PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEE.
I opened the year 1838 with a series of letters to Lord Lichfield, which
were inserted in all the morning papers. These letters were written in
the manner described below; and it may save trouble hereafter to remark
that much else which has appeared under my name, together with not a
little to be found in my minutes at the Treasury and at the Post Office,
was produced in the same way. To me the device and elaboration of plans
was incomparably easier than their exposition or advocacy; with my
brother Arthur the case was the reverse; and this led me to the frequent
employment of his pen. What neither of us could have effected separately,
joint action made easy.
Our mode of proceeding was as follows: I having collected and arranged my
facts and formed a skeleton of the proposed paper, we sat down together,
my brother dictating and I writing, often, however, pausing to bring the
language into more exact expression of my thoughts, or to mention, or at
times to learn, some new idea that arose as we went on. Occasionally,
however, when business pressed we worked apart; but in any case the whole
paper so constructed underwent our joint revision, and we sometimes
found that the thoughts with which we had started had, in the very
attempt to express them, undergone such modification that we rejected all
that had been done, and began our task afresh.
The letters to Lord Lichfield were written mainly in reply to his
lordship’s speeches in Parliament, from which some passages have already
been cited. From these letters I give one or two quotations:—
“In the series of letters which I shall take the liberty of
addressing to your lordship, I hope I shall carefully maintain
that respect for the claims, and consideration for the feelings
of others, which, I trust, have marked all that I have hitherto
written. Your lordship must be well aware that whoever enters
on the task of innovation must expect some amount of ridicule
or abuse aimed either at his plan or himself. Your lordship
must feel that a person so circumstanced ought not to allow
such a necessary consequence of his attempt either to deter him
from his adopted course, or to provoke his retaliation.”
The following passage from the third letter is in reply to the
announcement by Government that the _principle_ of stamped covers would
be tried in the London District:—
“Should the trial of stamped covers on the plan now
unfortunately contemplated issue in success, the world will
indeed see a paradox,—an effect without a cause. Were such
an experiment merely useless it might pass without comment;
but its inevitable failure may produce no small mischief. An
apparent trial of a plan may easily be confounded with a real
one; and though I am sure nothing could be further from the
intentions of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, yet, had the aim
been to throw unfair discredit on the plan, it would have been
difficult to devise a better mode of proceeding.”
The following passage is from the last letter:—
“There is one remaining objection, which, as it can scarcely
have been made seriously, needs but little remark. Your
lordship objects that, on the required increase in the amount
of correspondence, ‘the whole area on which the Post Office
stands would not be large enough to receive the clerks and
the letters.’ Without adverting to the means which I have
distinctly pointed out for obviating any such inconvenience,
I am sure that your lordship will not have much hesitation in
deciding whether, in this great and commercial country, the
size of the Post Office is to be regulated by the amount of
correspondence, or the amount of correspondence by the size of
the Post Office.”
About the time that the last of these letters appeared, an important
movement, which had been already some weeks in preparation, took definite
shape. Mr. Moffatt, afterwards M.P. for Southampton, had proposed to me
the establishment of a “Mercantile Committee,” to collect evidence in
favour of the plan. His proposal being gladly accepted, he went to work
with such earnestness, that I soon found in him one of my most zealous,
steady, and efficient supporters. Funds he raised with comparative ease,
but the formation of a committee he found more difficult than he had
expected. Now, however, February 5th, 1838, he wrote to inform me that he
had at length prevailed upon Mr. Bates, of the House of Baring Brothers,
to accept the office of chairman; and this point being secured, other
good members were easily obtained. As soon as the committee was formed,
I was invited to attend, in order to give such information as might seem
desirable, and to answer such questions as any of the members might wish
to propose.
Mr. Ashurst, father of the [late] solicitor to the Post Office, having
been requested to act as solicitor to the committee, went promptly to
work; and though by choice he acted gratuitously, he laboured with as
much ardour as if important personal interests were involved in the
issue. No less earnestness was shown by Mr. Henry Cole,[152] who had
been engaged to aid in the work. He was the author of almost innumerable
devices, by which, in his indefatigable ingenuity, he contrived to draw
public attention to the proposed measure. He once passed through the Post
Office, and afterwards exhibited in fac-simile to the public eye (the
originals being previously shown in Parliament), two letters, so arranged
as to display, in the clearest light, the absurdity of the existing rule
of charge. Of these, one nearly as light as a feather, and almost small
enough to require a pair of forceps for its handling, quite a letter for
Lilliput, but containing an enclosure, bore double postage; while the
other, weighing nearly an ounce, eight inches broad, and more than a
foot long, when folded a very creditable letter for Brobdingnag, but all
written on one sheet, had its postage single.
Meanwhile the Parliamentary Committee, appointed on the motion of Mr.
Wallace, began its sittings. Mr. Wallace, being appointed chairman,
thenceforth concentrated his indefatigable efforts upon its work; and his
labour during the whole session—his duties being by no means confined to
the formal sittings—was most severe.
The committee sat no less than sixty-three days. They examined “the
Postmaster-General, the secretaries and the solicitors of the three Post
Offices of England, Ireland, and Scotland, and other officers of the Post
Office department; obtained many important returns from the Post Office,
most of which they directed to be prepared expressly for their use; and
also examined the chairman, secretary, and solicitor of the Board of
Stamps and Taxes, Mr. Rowland Hill, and eighty-three other witnesses,
of various occupations, professions, and trades, from various parts of
the kingdom; in the selection of which they were much assisted by an
association of bankers and merchants in London, formed expressly to aid
the committee in the prosecution of their inquiry.”[153] This association
was the committee formed by Mr. Moffatt.
The committee wisely directed its attention chiefly to the question of
inland postage, which indeed offered abundant matter for investigation.
In speaking of the evidence given before this committee, I follow not the
order in which it was given, but the classification observed in the final
Report; selecting, as the Report does, only those portions which bear
most strongly on the questions to be resolved. My own evidence I shall in
the main pass over, seeing that it was in substance almost identical with
my pamphlet. My plan of “secondary distribution,”[154] however, I now
thought it expedient to abandon, so far as regarded the existing range of
post office operations, not from any doubt of its justice or intrinsic
advantage, but with a view to simplify the great question before the
committee.[155]
One question, of course, related to the varying rates of postage,
which any one accustomed to present simplicity would find sufficiently
perplexing. In Great Britain (for in Ireland it was somewhat different)
the postage on a single letter delivered within eight miles of the
office where it was posted was, as a general rule—consequent on a recent
reduction—twopence, the lowest rate beyond that limit being fourpence.
Beyond fifteen miles it became fivepence; after which it rose a penny
at a time, but by irregular augmentation, to one shilling, the charge
for three hundred miles; one penny more served for four hundred miles,
and thenceforward augmentation went on at the same rate, each additional
penny serving for another hundred miles. This plan of charge, with
various complications arising out of it, produced remarkable anomalies.
As if this complexity were not quite enough, there was as a general rule
an additional charge of a half-penny on a letter crossing the Scotch
border; while letters to or from Ireland had to bear, in addition, packet
rates, and rates for crossing the bridges over the Conway and the Menai;
or, if they took the southern route, a rate chargeable at Milford.[156]
Lastly, there was the rule already mentioned, by which a letter with the
slightest enclosure incurred double postage, and with two enclosures
triple; the postage, however, being regulated by weight whenever this
reached an ounce, at which point the charge became quadruple; rising
afterwards by a single postage for every additional quarter of an
ounce.[157] Surely it is no wonder that Post Office officials, viewing
prepayment in connection with such whimsical complexity, and probably
thinking the connection indissoluble, should be hopeless of inducing the
public to adopt the practice.
A second inquiry, which occupied much attention, referred to the number
of chargeable letters then passing annually through the Office. The
importance of this question, which no longer appears at first sight, was
then so great that it was regarded as one of the main points at issue
between the Post Office and myself.
Its importance arose thus. To estimate the increase in correspondence
required for my purpose, it was obviously necessary to know the amount of
loss per letter involved in the proposed reduction of postage; in other
words, the difference between the proposed rate and the average of the
rates actually paid, which average had therefore to be arrived at. This I
placed at sixpence farthing, the Post Office authorities at a shilling.
Actual knowledge, however, did not exist, and each party had resorted
to calculation, dividing the gross revenue by the supposed number of
letters. That number I then estimated at eighty-eight millions,[158]
the Post Office authoritatively declared it to be only forty-two or
forty-three millions;[159] hence the difference in our results as to the
actual average of postage, and consequently as to the required increase
in correspondence, which I fixed at five-and-a-quarter-fold, the Post
Office at twelve-fold.
Of course it would have been easy for the Post Office authorities to
correct their calculation, before the appointment of the committee, by an
actual counting of letters; nor have I ever learned why this corrective
was not applied. I had indeed to thank the department for obligingly
supplying me with a fact essential to my calculation, viz., the number
of letters, general and local, delivered in London in one week; and had
this fact been dealt with by the Post Office as I myself dealt with it
(a process, however, pronounced incorrect by the office),[160] the same
result, or nearly so, must have been arrived at by both parties; but, as
already intimated, had the counting process been applied to the whole
country, as was afterwards done on the requisition of the committee, the
whole question would have been settled at once.
Before my examination, however, I had been enabled, by the civility of
the Postmaster-General, to obtain further information, chiefly as to the
number of letters delivered and postage collected in Birmingham; and
this had led me so far to modify my former estimate, as to reduce it to
seventy-nine and a-half, or, in round numbers, to eighty millions.[161]
I may here add that yet further information, supplied on the requisition
of the committee, enabling me to make yet further correction, I again
reduced my estimate to seventy-eight millions.[162] By the same time,
the Post Office, having abandoned the statement so confidently put
forth, had raised the number to fifty-eight and a-quarter millions,[163]
and this, after the counting mentioned above, it again advanced to
seventy and a-quarter millions.[164] The committee, after very elaborate
calculations made by Mr. Warburton, fixed it at seventy-seven and a-half
millions,[165] that is, ten and a-half millions below my first rough
estimate, made on very limited information, and thirty-five and a-half
millions above the authoritative statement of the Postmaster-General,
made with all means of correction at command. The committee’s conclusion
as to the number of letters confirmed also my estimate as to the average
single postage, viz., sixpence farthing.[166] It seems invidious, but I
think it not superfluous, thus distinctly to report the result, since it
may serve usefully to show, when other reforms are called for, in this
or any other department, that official authority ought not imperiously
to bear down conclusions arrived at by earnest, laborious, and careful
investigation.
On the question as to the propriety of the existing rates, Colonel
Maberly, the Secretary, and other witnesses from the Post Office, nearly
all gave it as their opinion that these rates were too high, at once for
the general interests of the public and also for those of the revenue.
Indeed, Colonel Maberly believed that “every Postmaster-General had [so]
thought them for many years.”[167] He did not, however, explain why this
opinion, so generally entertained, had been so barren in result; and,
indeed, when the Postmaster-General and the Secretary were interrogated
by the committee as to any general or even specific abatements they might
wish to recommend, no satisfactory reply could be obtained.
The committee received much evidence, both as to the extent to which
the law was evaded by the irregular conveyance of letters, and as to
the evils produced by suppression of correspondence where circumstances
rendered such evasion difficult or impracticable. Thus Mr. Parker and
other publishers reported that it was a common practice, in their
trade, to write a number of letters for different individuals in the
same district, all on one sheet; and that this, on first coming to
hand, was cut up into its several parts, each being delivered either
by hand or through the local posts.[168] Mr. Dillon, of the firm of
Morrison, Dillon, and Co., reported a similar practice, in respect of
money payments.[169] By other witnesses it was established that illicit
correspondence was “carried on throughout the country, in systematic
evasion of the law, if not in open violation of it, to an extent that
could hardly have been imagined, and which it would be difficult to
calculate;” this occurring “principally in the neighbourhood of large
towns, and in populous manufacturing districts;” some carriers making
it “their sole business to collect and distribute letters,” which they
did “openly, without fear of the consequences; women and children”
being “employed to collect the letters.”[170] Throughout one district
the practice was “said to be universal, and was known to have been
established there for nearly fifty years.”[171] “The average number
of letters thus sent daily throughout the year by a house in the
neighbourhood of Walsall exceeded fifty, and by that house more than a
hundred and twenty had been sent in one day. Not one-fiftieth part of the
letters from Walsall to the neighbouring towns was sent by post.”[172]
Mr. Cobden, as yet new to fame, but who had been deputed by the Chamber
of Commerce at Manchester to give in evidence the results of its
inquiries, reported thus—
“The extent to which evasion is there practised is incredible;
five-sixths of the letters from Manchester to London do not
pass through the Post Office.”[173]
Similar evidence was received from Glasgow.[174] Mr. Brewin, of
Cirencester, reported that—
“The people in that town did not think of using the post for
the conveyance of letters; he knew two carriers who carried
four times as many letters as the mail did.”[175]
Further evidence, equally weighty and equally striking, came in from
other quarters.[176] Various devices, now doubtless forgotten through
disuse, were then in constant requisition; thus letters for travellers
and others in the trade were habitually enclosed in the parcels sent by
the great London booksellers to their customers in the provinces; similar
use was made of warehousemen’s bales and parcels, and of boxes and
trunks forwarded by carriers; as also of what were termed “free packets,”
containing the patterns and correspondence of manufacturers, which the
coach proprietors carried free of charge, except fourpence for booking.
In the neighbourhood of Glasgow recourse was had to “weavers’ bags,”
that is, bags containing work for the weavers, which the manufacturers
forwarded to some neighbouring town, and of “family boxes”—farmers having
sons at the University forwarding to them once or twice a week boxes
containing provisions, and the neighbours making a Post Office of the
farmer’s house.[177]
Colonel Maberly, however, did not attach much value to all this evidence,
knowing “from long experience, when he was in Parliament, that merchants
and interested parties are very apt to overstate their case,” and
his view was supported by some of his subordinates, though strongly
contradicted by others, especially by the late solicitor to the General
Post Office, Mr. Peacock, who “apprehends the illegal conveyance of
letters to be carried to a very great extent at the present moment, and
has no doubt that persons of respectability in the higher, as well as the
humbler walks of life, are in the habit of sending letters by illegal
conveyance to a great extent.”[178] The same general opinion was strongly
expressed by the solicitor to the Irish Post Office who represented even
the drivers and guards of the mail-coaches as constantly engaged in the
illegal traffic.
In relation to letters going abroad, the following is the summary of the
evidence:—
“The evasion of the postage on letters sent from different
parts of the United Kingdom to the out-ports, for the
purpose of being put on board of ships bound to foreign
parts, especially to the United States of America, is yet
more remarkable than the evasion of the inland postage. It
is thoroughly known to the Post Office authorities; but the
practice appears to be winked at. Colonel Maberly speaks of
that practice as one known, and almost recognised.”[179]
The following curious fact was stated by a witness from Liverpool, Mr.
Maury, president of the “American Chamber of Commerce.” When arrangements
had been completed for the establishment of regular steam navigation
between that town and New York, the postmaster, expecting to have a
large despatch of letters to provide for, was careful to furnish himself
with a bag of ample dimensions, but, “to his astonishment, received only
five letters in all,” though “by the first steamer at least ten thousand
letters were in fact sent, all in one bag, which was opened at the office
of the consignee of the ship. Mr. Maury himself sent at least two hundred
letters by that ship, which went free.”[180]
These extraordinary statements were strongly supported by the evidence
of Mr. Lawrence, Assistant Secretary to the London Office, who “states
that, from what the Post Office have learnt, the American packet, which
leaves London every ten days, carries 4,000 letters, each voyage, which
do not pass through the Post Office; that he is aware of the existence in
London of receiving-houses for letters, to be forwarded otherwise than
by the Post; the Jerusalem Coffee-house, for instance, receives letters
for the East Indies; the North and South American Coffee-house, for
South America, the United States, and British America; that almost every
ship-broker in London has a bag hanging up for letters to be forwarded by
the ship to which he is broker; and that the number of letters for North
America so collected for several ships in the office of one ship-broker
have been enough to load a cab.”
In short, the committee came “to the conclusion that, with regard to
large classes of the community, those principally to whom it is a matter
of necessity to correspond on matters of business, and to whom, also,
it is a matter of importance to save the expense of postage, the Post
Office, instead of being viewed as it ought to be, and would be, under
a wise administration of it, as an institution of ready and universal
access, distributing equally to all, and with an open hand, the blessing
of commerce and civilization, is regarded by them as an establishment too
expensive to be made use of, and as one with the employment of which they
endeavour to dispense by every means in their power.”[181]
They also became convinced that if it were possible, by increased
rigour, to put a stop to the illicit transmission of letters, a vast
diminution must take place in the number of letters written; and that
the suppression of correspondence already caused by high rates would be
greatly magnified. One witness had “made a calculation some time ago
among the poor manufacturers, and found that, when one of them in full
work could earn forty shillings a week, he would receive, on an average,
thirty orders, which, at fourpence a piece, if they went through the Post
Office, would be twenty-five per cent. on his earnings.”[182]
While, however, illicit correspondence was found thus prevalent,
there was abundant and striking evidence to show that “high rates of
postage deter the public to a vast extent from writing letters and
sending communications which otherwise they would write or send;”
that “even those who have the means of evasion within their reach
reduce their correspondence greatly below the standard which, under
other circumstances, they would think expedient;” that “suppression of
correspondence on matters of business takes the place of evasion in
proportion as the transactions to be announced or performed are moderate
in amount, and the condition in life of the parties is humble.”[183]
Were it not too tedious to enumerate even the heads under which
suppression was deposed to, the reader, accustomed to the present state
of things, would be astonished at the extent and variety to which
movements would be restricted by a return to the old rates. Some few
instances are all that can be noted. Who would now divine that high
rates of postage could have any relation to the prevalence of small-pox?
And yet it was found that “Practitioners and others in the country do
not apply for lymph, in the degree they otherwise would do, to the
institutions formed in London for the spread of vaccination, for fear of
postage.”
Again: “Sixpence,” says Mr. Brewin, “is a third of a poor man’s daily
income; if a gentleman, whose fortune is a thousand pounds a year, or
three pounds a day, had to pay one-third of his daily income, that
is, a sovereign, for a letter, how often would he write letters of
friendship?” ... “The people do not think of using the Post Office; it
is barred against them by the very high charge.”[184] “Mr. G. Henson, a
working hosier from Nottingham, had given his wife instructions not to
take letters in unless they came from particular persons; it would take
half his income were he to pay postage.”[185]
The following statement, showing at once the desire and the inability
of the poor to correspond, is taken from the evidence of Mr. Emery,
Deputy-Lieutenant for Somersetshire, and a Commissioner of Taxes:—
“A person in my parish of the name of Rosser had a letter
from a grand-daughter in London, and she could not take up
the letter for want of the means. She was a pauper, receiving
two-and-sixpence a week.... She told the Post Office keeper
that she must wait until she had received the money from the
relieving officer; she could never spare enough; and at last a
lady gave her a shilling to get the letter, but the letter had
been returned to London by the Post Office mistress. She never
had the letter since. It came from her grand-daughter, who is
in service in London.”[186]
Struck by this statement, Mr. Emery made further inquiries. The following
statement he received from the postmaster of Banwell:—
“My father kept the Post Office many years; he is lately dead;
he used to trust poor people very often with letters; they
generally could not pay the whole charge. He told me, indeed I
know, he did lose many pounds by letting poor people have their
letters. We sometimes return them to London in consequence of
the inability of the persons to whom they are addressed raising
the postage. We frequently keep them for weeks; and, where
we know the parties, let them have them, taking the chance
of getting our money. One poor woman once offered my sister
a silver spoon, to keep until she could raise the money; my
sister did not take the spoon, and the woman came with the
amount in a day or two and took up the letter. It came from
her husband, who was confined for debt in prison; she had six
children, and was very badly off.”[187]
The following was reported by the postmaster of Congresbury:—
“The price of a letter is a great tax on poor people. I sent
one, charged eightpence, to a poor labouring man about a week
ago; it came from his daughter. He first refused taking it,
saying it would take a loaf of bread from his other children;
but, after hesitating a little time, he paid the money, and
opened the letter. I seldom return letters of this kind to
Bristol, because I let the poor people have them, and take
the chance of being paid; sometimes I lose the postage, but
generally the poor people pay me by degrees.”[188]
The postmaster of Yatton stated as follows:—
“I have had a letter waiting lately from the husband of a poor
woman, who is at work in Wales; the charge was ninepence; it
lay many days, in consequence of her not being able to pay the
postage. I at last trusted her with it.”[189]
Mr. Cobden stated:—
“We have fifty thousand in Manchester who are Irish, or the
immediate descendants of Irish; and all the large towns in the
neighbourhood contain a great many Irish, or the descendants of
Irish, who are almost as much precluded, as though they lived
in New South Wales, from all correspondence or communication
with their relatives in Ireland.”[190]
As the postage between Manchester and most parts of Ireland was then
about double the present postage (1869) from any part of England or
Ireland to Australia, the separation between the Irish in Lancashire and
their countrymen at home must then have been, postally considered, not
only as great, but about twice as great as is now that between the Irish
at home and their friends at the Antipodes.
Of the desire of the poor to correspond, Mr. Emery gave further evidence,
stating:—
“That the poor near Bristol have signed a petition to
Parliament for the reduction of the postage. He never saw
greater enthusiasm in any public thing that was ever got up
in the shape of a petition; they seemed all to enter into the
thing as fully, and with as much feeling as it was possible,
as a boon or godsend to them, that they should be able to
correspond with, their distant friends.”[191]
Much evidence was also given as to the extent of moral evil caused by
the suppression of correspondence. On this point Mr. Henson speaks again:—
“When a man goes on the tramp, he must either take his family
with him, perhaps one child in arms, or else the wife must be
left behind; and the misery I have known them to be in, from
not knowing what has become of the husband, because they could
not hear from him, has been extreme. Perhaps the man, receiving
only sixpence, has never had the means, upon the whole line,
of paying tenpence for a letter to let his wife know where he
was.”[192]
Mr. Dunlop believed that—
“One of the worst parts of the present system of heavy postage
is, that it gradually estranges an absentee from his home and
family, and tends to engender a neglect of the ties of blood,
in fact, to encourage a selfish spirit; at the same time he
has known very affecting instances of families in extreme
poverty making a sacrifice to obtain a letter from the Post
Office.”[193]
Mr. Brankston said:—
“I have seen much of the evils resulting from the want of
communication between parents and their children among the
young persons in our establishment; I find the want of
communication with their parents by letter has led, in some
instances, to vice and profligacy which might have been
otherwise prevented.”[194]
It was also shown that one effect of suppression of correspondence was to
keep working-men ignorant of the state of wages in different parts of the
country, so that they did not know where labour was in demand. Thus Mr.
Brewin said:—
“We often see poor men travelling the country for work, and
sometimes they come back, and it appears they have been in
a wrong direction; if the postage were low they would write
first, and know whether they were likely to succeed.”[195]
Mr. Henson stated as follows:—
“The Shoemakers’ Society at Nottingham tell me that 350 persons
have come there for relief.... Very few of those persons would
have gone upon tramp if they could have sent circular letters
to a number of the largest towns in England at a penny to
receive information whether a job could be got or not.”[196]
It may be observed that one of the main facts now urged in favour of
Trades Unions is, that they collect and circulate the very information
here spoken of as so much wanting.
There was evidence to show that the difficulty of communication
aggravated—
“The remarkable pertinacity of the poor to continue in their
own parish, rather than remove to another where their condition
would be bettered.”[197]
It was also stated that—
“The consequence of the high rates, in preventing the
working-classes from having intercourse by letter, is, that
those who learned at school to write a copy have lost their
ability to do so.”[198]
Mr. Henson adds that—
“There are many persons, who, when he first knew them wrote an
excellent hand, but now, from their scarcely ever practising,
they write very badly: one of these persons is so much out of
the habit of writing that he would as soon do a day’s work, he
says, as write a letter: they are so much out of the habit of
writing that they lose the art altogether.”[199]
Mr. Davidson, of Glasgow, thought—
“That additional opportunities of correspondence would lead the
industrious classes, the working-classes, to pay more attention
to the education of their children than they do now, and that
it would have a highly beneficial effect, both upon their moral
and intellectual character.”[200]
So strong was the sense entertained by some of the witnesses of the evils
inflicted on society by imposing a tax upon postage that they expressed
their doubts whether it were a fit subject for taxation at all. Mr.
Samuel Jones Loyd (now Lord Overstone), said:—
“I think if there be any one subject which ought not to
have been selected as a subject of taxation it is that of
intercommunication by post; and I would even go a step further,
and say, that if there be any one thing which the Government
ought, consistently with its great duties to the public, to do
gratuitously, it is the carriage of letters. We build national
galleries, and furnish them with pictures; we propose to
create public walks, for the air and health and exercise of
the community, at the general cost of the country. I do not
think that either of those, useful and valuable as they are to
the community, and fit as they are for Government to sanction,
are more conducive to the moral and social advancement of the
community than the facility of intercourse by post. I therefore
greatly regret that the post was ever taken as a field for
taxation, and should be very glad to find that, consistently
with the general interests of the revenue, which the Government
has to watch over, they can effect any reduction in the total
amount so received, or any reduction in the charges, without
diminishing the total amount.”[201]
Mr. (afterwards Sir William) Brown, and also Lord Ashburton, strongly
supported this opinion, the latter saying:—
“The communication of letters by persons living at a distance
is the same as a communication by word of mouth between persons
living in the same town. You might as well tax words spoken
upon the Royal Exchange, as the communications of various
persons living in Manchester, Liverpool, and London. You cannot
do it without checking very essentially the disposition to
communicate.”[202]
I pause here in my narrative to bar an inference that might very
naturally be drawn from my citing the above passages, viz., that in
my opinion even the present rates constitute a tax, and may therefore
be wisely and justly abandoned in favour of lower ones, or indeed of
absolutely free conveyance. Certainly, if it could be shown that some
other corporation could and would manage the whole correspondence, with
all its numerous and extensive rootlets and ramifications, on lower
terms than the Government, and this without any sacrifice in speed or
certainty, then the difference between such lower rates and the present
might fairly be termed a tax; but I am not aware that such capability has
yet been conceived, still less seriously maintained; and indeed I cannot
but believe that, taking the duty as a whole, the Post Office, so long
as it is well managed, is likely to do the work on better terms than any
rival institution.
Another opinion erroneously attributed to me, and connected with the
above, is, that so long as the department thrives as a whole, its funds
may justly be applied to maintain special services which do not repay
their own cost; whereas, from the first, I have held that every division
of the service should be at least self-supporting,[203] though I allowed
that, for the sake of simplicity, extensions might be made where there
was no immediate expectation of absolute profit.[204] All beyond this I
have always regarded as contrary to the true principles of free trade, as
swerving into the unsound and dangerous practice of protection. Whenever,
therefore, it is thought that the net revenue from the Post Office is
too high for the interests of the public, I would advise the application
of the surplus to the multiplication of facilities in those districts
in which, through the extent of their correspondence, such revenue is
produced.
To return to the evidence. With regard to the amount of reduction that
it would be expedient to make, the witnesses generally, whether from the
Post Office or otherwise, were of opinion that it must be large; illicit
conveyance having become too firmly established to be effectually dealt
with by any moderate change. The Secretary indeed was of opinion—
“That to whatever extent the postage is reduced, those who have
hitherto evaded it will continue to evade it, since it cannot
be reduced to that price that smugglers will not compete with
the Post Office, at an immense profit.”[205]
It has already been shown that a very important, indeed essential, part
of my plan was uniformity of rate. To this various objections were
raised, some of which would now seem frivolous enough. As an instance, I
may mention the statement—
“That in certain cases extra rates are levied, and are
applicable to the maintenance of certain roads and bridges,
undertaken with a view to expedite the mails which travel over
them.”[206]
An objection the more frivolous as the total amount of the rates thus
levied was less than £8,000.
Some witnesses from the Post Office regarded the uniform rate as “unfair
in principle.”[207] Dr. Lardner, while he regarded it as abstractedly
unjust, yet thought it should be recommended on account of its
simplicity. All the other witnesses were in its favour, provided the
rate were as low as one penny; and nearly all considered a uniform rate
preferable to a varying one, though the rate should somewhat exceed one
penny.[208]
Mr. Jones Loyd observed that the—
“Justice of the uniform plan is perfectly obvious. You are
not warranted in varying the charge to different individuals,
except upon the ground that the cost of conveyance varies; so
far as that varies the charge ought to vary; but it appears to
me that that which consists of a tax upon individuals ought to
have no reference to the place of their residence; it should
either be equal, or, if it varies at all, it should be in
proportion to their means of bearing the tax.”
Being asked whether, if a uniform rate of twopence were imposed on all
letters, and if a person at Limerick got his letters for twopence, a
person at Barnet would not soon find out that he ought to have his
letters for a penny, Mr. Loyd answered:—
“If such be the fact, he would soon find it out, I presume; if
it was not the fact, of course he would never find it out.”[209]
Mr. Dillon made the following remarkable statement:—
“To show how little the cost of transit sometimes enters into
the price of goods, I may mention to the committee, in the
way of illustration, that we buy goods in Manchester; they
are conveyed to London; we sell them in London very often to
dealers resident in Manchester, who again carry them back to
the place from whence they came, and after the cost of two
transits, they will have bought them of us cheaper than they
themselves could have bought them in Manchester. In this
instance, the cost of transit, as an element of price, has
become absolutely destroyed by the force of capital and other
arrangements.”[210]
Colonel Maberly would like a uniform rate of postage, but did not
think it practicable. “Any arrangements which, in the great details of
Post Office matters, introduce simplicity, he looks upon as a great
improvement.”[211] Most of the other Post Office authorities liked
the idea of a uniform rate, as “it would very much facilitate all the
operations of the Post Office.”[212]
The feasibility of payment in advance, now the almost universal practice,
was the subject of much inquiry. Most of the witnesses from the Post
Office recognised the advantage of the arrangement, though some of
them doubted its practicability. Part of this difficulty, it must be
admitted, was, in some sort, of my own creating; for, perceiving that the
costly system of accounting rendered necessary by payment on delivery
could never be entirely set aside unless prepayment became universal,
my first notion had been to make this compulsory; and though, to smooth
the difficulties, I recommended that in the outset an option should be
allowed,—that, namely, which exists at present,—I certainly looked upon
this as but a temporary expedient, and both desired and expected that the
period of probation might be short. Doubtless it was a mistake, though
a very natural one, so to clog my plan; my aim, however, was not to
establish a pleasing symmetry, but to attain an important practical end.
The Postmaster-General and the Secretary were both of opinion that the
public would not like prepayment. Being called on to reply to objections
on this point, I showed that the question for the public to determine was
between prepayment at a low rate and post-payment at a high rate; and I
ventured to predict that, when so considered, the objection to prepayment
would speedily die away; the more so as the difference proposed to be
made between the two modes of payment, viz., that between one penny
and twopence, was not adopted “as an artificial means of enforcing
prepayment,” but arose “out of the greater economy to the Post Office
of the one arrangement as compared with the other.” Nearly twenty other
witnesses were examined on the same point, all supporting my view,
some going so far as to advise that compulsory prepayment should be
established at once; and, indeed, the ease with which prepayment became
the general, nay almost universal, custom, must make it seem wonderful
that its adoption should ever have been considered as presenting serious
difficulties.
Supposing prepayment to be resolved on, the question remained as to
the mode in which such payment could be most conveniently and safely
made; and this inquiry of course brought the use of stamps into full
discussion. It must be remembered that in proposing by this plan to
supersede the multitudinous accounts then kept in the department, my
object had been not merely to save expense, but to prevent loss through
negligence or by fraud. In relation to this, the committee found
important evidence in the Eighteenth Report of the Commissioners of
Revenue Enquiry, as appears by the following extracts given in the report
of the committee:—
“Upon the taxation of letters in the evening there is no check.
“The species of control which is exercised over the deputy
postmasters is little more than nominal.”
Upon this unsatisfactory state of things it appeared by the evidence of
the Accountant-General of the Post Office that very little improvement
had been made since the issue of the Commissioners’ Report.
Another matter of anxiety relative to the use of stamps was the risk of
their forgery; and on this point Mr. John Wood, the Chairman of the Board
of Stamps and Taxes, together with other officers of the department,
was examined at considerable length. Mr. Wood wished to superadd to the
use of stamps that of some paper of peculiar manufacture, forgery being
more difficult when it requires the combined talents of the engraver,
the printer, and the paper-maker. Specimens of such a paper had been
laid before the committee by Mr. Dickinson, and such a paper, with lines
of thread or silk stretched through it, Mr. Wood regarded as the best
preventive of forgery he had ever seen. I scarcely need say that this is
the paper which was subsequently used in the stamped envelope, though its
use was afterwards abandoned as unnecessary.
The Post Office opinions as to the use of stamps for the purpose of
prepayment were, on the whole, favourable; though the Secretary was of
opinion that, as regards time, labour, and expenditure at the General
Post Office, the saving would not be so great as “Mr. Hill in his
pamphlet seemed to think it would.”[213] He enumerated nine classes of
letters to which he thought stamps would be inapplicable.
The task of replying to these objections was easy, on some points
ludicrously so; thus solemn reference was made to the class of letters
which, not having found the party addressed, had been returned through
the Dead Letter Office to the sender. The additional postage so caused
could not be prepaid in stamps. Of course not, but luckily no such
postage had ever been charged.[214]
Another class of letters presenting a difficulty (here I am careful to
quote the exact words) “would be half-ounce letters weighing an ounce or
above.” I could not but admit that letters exhibiting so remarkable a
peculiarity might present difficulties with which I was not prepared to
deal.[215]
“The ninth class,” said the Secretary, “is packets improperly sent
through the Post Office. You may send anything now if you pay the
postage.”
What could be more obvious than the answer? I gave it as follows: “The
fact is, you may send anything now, whether you pay the postage or
not.”[216]
But the Secretary continued, “The committee is aware that there is no
prohibition as to what description of packets persons should put into the
Post Office; the only protection to the Post Office at present is the
postage that would be charged on such packets.”[217]
My answer was easy: “The fact is, that ‘the only protection’ is no
protection at all. The Post Office may charge, certainly, but it cannot
oblige any one to pay; and the fact of there being a deduction in the
Finance Accounts for 1837, amounting to £122,000, for refused, missent,
and redirected letters, and so forth, shows that the Post Office is put
to a considerable expense for which it obtains no remuneration whatever.”
Among the advantages claimed for the proposed use of stamps was the moral
benefit of the arrangement; and this was strongly urged by Sir William
Brown, who had seen the demoralising effect arising from intrusting young
men with money to pay the postage, which, under the existing arrangement,
his house was frequently obliged to do.[218] His view was supported by
other witnesses.
It seems strange now that it should ever have been thought necessary
to inquire gravely into the expediency of substituting a simple charge
by weight for the complicated arrangement already mentioned. But the
innovation was stoutly resisted, and had to be justified; evidence
therefore was taken on the question. Lord Ashburton being called on for
his opinion, thought that the mode in use was “a hard mode, an unjust
mode, and vexatious in its execution.”[219]
On the other hand, though the Secretary admitted the frequent occurrence
of mistakes, which indeed it must have been impracticable to avoid,
viz., “that a great number of letters are charged as double and treble
which are not so, and give rise to returns of postage,”[220] and though
Sir Edward Lees thought “that charging by weight would, to a certain
extent, prevent letters being stolen in their passage through the Post
Office,”[221] yet most of the witnesses from the Post Office were
unfavourable to taxing by weight. The Superintending President described
an experiment made at the office, from which he concluded that a greater
number of letters could be taxed in a given time on the plan then in
use, than by charging them in proportion to the weight of each letter.
The value of this test was pretty well shown by the fact that in this
experiment the weighing was not by the proposed half-ounce, but by the
_quarter_-ounce scale, and that nearly every letter was put into the
scale unless its weight was palpable to the hand.[222]
The probable effect of the adoption of my plan on the expenditure of the
Post Office department was a question likely to elicit opposite opinions.
It was to be considered, for instance, whether the staff then employed
in the London Inland Office, viz., four hundred and five persons,[223]
would suffice for that increase of correspondence on which I counted;
or whether, again, supposing the increase not to be attained, it would,
through economy of arrangement, admit of serious reduction. On these
questions[224] there was much difference of opinion, even within the
office. Thus, while one high official stated that payment in advance,
even though it occasioned no increase of letters, would not enable the
Post Office to dispense with a single clerk or messenger,[225] another
was of opinion that four times the number of letters might be undertaken
by the present number of hands.[226]
Again, as to the sufficiency of the existing means of conveyance, the
Superintendent of the Mail-coaches, after stating “that a mail-coach
would carry of mail fifteen hundredweight, or one thousand six hundred
and eighty pounds, represented that if the letters were increased to
the extent assumed, the present mail-coaches would be unable to carry
them;”[227] while Colonel Colby stated that the first circumstance which
drew his attention to the cheapening of postage was that in travelling
all over the kingdom, particularly towards the extremities, he had
“observed that the mails and carriages which contained the letters formed
a very stupendous machinery for the conveyance of a very small weight;
that, in fact, if the correspondence had been doubled or trebled, or
quadrupled, it could not have affected the expense of conveyance.”[228]
To determine the question the committee directed a return to be made
of the weight of the mail actually carried by the several mail-coaches
going out of London. The average was found to be only 463 pounds,[229]
or little more than a quarter of the weight which, according to Post
Office evidence, a mail-coach would carry; and as it appeared, by other
evidence, that the chargeable letters must form less than one-tenth of
the weight of the whole mail, it was calculated by the committee that,
with every allowance for additional weight of bags, the average weight
of the chargeable letters might be increased twenty-four fold before the
limit of 1,680 pounds would be reached. It was further shown that the
weight of all the chargeable letters contained in the thirty-two mails
leaving London was but 1,456 pounds; that is, less than the weight which
a single mail-coach could carry.[230]
Though the amount to be recommended as the uniform rate was of course a
question for the consideration of the committee, yet, as my plan fixed
it at one penny, most of the witnesses assumed this as the contemplated
change, making it the basis of their estimates, and counting upon this
low rate for turning into the regular channel of the post various
communications then habitually made by other means—such, for instance, as
small orders, letters of advice, remittances, policies of insurance, and
letters enclosing patterns and samples, all of which were, for the most
part, diverted into irregular channels by the excessive postage. Similar
expectations were held out with respect to letters between country
attorneys and their London agents, documents connected with magisterial
and county jurisdiction, and with various local trusts and commissions
for the management of sewers, harbours, and roads, and of schools and
charities, together with notices of meetings and elections to be held
by joint-stock and proprietary bodies.[231] The mere enumeration will
surprise the reader of the present day, accustomed as he must be to send
and receive all such communications by the post alone. Nor will it seem
less strange to learn that at that time the post had little to do with
the circulation of prices current, catalogues of sales, prospectuses,
circulars, and other documents issued by public institutions for the
promotion of religion, literature, science, public instruction, or
philanthropic or charitable ends; all of which, so far as they could then
be circulated at all, were obliged to find their way through channels
more or less irregular.[232]
The committee, however, “also took evidence as to the increase that
was to be expected in the posted correspondence of the country from
the adoption of a uniform rate of twopence;” but on this basis they
found that much greater diversity of opinion prevailed. Some important
witnesses, however, with Lord Ashburton at their head, “were, for the
sake of protecting the revenue, favourable to a plan founded on a
twopenny rate.”[233]
While, however, Lord Ashburton thought the reduction to twopence,
rather than to a penny, safer as regards the direct revenue of the Post
Office, he was strong in his opinion that reduction of postage would act
beneficially on the general revenue of the country, saying that there was
“no item of revenue from the reduction of which he should anticipate more
benefit than he would from the reduction of postage;” and adding that
“if, under any plan of reduction, you did not find an improvement in the
Post Office revenue, you would find considerable benefit in every other
way.”[234]
Although it was obvious that the establishment of a low rate of postage
would of itself have a strong tendency to the disuse of the franking
privilege, the committee had to consider how far it might be desirable
to retain that privilege at all. It was found that the yearly number of
franked missives was about seven millions; that those franked by members
of parliament, (somewhat less than five millions in number) might be
counted nearly as double letters, the official franks (about two millions
in number) as eight-fold letters, and the copies of the statutes,
distributed by public authority (about seventy-seven thousand in number),
thirteen-fold letters.[235]
In respect of the official franks, indeed, supposing their contents to
be always in genuine relation to the public service, there was a mere
formal difference between their passing through the Post Office free, and
their being charged to the office of state from which they were posted;
but such a supposition would have been very wide of the truth, for, as
is justly remarked in the Report, “it is liable to the abuse, which no
vigilance can effectually guard against, of being made the vehicle for
private correspondence.” The Report continues:—
“Thus it appears from Dr. Lardner’s evidence, that while he
resided in Dublin, the greater part, if not the whole, of his
correspondence was allowed to pass under the franks of the
then Postmaster-General for Ireland, and that the extensive
correspondence in which he is now engaged, in relation to
various publications, and to engineering, on which he is
professionally consulted, is carried on principally by means
of official franks. He states that, as these franks enable him
to send any weight he pleases, he is in the habit, in order
to save trouble to those from whom he obtains the franks, of
enclosing under one cover a bundle of letters to the same
neighbourhood.”[236]
However the objection to the existence of such opportunities might be
lessened in the particular case by the uses to which it was applied,
there was clearly no ground for supposing that it was only for such
laudable purposes that the privilege was employed; indeed, it was
notorious that men of science were far from being the class principally
indulged. Neither could it be the poor and humble to whom the favour
was commonly extended, but, as alleged by one of the witnesses, it was
“principally the rich and independent who endeavoured to obtain franks
from those who are privileged to give them.” Dr. Lardner, too, said that
“a man to obtain such advantages as he obtains must be a person known to
or connected with the aristocratic classes of society.”[237]
Besides considering my plan, the committee had to deal with various
other suggestions, the principal of these being “a graduated scale of
reduced rates, commencing with twopence, and extending up to twelvepence,
tantamount, as was stated, in England, to a reduction of threepence per
letter, which was laid before the committee by Colonel Maberly.” The loss
to the revenue from such reduction he estimated at from seven to eight
hundred thousand pounds a year.[238] None of these plans, however, except
one for charging the rates according to geographical distance, were
approved of by any of the witnesses unconnected with the Post Office.
As regards the importance of those additional facilities in reference
alike to the convenience of the public and the restoration of the
revenue, upon which I had laid such stress, but which unfortunately were
so tardily adopted, much confirmatory evidence came alike from the Post
Office and from other quarters.
The postmaster of Manchester stated that “letters have, in numerous
instances, been sent in coach parcels, not so much with a view to save
postage as to facilitate transmission, and to insure early delivery.
This happens,” he stated, “very much in those neighbourhoods in which
there is not direct communication through the medium of the Post Office,
especially in a populous and manufacturing district between twenty and
thirty miles from Manchester.”[239] In confirmation of the latter remark,
Mr. Cobden stated that in the village of Sabden, twenty-eight miles from
Manchester, where his print-works were, although there was a population
of twelve thousand souls, there was no Post Office, nor anything that
served for one.
Such are a few of the multitudinous statements made to the committee,
in reply to questions, nearly twelve thousand in number, addressed to
the various witnesses. The recital throws at least some light upon
the difficulties by which the way to postal reform was beset, showing
how necessary it was then to strengthen points which now seem quite
unassailable, to prove what now seems self-evident, to induce acceptance
of what no one now would hear of abandoning.
If further illustration of such necessity be needed, it may be found in
the following extracts from the evidence of Post Office officials:—
The Assistant Secretary:—
“Question 986. I think there are quite as many letters written
now as there would be even if the postage were reduced [to one
penny].”[240]
It having been stated that the time for posting letters at the London
receiving offices had been extended from 5 to 6 p.m., Mr. Holgate,
President of the Inland Office, is examined as follows:—
“Question 1,586. _Chairman._ Has any notice of that been
conveyed to the public?—I should be very sorry if any had.
“1,587. How long has that been [the practice]?—The last three
months.
“1,588. Why should you regret that being made public?—They
would reach us so much later, and throw so much upon the last
half-hour in the evening.
“1,589. That is the time when the office is most pressed by
business?—Yes.
“1,590. _Mr. Currie_ [a member of the committee]. In fact, the
office has given the public an accommodation which the office
is anxious that the public should not profit by?”[241]
* * * * *
“1,655. If Mr Hill’s plan were carried into effect, I do not
think that any tradesman could be got to receive letters
[_i.e._, to keep a receiving-house] under £100 year.”[242]
The Postmaster-General:—
“Question 2,821. He [Mr. Hill] anticipates only an increase
of five and a quarter-fold [to make up the gross revenue];
it will require twelve-fold on our calculation.... Therefore
it comes to that point, which is right and which is wrong: I
maintain that our calculations are more likely to be right than
his.”[243]
It may be remarked here that the gross revenue rather more than recovered
itself in the year 1851, the increase of letters being then only four and
three-quarters-fold.[244]
My own examination occupied a considerable portion of six several days,
my task being not only to state and enforce my own views, but to reply
to objections raised by such of the Post Office authorities as were
against the proposed reform. This list comprised—with the exception
of Mr. Peacock, the solicitor,—all the highest officials in the chief
office; and however unfortunate their opposition, and however galling
I felt it at the time, I must admit on retrospect that, passing over
the question of means employed, their resistance to my bold innovation
was very natural. Its adoption must have been dreaded by men of
routine, as involving, or seeming to involve, a total derangement of
proceeding—an overthrow of established order; while the immediate loss of
revenue—inevitable from the manner in which alone the change could then
be introduced (all gradual or limited reform having by that time been
condemned by the public voice), a loss, moreover, greatly exaggerated
in the minds of those who could not or did not see the means direct and
indirect of its recuperation, must naturally have alarmed the appointed
guardians of this branch of the national income. If, as the evidence
proceeded, they began to question the wisdom of their original decision,
they probably thought, at the same time, that the die was now cast, their
course taken, and all that remained was to maintain their ground as best
they could. The nature and extent of Post Office resistance, much as
has appeared already, is most conspicuous in the following extracts—the
last I shall make—from the Digest of Evidence, in which are summed up
the opinions put forth by Colonel Maberly, the Secretary; opinions from
which, so far as I am aware, he never receded:—
“He considers the whole scheme of Mr. Hill as utterly
fallacious; he thought so from the first moment he read the
pamphlet of Mr. Hill; and his opinion of the plan was formed
long before the evidence was given before the committee.
The plan appears to him a most preposterous one, utterly
unsupported by facts, and resting entirely on assumption.
Every experiment in the way of reduction which has been made
by the Post Office has shown its fallacy; for every reduction
whatever leads to a loss of revenue, in the first instance: if
the reduction be small, the revenue recovers itself; but if the
rates were to be reduced to a penny, revenue would not recover
itself for forty or fifty years.”
The divisions on the two most important of the resolutions submitted to
the Committee, and, indeed, the ultimate result of their deliberations,
show that the efforts that had been made had all been needed.
Thus, on a motion made on July 17th by Mr. Warburton to recommend the
establishment of a uniform rate of inland postage between one post town
and another, the Committee was equally divided; the “ayes” being Mr.
Warburton, Lord Lowther, Mr. Raikes Currie, and Mr. Chalmers; the “noes,”
the three members of Government, Mr. P. Thomson, Lord Seymour, and Mr.
Parker, with Mr. Thornley, M.P. for Wolverhampton; so that the motion was
affirmed only by the casting vote of the Chairman.[245]
Mr. Warburton further moving:—
“That it is the opinion of this committee, that upon any
large reduction being made in the rates of inland postage, it
would be expedient to adopt an uniform rate of one penny per
half-ounce, without regard to distance,”—
the motion was rejected by six to three; the “ayes” being Mr. Warburton,
Mr. Raikes Currie, and Mr. Morgan J. O’Connell; and the “noes” the same
as before, with the addition of Lord Lowther and Mr. G. W. Wood; and upon
Mr. Warburton, when thus far defeated, moving to recommend a uniform
postage of three-halfpence, the motion was again lost by six to four,
the only change being that Mr. Chalmers, who appears to have been absent
during the second division, now again voted with the ayes.[246]
The second day, however, Mr. Warburton returned to the charge, moving
to recommend a uniform rate of twopence the half-ounce, increasing at
the rate of one penny for each additional half-ounce; a motion met, not
by a direct negative, as before, but by an amendment tantamount to
one. On this question, as also on that of uniformity, the committee was
equally divided. Again, therefore, the motion was affirmed only by the
casting vote of the Chairman.[247] The passing of the two resolutions,
however—one to recommend a uniform rate of inland postage irrespective of
distance, and the other to fix the single rate at twopence—was decisive
as to the committee’s course, as will appear by the sequel. We must
return for a time to the rejected amendment.
This had been moved by Mr. P. Thomson, and the substance of it was to
abandon the recommendation of a uniform rate and to consider instead
a Report proposed by Lord Seymour, the chief points of which were to
recommend the maintenance of the charge by distance and the establishment
of a rate varying from one penny, for distances under fifteen miles, to
one shilling for distances above two hundred miles, or of some similar
scale. _This, it must be observed, would have been adopted as the
recommendation of the committee but for the casting vote of the Chairman,
Mr. Wallace._ To what extent so untoward a circumstance would have
retarded the cause of postal reform it would be difficult now even to
conjecture; but it cannot be doubted that the success, which, even with
the support of the committee, was so hardly achieved, would at least have
undergone long and injurious delay.
To make this clear, it must be observed that by the adoption of Lord
Seymour’s draft Report (a copy of which I have before me) not only the
recommendations for uniformity and decided reduction of postage would
have been set aside, but also those for increased facilities, for the
general use of stamps, and for charge by weight instead of by the number
of enclosures.
Lord Seymour’s Report, however, though so unsatisfactory in its
recommendations, and, according to my view, very erroneous in its
reasonings on many points (more especially in its main argumentation,
viz., that against uniformity), yet contained passages of great use to
me at the time, as confirming my statements, and more or less directly
supporting my views; particularly as regards the evils which high rates
of postage brought upon the poor, the vast extent of illicit conveyance,
the evils of the frank system, and even many of the advantages of a
uniform charge. Doubtless, had the recommendations contained in this
Report been voluntarily adopted by the Post Office only two years before,
almost every one of them would have been received as a grace; but it
was now too late, their sum total being altogether too slight to make
any approach towards satisfying the expectations which had subsequently
arisen.
Before quite leaving Lord Seymour’s Report, I must, in candour, admit
that on one point his prediction was truer than my own, though, as my own
remained unpublished, I was not committed to it. The following is the
passage:—
“It appears that the great change which must result from the
substitution of railways for mails [mail-coaches] will have the
effect of increasing considerably the cost of conveying the
correspondence of the country.”
In my copy of this draft Report (given to me, I suppose, by Mr. Wallace)
I find the following remark in my own handwriting:—
“No such thing. One railway stands in place of several common
roads.”
The implied inference, viz., that the cheaper operation of railways would
lower the cost of conveying the mails seemed justified by the moderation
of the charges for this service made up to that time by the railway
companies. The event, however, has contradicted my contradiction, the
railway charges for conveying the mails, unlike the rates for passengers
and goods, being higher, weight for weight, than those on the old mail
roads.[248]
The committee having thus decided the two great points of uniformity—rate
and a twopenny charge for the single letter,—Mr. Wallace, with his
usual kindness, immediately wrote to inform me of the result. He was
the more careful to do this because, as he knew, it was not in full
accordance with my wish, the rate recommended being higher than that
which I regarded as desirable; and, what was worse, such as to make
strict uniformity impracticable; since reservation would have to be made
in favour of the local penny rates then in existence, which could not be
raised without exciting overpowering dissatisfaction.
To return to the committee: only one further attempt was made to modify
their resolution, viz., by a motion made at the next meeting by Lord
Seymour, in the following words:—
“That it is the opinion of this committee that an increase of
general post letters under an uniform rate of twopence, to the
extent which will be required to sustain the gross revenue of
the Post Office, will occasion a considerable addition to the
cost of the establishment.”
After this day the members of Government ceased to attend, save only that
Lord Seymour once reappeared during the consideration of the Report.
Opposition being thus abandoned, proceedings went on rapidly, so that at
the next meeting the whole of the remaining resolutions, more than twenty
in number, were all carried; the Chairman being requested also to draw up
a Report in conformity therewith.
As the proceedings of the committee approached their close, Mr. Wallace
requested that I would undertake to prepare a draft Report for his
consideration, previously to its being submitted to the Committee. From
this I naturally shrank; but, upon further urgency, I so far consented
as to select so much of the evidence as seemed most necessary for the
purpose, cutting it out from the reports just as it stood, in question
and answer, but classifying it under some twenty different heads. This,
according to my recollection, I placed in Mr. Wallace’s hands, and upon
it he wrote a Report. I must here mention, however, that though this
Report became the basis of that finally issued, it was by no means the
same document, having been re-arranged, in great measure re-written, and
greatly added to, during the recess. Of this more hereafter.
Thus closed, for the present, the work of this memorable committee, on
whose decision rested consequences, not only of the deepest interest to
myself, but, as afterwards appeared, of importance to the whole civilized
world. Seldom, I believe, has any committee worked harder. I must add
that Mr. Wallace’s exertions were unsparing, his toil incessant, and
his zeal in the cause unflagging. My own convictions in relation to the
committee and its chairman were corroborated by the following strong
passage in the _Times_:—
“Altogether we regard the Post Office Enquiry as one conducted
with more honesty and more industry than any ever brought
before a committee of the House of Commons.”[249]
Perhaps, before proceeding to other matters, I may, without
invidiousness, make one more remark in reference to the proceedings of
this committee. It is not unknown that since the successful establishment
of penny postage, there have appeared other claimants to its authorship.
As regards Mr. Wallace, enough has been said to show that he was not of
the number; though of late some persons, trusting perhaps to imperfect
recollections, have advanced such claims in his name. As regards
other claimants, it is most remarkable that throughout this period of
contest—when no less than eighty-seven witnesses deposed in favour of the
measure, and when all solid information and every weighty opinion were so
valuable, when even the principle of uniformity of rate was considered
of such doubtful expediency that it was carried only by the casting vote
of the chairman, while the penny rate was actually rejected in favour
of one of twopence,—they gave no evidence, remained unheard, and were,
so far as has ever appeared, entirely silent. General Colby, indeed,
on whose behalf some such claim has been advanced since his death, did
give evidence, but without the least reference to further discoveries by
himself beyond what has been already mentioned;[250] and I may add, that
though he honoured me with his friendship to the time of his death, he
never even alluded to the claim in question. Indeed, all the claims of
which the public has lately heard are of very recent date, having arisen
long since the success of penny postage became indisputable.
The Report adopted at the last meeting of the committee was placed in
the hands of Mr. Warburton for revision; a work to which he forthwith
applied himself with untiring zeal, referring occasionally to me for
some detail of information, or for the verification of some calculation.
I had therefore frequent occasion to call on him. I should not forget
to add that in the successful introduction of postal reform his able,
earnest, and continuous assistance played not merely an important, but
an essential part.[251] In all my visits to his house I was received in
the dining-room. I well remember the appearance of things—an appearance
which never varied from first to last. What first struck me was that the
room never could be used according to its name; the table, indeed, stood
out in full length, sufficient for a respectable number of guests, but
it was wholly occupied with piles of books, and those not of the most
digestible kind, consisting almost entirely of such as in passing through
the Post Office are marked Par. Pro., and are known to all the world as
“blue books.” The sideboard was similarly heaped, save that a little
room was left for astronomical instruments, Mr. Warburton being an able
mathematician. The chairs, save one, bore each its parliamentary load,
and similar lumber occupied the floor; passages only, and those narrow
ones, being left between the paper walls. There were, however, one or
two books of a lighter kind; but even these seemed insensible of change.
On an early visit I laid hands on a number of the “Edinburgh Review,”
containing one of Macaulay’s brilliant articles; and as the book always
remained exactly where I laid it down, I found opportunity of reading,
bit by bit, the whole essay. The one chair already mentioned, and a
small table near it, were alone unencumbered with books, and alone free
from the dust which, in every other part of the room, seemed to have on
it the repose of years.
Meanwhile, having but inferential knowledge as to the progress of the
work, and thinking it very important that no time should be lost in
publishing the Report, since I hoped it might be advantageously dealt
with in the newspapers during the recess, I felt a certain degree of
impatience at what I supposed must prove but laborious refinement.
In this feeling Mr. Wallace more than fully shared. In the course of
the autumn he wrote to me, in earnest protest against the delay, his
expressions growing stronger as time advanced, until on December 1st he
went so far as to predict that, if the Report were withheld during the
vacation, penny postage would not be carried out during the next year. He
even begged that his letters might be kept as vouchers of his anxiety on
the subject. In the end, however, it became clear enough that no time had
really been lost, the delay being more than atoned for by the excellence
of the result.
Meanwhile, too, the press, not awaiting the appearance of the Report,
began to urge action by reference to what was already known. The _Times_,
in particular, repeatedly wrote in strong support of my plan.
As I have already mentioned the more important events occurring between
the prorogation of Parliament in August and the end of the year 1838,
it will be seen that, so far as postal affairs were concerned, this
was to me a period of comparative rest, though even then scarcely a
week, or perhaps even a day, passed without their making some call on
my attention. Of course, too, my duties at the Australian Commission
remained undiminished, or rather, indeed, increased with the increasing
flow of emigration, and the difficulties already arising in the colony.
However, I was again able to breathe, and to prepare for those new
anxieties which I knew must be in the future. When would the Report
appear? What effect would it produce on the country? Would there be such
a movement as would sufficiently influence ministers and Parliament? To
me, of course, these were questions of the deepest interest, and though,
for the time, the main work was, as it were, taken off my hands, yet it
was necessary to keep watch, to be ready for assistance when called for,
to deal with almost innumerable communications, and to pay attention to
the numerous suggestions that were made. So closed the year 1838.