
proportion to the sum paid to railway companies for the conveyance of
the mails. A stronger proof than this, of the unfair dealing of the
Post Office towards the railway companies, could scarcely be afforded.
But I own, that I do not look so much to the actual loss as to the bad
precedent. It seems to me, that there is no limit to what the Post
Office may carry, if this is permitted. There are many lighter articles
than books forming the substance of railway packages. Is the Post
Office to undertake all the light carrier trade of the kingdom, without
extra payment to the railways for the use of the roads?
The Report says, “Mr. Stephenson is unfortunate in putting forward
as an illustration the cheap transmission of printed proceedings of
Parliament. Under the old postal system, and during the existence of
mail coaches, Parliamentary reports and proceedings were conveyed by
post free of all charges. On the introduction of a penny postage, a
postal charge for their conveyance was imposed, which continues up to
the present day.”
If I am unfortunate in referring to this charge, the Report, I must
say, is doubly so. For if all Parliamentary papers have been subjected
to a penny postage, who receives the money? The railways ought to
have a share of it; but they get nothing. The public ought to have a
share of it; but on the contrary, the Post Office, which has greater
facilities for carrying public papers, makes the public pay more for
their transmission instead of carrying them for less. Who, then, does
get the penny? The only answer is, that it goes to the credit of the
Post Office account in reduction of the expenses incurred in carrying
out the penny postage system.
[Mr. Stephenson having reviewed the complaints made by the Post Office
about irregularities in 1856, and previously, and stated facts to show
their injustice, and that they were fully as much attributable to the
department as to the companies, proceeded with his address as follows.]
If the Post Office authorities want the highest rates of speed, with
perfect observance of time, they have an easy mode of securing it. Let
them contract with the railway company for special trains, exclusively
for the purposes of the mails. The companies will be only too glad to
provide those trains, at the same, or even a less rate, than that at
which they provide special trains for the public. They will, no doubt,
enter into any arrangement for the arrival of such trains at their
respective destinations, at the hour agreed upon. On the side of the
Post Office, all that is requisite to secure this, is an equitable
payment for the service, which, considering the great importance of
the subject, ought not to be grudged to secure a rapid and punctual
delivery of letters.
We are told, indeed, in the Post Office Report, that the railways have
no right to be treated on such principles. On the contrary, they are
threatened. “The law officers of the Crown,” says that document, “have
given an opinion that Government can claim exemption from toll on
railways.” Happily, it is one thing for “the law officers of the Crown
to give an opinion,” and another for a Government department to succeed
in enforcing it.
But who are these, asks the Report, who complain of “illiberal
treatment?” The old mail coaches, it says, represented free trade and
competition; but these railways are “large monopolies in the hands of
a few private companies.” A few private companies! What is meant by a
“private company”? The railway share and debenture holders of England
number more than a quarter of a million. Do these capitalists represent
a “private company”? An old mail coach, carrying four insides and
three out, and horsed by Mr. Fagg at 2½d. a mile, is called in this
Report a public conveyance, “by which the Post Office was protected
from undue demands, in the transmission of its mails along the public
highways of the United Kingdom,” whilst a railway, like the London
and North-Western, with nearly eighteen thousand shareholders and a
capital exceeding thirty millions, is called “a monopoly in the hands
of a private company.” A monopoly! Allow me to ask, again, of what has
any railway got a monopoly? The old “public highways,” as the Report
calls them, are still open to everybody. The Post Office authorities
may put upon them, once more, if they think fit, their favourite
public conveyances. Except the bulk of their bags, there is nothing
to prevent them from loading them once more in the court-yard of St.
Martin’s-le-Grand, and starting them off for Holyhead, or Aberdeen,
with the old guard on his seat behind, and the old driver flourishing
his whip.
The railways have no monopoly; Parliament has never allowed them a
monopoly. In France, and elsewhere, the Legislative bodies have given
railway companies a monopoly for a certain number of years; but with
us the practice of Parliament has been precisely the reverse. So far
from exercising any monopoly, the railways here are subjected, even
among themselves, to a fierce competition. Parliament has sanctioned
a second railway to Dover; there are already two lines to Hastings;
two are completed to Portsmouth, and a third is making; the Government
has insisted upon the South-Western making a second line to Exeter;
there are already three lines to Birmingham; there are three lines to
Derby, three to Peterborough, three to York, two to Cambridge, two to
Oxford, two to Norwich, two to Lincoln, two to Liverpool; I know not
how many to Shrewsbury; and many routes to Scotland both by the west
coast and the east. Monopoly! Why Parliament on the whole circuit of
the country has established, not only the principle, but the practice
of free competition; and we have absolutely as much competition amongst
railways now as ever existed in the old days of, what the Post Office
Report calls, the public highways.
The only monopoly ever accorded by Parliament to the railway companies
has been the right of taking land; but that right has been encumbered,
both legally and by the opportunity afforded for making claims for
exorbitant compensations. Parliament has subjected railway companies
to frightful expenses, and to most uncertain and unfair tribunals in
its own committees. It has never assisted any work in progress, however
useful even for purposes of State. It has given no concession to any
company; it has undertaken no share of the work, as has been done by
the Governments of other States; it has granted no crown lands for
any line; it has not assisted to make a line; it has guaranteed no
interest upon outlay; it has not even lent money (with the exception
of about two millions to Irish railways), as it did year after year
to the Holyhead Road Commissioners. What, then, is the Government
entitled to from the railway companies? No doubt it is entitled to
have public services properly performed, at a moderate cost. And all
public services are performed by the railways for the Government, at
a moderate cost. But it is not entitled—it can establish no claim—to
use the property of railway proprietors, without toll, or to have its
work done, without paying a fair rate of profit to those who perform
it. When the Post Office Report tells you, that railways are monopolies
which have destroyed competition, I ask you to consider, on the other
hand, whether railways are not in fact too much subject, at the present
time, to Government control. This very mail service is performed by the
railways under compulsion. Did the Government compel any one to perform
the duty of carrying the mails in the days of the old mail coaches?
If, in those days, they had advertised for tenders from stage coach
proprietors, for the performance of a duty such as they now exact from
railway companies, subject to arbitration as to the sum that should be
paid for its performance, how many tenders is it likely they would have
obtained?
On the other hand, I ask you to look at the treatment the railways
are receiving from the Government. I will take the case of their own
selection—the case of the Chester and Holyhead Railway—in which they
make a merit of paying at least double what would have been awarded by
arbitrators. Look at the route to Ireland before the Holyhead Railway
was constructed. No less than thirty-six hours were occupied in getting
from London to Dublin. But this was regarded as great expedition,
and it was most munificently paid for by the Government. They spent,
as I have told you, nearly a million of money in making the road.
They lost on the Irish steamers more than £100,000 a-year, to say
nothing of their contract for the coach, and upwards of £3,000 a-year
remitted on the tolls. This was the state of things before railways
were established. The work is now done, not in thirty-six, but in
fifteen hours.[157] The whole mail service now, with this increased
expedition, costs the Government no more than £65,000 a-year.[158] Thus
the Government save, upon this route alone, twenty-one hours in every
journey, and nearly £40,000 a-year in expenditure.
But in the face of this, what has been the conduct of the Government
to the Chester and Holyhead Railway Company? In the first place, it
imposed conditions which greatly enhanced the cost of the Britannia
Bridge. Then observe how it treated that line with reference to other
matters. The Holyhead road runs for about half-a-mile near Conway
upon an embankment constructed on the sea-shore. The Holyhead Company
proposed to form its railway outside that embankment, thereby, in fact,
widening the embankment and affording it protection from the sea. The
same state of things occurred in the Isle of Anglesea, at an inlet
known as the Stanley Sands. In both cases the railway rested on the
slope of the Government embankment, and for this “privilege,” as it is
called, the Government to this day charges the railway an annual rental!
Such is one illustration (among many) of the treatment of the railway
companies by the Government departments. They have aggravated the
expenses and difficulties of a line which has helped to save them,
as I said before, twenty-one hours in every journey between London
and Dublin, and no less than £40,000 a year in money outlay. At the
present time, the Post Office Report tells us, that the department is
paying double what it ought for conveying the mails over this railway,
and that “the law officers of the Crown have given an opinion,” that
Government can claim the right to pass over it, in common with all
others, without paying any toll at all!
In conclusion, I ask, how can the Post Office authorities justify
their tone respecting the railways? They admit great advantages from
railways, but they say that against those advantages there is an
important set-off in increased expense. Is there any foundation for
this charge? Let us look at the figures. The mails are now conveyed
daily by rail and coach over, in round figures, 60,000 miles. The total
cost of this conveyance is stated at £443,000. Upwards of £100,000 is
saved upon the sea service with Ireland and the continent alone. Now,
suppose the mail service of the country was still performed under the
old mail coach system, what would it have cost? The net payment to
mails, upon their own showing, would have amounted to £310,000; the
tolls and coaches, at 5d. per mile, would have been £456,000. Add to
this the steam-boat saving, and we should have a total cost exceeding
£800,000 per annum. But as the present cost is only £443,000, there is
a difference in favour of the railway system exceeding £400,000 a year,
without taking credit for the increased rapidity of transmission.
If I turn to the Post Office accounts, at page 57 of the Report, I find
that the additional work, to the extent of five and a-half times, has
been performed at an increased cost of only two and a-half times. By
their own showing then, the cost of conveyance has not “increased in a
far greater degree,” but in a far less degree in proportion to the work
performed. I find, also, that the cost of conveying the mails has only
increased, in a corresponding ratio, with the increase in the expenses
of all the other branches of Post Office expenditure since 1838. I find
still further, that the whole cost of conveyance amounts to little more
than one-fourth of the whole cost of management, for whilst the whole
cost of management in 1855 was £1,651,000, the entire payment for cost
of conveyance was only £443,000. I ask, then, with what justice, with
what show of propriety, can the Postmaster-General, or his officials,
complain of the payments to railways for the postal communication of
the nation?
The whole course of this argument has not only confirmed my conviction
that without railway facilities the plans of Mr. Rowland Hill, for
the reduction of the rates of postage could not have been carried out
to their full extent, but it has clearly proved to my mind, that they
could not have been carried into effect at all. Space, we have seen, is
absolutely essential to the accommodation of the increased bulk,—speed
is absolutely essential to that multiplication of correspondence,
which is requisite to sustain the rapidly increasing establishment
charges, augmented already from £500,000 to £1,200,000 per annum. If
the absence of facilities, both of space and speed, had not proved
fatal, by preventing the development of the system, it is clear,
that the expense would have broken down that system altogether. I am
convinced also, that unless more and more advantage be taken of railway
facilities, the postage system will not progress, in proportion to
the increase of the population and wealth of the kingdom. What is it
that multiplies communication? Speed and facility of transmission. In
those the Electric Wire is now a competitor with the Post. Suppose we
had the Electric Telegraph in operation, without a railway system, and
our correspondence consequently dependent on the old mail coach, I ask
what would be the effect upon the penny postage system? If the Post
Office authorities desire to increase the correspondence of the nation,
through their machinery, they must make more and more use of railway
facilities. It is only by more frequent postal communications and
accelerated speed of delivery, that the telegraph can be successfully
competed with, as regards the large and increasing portion of the
correspondence of the nation, which is flashing unceasingly along its
wires. To obtain that increased frequency and accelerated speed, the
Post Office authorities must deal equitably with the railway companies.
It is not only the duty, but it is for the interest, of Government
so to do. If the Government and the railway companies went hand in
hand, arrangements might be made, by which the whole correspondence
of the nation might be carried on, in a much more perfect manner,
with advantage to the companies, and without any direct payment by
the Government. When the Post Office authorities are prepared to deal
with this question in an equitable spirit, I shall be prepared to show
them how such an arrangement may be effected.[159] Meanwhile I leave
them, in the hope that these remarks, offered in all good-will and
friendliness of spirit, upon the document they have published, may have
some influence, in inducing them henceforward to regulate their affairs
for their own and the public interests, and to endeavour, in some
degree, to keep better pace with the advancing spirit of the time.
APPENDIX, No. 3.
COPY OF LETTER ADDRESSED TO A MEMBER OF THE ITALIAN PARLIAMENT UPON
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE EASTERN MAILS, NOW DESPATCHED _viâ_ MARSEILLES
AND _viâ_ SOUTHAMPTON, BEING TRANSMITTED _viâ_ BRINDISI.
LONDON,
_5th June, 1867_.
In consequence of the promise I made when in Florence on the 20th
and 21st ultimo, that I should write to you on the subject of postal
communication between Great Britain, the East Indies, China, Japan, and
Australia, I have the honour to address this letter to you.
I propose to commence it with a short sketch of the history of this
communication, which, from being of comparatively trifling importance
in 1830, has become, at the present time, one of immense magnitude, as
well as of equally great commercial, social, and political importance.
Previous to 1830, the mail communications of Great Britain with the
East were maintained solely by the route round the Cape of Good Hope.
Letters then were never less than 90 to 120 days on the passage between
England and Calcutta, and from 20 to 30 days more between England and
China.
In 1830, the then great political and commercial company of England,
called the East India Company, first placed a postal steamer in the
Indian Seas; but it was not until 1834 that a regular monthly service
was organised between Suez and Bombay.
In 1835, steam communication was organised, although in an imperfect
and unsatisfactory manner, between England and Alexandria. By degrees
this service became improved.
In 1839 the British Government, by convention with that of France,
opened the Marseilles route for the conveyance of a portion of
the Indian Mail; as, at that period, the railway system was not in
operation in France, it required 108 hours to convey the correspondence
despatched by this route, between Calais and Marseilles. It may here be
mentioned that in 1845 great efforts were made by Lieutenant Waghorn
of the British Navy, a man eminently distinguished in connection
with the first attempt to establish postal communication between
Great Britain and the East Indies, _viâ_ the Isthmus of Suez, to make
Trieste the port for the embarkation of the mails. These efforts were,
however, not successful, and the attention of Great Britain became
thenceforward limited to the routes, _viâ_ Marseilles for the more
rapid communication, and _viâ_ Southampton for the heavier and larger
portion of the Indian mails.
Reverting to the year 1840, the British Government entered, at
that period into a contract with the Peninsular and Oriental Steam
Navigation Company for a service once a month, from Southampton to
Alexandria, and from Suez to Calcutta and China; and two services were
organised between Marseilles and Alexandria, one in connection at
Suez, with the service by the steamers for Calcutta and China, and the
other in connection with a service between Suez and Bombay, which was
performed by the postal steamers of the East India Company.
In 1849 the services between Southampton and Alexandria became
bi-monthly instead of monthly as before.
In 1854 the postal steamers of the East India Company were withdrawn,
and the whole of the services in the Indian Seas were transferred to
the Peninsular and Oriental Company.
In 1858 the postal service with Australia, _viâ_ the Isthmus of
Suez, was first commenced. It is a monthly service, but by recent
intelligence received from Australia, there is probability of its
becoming bi-monthly at an early date. I shall give particulars of the
immense magnitude of this mail hereafter.
In 1857, in consequence of the very great increase of correspondence
passing between Great Britain and the East, it was found necessary to
augment the postal services to four a month in each direction _viâ_
Marseilles, and to four in each direction _viâ_ Southampton.
The whole of the sea service of the Indian, China, Japan, and
Australian postal communications of Great Britain, is performed by
the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company. This company
is the largest in the world. It has a fleet of fifty-three steamers,
with an aggregate tonnage of 86,411 tons, and 19,230 horses power. Its
largest ship is of 2,800 tons. Its next largest is 2,600 tons, five
are between 2,000 and 2,500 tons, and eighteen are between 1,500 and
2,000 tons each. Its routes extend from Southampton and from Marseilles
to Alexandria, from Suez to Bombay, from Suez to Point de Galle and
Calcutta, from Bombay to Calcutta, from Point de Galle to Singapore,
Hong Kong, Shanghai and Yokohama (Japan), and from Point de Galle to
Melbourne and Sydney. The total number of knots (sea miles) performed
by the postal vessels of the company in 1866 was 1,194,952, equal to
2,290,320 kilometres.
By successive openings of the railways, the length of which between
Calais and Marseilles is 1,190 kilometres, the time occupied in the
transit of the Eastern mails through France has been diminished from
108 hours to 28 hours.
I have already stated the total contract service of the Peninsular and
Oriental Steam Packet Company, 2,290,320 kilometres.
The annual land service of the Eastern mail is as follows; first, as
regards Marseilles:—
┌————————————————————————┬————————┬———————————┬—————————┐
│ Route. │ Kilos. │ Number │ Total. │
│ │ │ of │ │
│ │ │ Journeys. │ │
├————————————————————————┼————————┼———————————┼—————————┤
│ London and Dover │ 150 │ 96 │ 14,400 │
│ Calais and Marseilles │ 1,190 │ 96 │ 114,040 │
│ Alexandria and Suez │ 400 │ 96 │ 38,400 │
│ ├—————————┤
│ │ 166,840 │
│ _Viâ_ SOUTHAMPTON. │ │
│ London and Southampton │ 135 │ 96 │ 12,960 │
│ Alexandria and Suez │ 400 │ 96 │ 38,400 │
│ ├—————————┤
│ │ 218,200 │
└—————————————————————————————————————————————┴—————————┘
It should be explained that the heavy mails that are conveyed by the
steamers of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company,
between Southampton and Alexandria, are taken across the Isthmus of
Suez by separate trains from those which convey the light mails _viâ_
Marseilles; hence, there are ninety-six trips of Eastern mails per
annum across the Isthmus for the Marseilles mails, and ninety-six for
those _viâ_ Southampton. Thus the total annual length of this great
postal service is:—
Kilometres.
Water 2,290,320
Land 218,200
——————————
2,508,520
══════════
The weight and dimensions of the Eastern mails have increased very
greatly during recent years. This is owing partly to the immense
expansion of the trade of England in the Indian, Chinese, and
Australian oceans, and partly to the British army in India, consisting
of at least three times as many Europeans as previous to the Indian
mutiny of 1857. England has also a larger fleet in the Indian and
Chinese Waters than formerly. In 1865, the trading interests of
England, in the Eastern seas, was as follows, in pounds sterling:—
┌—————————──────────┬————──────——┬———──────———┬———————──────────————─┐
│ │ │ │ Tonnage of Vessels. │
│ Countries. │ Imports. │ Exports. ├───────────┬——————————┤
│ │ │ │ Entered. │ Cleared. │
├—————————──────────┼————──────——┼—————──────—┼—————──────┼—————─────┤
│ │ £ │ £ │ £ │ £ │
│ British India │ 37,395,372 │ 18,254,570 │ 664,391 │ 671,856 │
│ Singapore │ 2,169,056 │ 1,442,450 │ 77,835 │ 50,292 │
│ Ceylon │ 3,707,615 │ 685,308 │ 52,197 │ 50,400 │
│ Mauritius │ 1,246,299 │ 596,848 │ 41,029 │ 30,805 │
│ China │ 10,673,690 │ 3,609,301 │ 91,606 │ 80,375 │
│ Hong Kong │ 773,068 │ 1,561,851 │ 14,608 │ 42,848 │
│ Egypt │ 21,772,250 │ 5,985,087 │ 361,419 │ 488,268 │
│ Dutch Possessions │ 226 │ 928,642 │ Nil. │ 29,349 │
│ Philippine Island │ 1,253,904 │ 945,642 │ 23,207 │ 18,055 │
│ Japan │ 614,743 │ 1,520,895 │ 9,361 │ 19,602 │
│ Australia │ 10,283,113 │ 13,352,357 │ 156,649 │ 387,239 │
├———————————————————┼————————————┼————————————┼———————————┼——————————┤
│ Total..£│ 68,117,356 │ 42,897,846 │ 1,492,102 │1,869,090 │
└———————————————————┴————————————┴————————————┴———————————┴——————————┘
The value of all the imports into the United Kingdom for the year 1865,
was £271,131,967; so that the value of the imports of the countries
above enumerated is very nearly one-fourth of the total value of
English imports. British exports, consisting of materials and of
articles manufactured in Great Britain in 1865, were £165,862,402,
of which nearly one-fourth was exported to the above-enumerated
countries. The total tonnage of the vessels cleared inwards in British
ports during 1865, was 14,317,866 tons. The total outward tonnage was
14,576,206 tons. The inward tonnage, to the countries enumerated above,
was therefore a tenth of the total inward tonnage of the kingdom; and
the outward tonnage was an eighth of the total outward tonnage.
In proof of the immense and rapid extension of England’s trade with the
East, it may be stated that the figures given above show amounts three
times as great as they were five years, and nearly twenty times as
great as they were fifty years ago.
The Eastern mails, sent _viâ_ Marseilles, are packed in wrought-iron
boxes. They weigh about thirteen pounds, and their contents usually
weigh about thirty-seven pounds. A box, fully packed, contains about
220 newspapers; the average weight of each of which is 3¼ English
ounces. If a box be filled with letters, the number of them is about
1,800. The average weight of each letters is a little more than a
quarter of an English ounce, or about 7½ French grammes.
The mails sent _viâ_ Southampton are packed in wooden boxes of larger
dimensions than those sent _viâ_ Marseilles. As the letter postal rate
is really double _viâ_ Marseilles what it is _viâ_ Southampton, and
as the great proportion of the official letters passing between the
Indian office in London and the three presidencies in India, as well
as the official correspondence with the army and navy, is conveyed
_viâ_ Southampton, the number of letters carried in a box is about the
same as in a box _viâ_ Marseilles, notwithstanding the difference of
dimensions. The number of newspapers sent in a box _viâ_ Southampton is
about a third more than in a box sent _viâ_ Marseilles.
In 1850, when there were only two despatches of mails from England
to the East per month, _viâ_ Marseilles, and one per month _viâ_
Southampton, the average number of boxes per despatch was 57 _viâ_
Marseilles and 152 _viâ_ Southampton.
In 1858, as I have already stated, mails commenced to be despatched
between England and Australia by the Overland Route—that is both _viâ_
Southampton and _viâ_ Marseilles. The service is once a month, and the
Australian mail forms a part of the mails despatched from Southampton
on the 20th of each month, and from Marseilles on the 26th of each
month.
The dates for the three other despatches of each month are _viâ_
Southampton the 4th, the 12th, the 27th; _viâ_ Marseilles the 3rd, the
10th, and the 17th.
I mentioned in the last paragraph but two the number of boxes of mails
despatched per month in 1850.
In 1861 the average number of boxes despatched _viâ_ Marseilles, on the
three occasions in each month when the Australian are not forwarded,
was 89; but on the 26th of each month, when the Australian mail is
included, the number of boxes despatched was 232.
The weight of the mails from the East towards England is never so
great as from England towards the East; and this is caused from the
fact that for every fifty newspapers that are sent from England to the
East there is not more than one sent from the East to England; and the
average weight of the latter is little more than one half the average
weight of the former. For this reason the number of boxes received on
each occasion in each month of 1861, when the Australian mail was not
received, was twenty-two; but when the Australian mail was received the
number was fifty-three.
I regret that I am not able to give the same information for 1861 as
regards the Southampton route; but an Appendix to the Report of a
Committee of the House of Commons which sat in 1866 upon the postal and
telegraph communications of England with the East, enables me to state
them with accuracy for the years 1864 and 1865.
In 1850 the total number of boxes despatched by that route was 1824, or
an average of 152 each departure—in other words, each month; for at
that time there was only one despatch a month _viâ_ Southampton.
In 1864 the total number of boxes despatched during the year had risen
to 16,559, an average of 345 per despatch. The actual weight of these
16,559 boxes was 690 tons, an average of nearly 14½ tons per despatch.
If we compute these mails according to the rules by which articles are
received on board ships—that is by _measurement_ or _bulk_—the tonnage
was 1,540 tons, or an average per voyage of 32 tons.
The greatest mail carried by any one steamer was by the departure from
Southampton of the 20th of April, 1864. There were 1,117 boxes; they
weighed 46 tons actual weight, but by measurement they were 99 tons.
In 1865 the total number of boxes despatched was 17,839, being 1,280
more than in 1864. The average per despatch was 372. The actual weight
of these 17,839 boxes was 747 tons, an average of a little more than
15½ tons per despatch. Their tonnage by measurement or bulk was 1,660
tons, or an average per voyage of 35 tons. The greatest mail carried by
any one steamer was by the departure from Southampton of the 20th of
November. There were 1,207 boxes; they weighed 49¾ tons actual weight;
but by measurement, 106½ tons. The mail despatched on the 20th of each
month is, of course, invariably the heaviest, containing as it does the
Australian mail, which mail usually consists of about six times as many
boxes as are despatched to Egypt, India, China, and Japan combined. The
mail despatched on the 27th of each month is invariably the lightest;
the mail despatched on the 12th is the second lightest; next comes in
weight the mail despatched on the 4th.
I was favoured last month with official returns, which give the
number of boxes despatched outwards, both _viâ_ Marseilles and _viâ_
Southampton, during the months of January, February and March of this
present year, and the same information as regards mails received
inwards. As these returns give the latest information respecting the
mails conveyed by both routes, I send you the following very full
compilation of them.
Number of boxes of Eastern mails despatched from and received at London
during the first three months of 1867:-
_Viâ_ SOUTHAMPTON.
┌—————————┬———————————┬————————————╥——————————┬———————————┬——————————┐
│ Date of │ India, │ ║ Date of │ India, │ │
│Despatch │China, and │ Australia. ║ Arrival │China, and │Australia.│
│Outwards.│ Mediterr. │ ║Homewards.│ Mediterr. │ │
├—————————┼———————————┼————————————╫——————————┼———————————┼——————————┤
│ Jan. 4 │ 213 │ .. ║ Jan. 10 │ 23 │ .. │
│ ” 12 │ 169 │ .. ║ ” 18 │ 30 │ 475 │
│ ” 20 │ 233 │ 709 ║ ” 26 │ 20 │ .. │
│ ” 26 │ 80 │ .. ║ Feb. 2 │ 27 │ .. │
│ Feb. 4 │ 248 │ .. ║ ” 11 │ 24 │ .. │
│ ” 12 │ 92 │ .. ║ ” 16 │ 31 │ 448 │
│ ” 20 │ 232 │ 762 ║ ” 24 │ 24 │ .. │
│ ” 27 │ 80 │ .. ║ March 8 │ 27 │ .. │
│March 4 │ 199 │ .. ║ ” 13 │ 25 │ .. │
│ ” 12 │ 97 │ .. ║ ” 21 │ 35 │ 463 │
│ ” 20 │ 184 │ 800 ║ ” 28 │ 23 │ .. │
│ ” 27 │ 56 │ .. ║ .. │ .. │ .. │
└—————————┴———————————┴————————————╨——————————┴———————————┴——————————┘
_Viâ_ MARSEILLES.
OUTWARDS. │ INWARDS.
Date. Boxes. │ Date. Boxes.
January 3 125 │ January 3 38
” 10 122 │ ” 10 80
” 18 114 │ ” 18 22
” 26 374 │ ” 26 25
February 4 114 │ February 4 45
” 11 168 │ ” 11 81
” 18 99 │ ” 18 41
” 26 340 │ ” 26 50
March 4 98 │ March 4 34
” 11 161 │ ” 11 81
” 18 96 │ ” 18 51
” 26 323 │ ” 26 22
The returns, _viâ_ Marseilles, do not separate the numbers of boxes
to and from Australia, from those for the Mediterranean, India, and
China, but the great difference between the number of boxes despatched
outwards on the 26th of each month, and the number received inwards
on the 10th of each month, will show approximately what is the number
of boxes attributable to Australia. Outwards, it would be about 240;
inwards, about 40.
But this is certain, that during the three first months of 1867 no
less than 6,288 boxes (or at the rate of 25,152 boxes per annum) were
despatched outwards, and 1,675 boxes (or at the rate of 8,980 per
annum) were received inwards. Total outwards and inwards for three
months, 8,533, or at the rate of 34,132 boxes per annum. Taking each
box at the weight of 30 kilogrammes (which is below their weight taken
all round) it follows that the gross weight of the Eastern mails per
annum is 1,024,000 kilogrammes, or about 1,100 tons. By ship-board
measurement it would be about 2,300,000 kilogrammes, or 2,550 tons.
There are two important subjects which it appears to me should at once
be impressed upon the minds of the members of the Italian Government.
The first is, the probable very early completion of the Mont Cenis
Railway on Mr. Fell’s system, and the second, the notice given at
the end of last year by the British Government to the Peninsular
and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, to terminate its existing
_Mediterranean_ contracts on the 31st of January, 1868, and the
advertisement which it has since issued, inviting parties to tender
for these services, dating from the 1st day of the ensuing month—that
is from the first of February, 1868. This advertisement contains,
for the first time, an intimation that the British Post Office is
desirous of establishing an ocean contract service between Brindisi and
Alexandria, in addition to its existing services between Southampton
and Alexandria, and between Marseilles and Alexandria.
As regards the Mont Cenis Railway, the testimony of the various
Imperial and Royal Commissioners who were present at the trials on the
experimental line above Lanslebourg, made in 1865, is so uniformly
in favour of the system, that we have simply to look forward to its
opening as the commencement of a revolution, not only as regards
railway construction in mountainous districts, but also as leading to
the most important results, in connection with the transport of the
Anglo-Eastern mails.
The two kingdoms most deeply interested in the success of the system
are, undoubtedly, England and Italy, the former, because, by means
of the railway the transport of the fast mails can, according to the
testimony of Captain Tyler, of Her Britannic Majesty’s Royal Engineers,
and the Commissioners of the British Government, at the trials on the
Mont Cenis, be effected between London and Alexandria, in thirty-nine
hours less time than _viâ_ Marseilles. Italy becomes, by means of this
railway, a route hitherto undeveloped, and it can be brought into
active operation not only for mail transport, but also for that of
passengers; and no doubt, eventually, for that of light goods, and of
specie also.
The advertisement of the British Government leads to the inference
that it desires the conveyance of the fast mails,—that is the mails
that now take the route _viâ_ Marseilles—by way of Brindisi, as soon
as all the arrangements for their transit are completed. It is to be
feared, however, that the French Post Office, instigated no doubt by
the Paris, Lyons and Mediterranean Railway Company, whose interests
are concentrated at Marseilles, _and who has no love whatever for the
Mont Cenis Railway_, will offer all the opposition in its power to
the divergence from Marseilles to Brindisi taking place. In the first
instance the department gave assurances that it would not only not put
obstacles in the way of the British Government making the transfer,
but would co-operate with it and assist it whenever required to do so.
But in December last, the Marquis de Moustier, the French Minister of
Foreign Affairs, addressed to Earl Cowley, the British Ambassador at
Paris, a despatch which contained a memorandum from the French Post
Office, the object of which was to show that the Brindisi route would
only save ten hours over that _viâ_ Marseilles, for mails from England,
and would not effect any saving for mails coming from Egypt towards
England. The memorandum contains several errors of fact, the most
conspicuous of which is that the calculations are the same as were
brought forward by the department when the _Ferrovia Meridionale_ was
only opened as far as Ancona, whereas it is now extended to Brindisi,
559 kilometres farther southwards, and therefore that much the nearer
to Alexandria.
I have reason also to know that the French Government expressed, in
December last, to the British Government, its willingness to reduce
its present transit rate for British correspondence to and from India,
China, Australia, &c., _one-half_, provided the fast mails continued to
be conveyed _viâ_ Marseilles, and that they be not deviated to Brindisi.
For these reasons I am sure that the Italian Government will see the
necessity and importance of vigorous action; and vigour is all the
more necessary, as the officers of the British Post Office have very
frequently made the avowal that their leading principle in all their
postal arrangements is to make each self supporting. Therefore, unless
under compulsion to the contrary, they would probably accept such a
proposal,—at all events I am convinced that they would, if they could.
At the present time the British Government sustains a loss of about
1,000,000 francs (£40,000), a-year by its Anglo-Eastern mail services.
So far as regards the substitution of Brindisi for Marseilles in the
conveyance of what are known in this country as “THE FAST EASTERN
MAILS.”
I now desire to approach a subject which I consider to be of at
least equal interest and importance, both to Italy and to England,
and I shall be much gratified if the Italian Government consider the
suggestion I have to offer (which I may state is an original idea of
my own), in the same light as I do. In order that I may make myself
clearly understood, it will be necessary to go into rather lengthy
details.
England has two rates of postage for the letter correspondence.
Newspapers and printed matter, which are conveyed by her Anglo-Eastern
Mails, by the Marseilles route, the letter postage rate for half ounce,
or fifteen grammes, is 100 centimes (tenpence); newspapers thirty
centimes (threepence) each. Book post sixty centimes (sixpence), per
four ounces, or 120 grammes. By the mails which are conveyed _viâ_
Southampton, the letter rate per half-ounce, or fifteen grammes, is
sixty centimes (sixpence); newspapers twenty centimes (twopence) each.
Book post forty centimes (fourpence) per four ounces or 120 grammes.
It follows therefore that a great number of newspapers and all heavy
letters are forwarded _viâ_ Southampton.
At the commencement of the Overland Indian Mail Service, in consequence
of the absence of railways in France, there was scarcely any difference
between the time required to convey correspondence _viâ_ Southampton
and _viâ_ Marseilles. But by degrees, as the railway system between
Calais and Marseilles came into operation the time by that route
diminished, and what, in 1840, was a journey of 120 hours, or five
days, between London and Marseilles, has in recent years, for the
Eastern mail service, been reduced to thirty-four hours.