Part 4 (2/2)
As for the cause of dispute, it was not finally disposed of till after the Queen's marriage, when, on the suggestion of Prince Albert, it was settled that on a change of Ministry the Queen should arrange for the voluntary resignation of any ladies whom, being relations or very intimate friends of leaders in opposition, it might, in the opinion of the Prime Minister, be inconvenient to retain in office.
[Ill.u.s.tration: TRAVELLING POSTAL VAN ON THE LONDON AND NORTH-WESTERN RAILWAY.
Interior, showing sorters at work, and exterior with net extended for taking in mails, and bag hung ready for delivery while the train is in motion.]
[Sidenote: The Penny Post.]
It sometimes happens that Ministries which are least conspicuous by the brilliancy of their career or the talents of those who compose them, nevertheless confer the most lasting benefits on the nation. The crowning achievement of the Melbourne administration originated neither with a Minister, nor with one of those permanent officials upon whom Ministers rely to make up for their own inexperience of departmental work, but with a humble school teacher. n.o.body at this day connects penny postage with the name of Mr. Spring Rice, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who paved the way for it in the Budget of 1839, but it is inseparably a.s.sociated with the memory of its inventor, Sir Rowland Hill. The son of a schoolmaster, Rowland had an extraordinary inborn love for arithmetic, and became mathematical master in his father's school. This natural talent, it is said, was directed to the study of Post Office statistics by an anecdote told of Coleridge, who happened to see a poor woman in the Lake district refuse to accept delivery of a letter from a postman because she could not afford to pay the postage--one s.h.i.+lling. Coleridge, hearing that the letter was from her brother, good-naturedly insisted on paying the fee, notwithstanding the woman's reluctance; but no sooner was the postman's back turned than she showed him that the letter consisted of nothing but a blank sheet. It had been agreed between her and her brother that he should send her such a blank sheet once a quarter so long as things went well with him, marking the cover so that she should not require to accept delivery, and that in this way she should get his mute message without need to pay postage. Hill detected the economic fallacy which opened the way to such innocent roguery, and rested not till he had devised means to remedy it.
He published his design in pamphlet form in 1837, advancing the bold proposition that the smaller the fee charged for carrying letters the greater would be the multiplication of correspondence, and the larger the profit to the Department. He proposed an uniform charge upon letters of one penny a half ounce, irrespective of distance. It was the application to the public service of a commercial principle by which large fortunes have been repeatedly realised in private business, but the plan was unhesitatingly condemned by the Post Office authorities.
The Postmaster-General, Lord Lichfield, spoke of it in the House of Lords as the wildest and most extravagant scheme of all the wild and extravagant ones he had ever listened to. Colonel Maberley, Secretary to the Post Office, declared the experiment was certain to fail, though he was of opinion that no obstruction should be placed in the way of it, lest the Government should afterwards be blamed for not giving it a trial. Lastly, Sydney Smith may be quoted as representing educated public opinion: ”A million of revenue is given up,” he said, ”to the nonsensical Penny Post Scheme, to please my old, excellent, and universally dissentient friend, Noah Warburton. I admire the Whig Ministry, and think they have done more good things than all the Ministries since the Revolution; but these concessions are sad and unworthy marks of weakness, and fill reasonable men with alarm.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: _J. A. Vinter._} {_National Portrait Gallery._
SIR ROWLAND HILL, 1795-1879.
Originator of the system of uniform Penny Postage with prepayment by stamps.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: INTERIOR OF THE GENERAL POST OFFICE AT THE TIME OF THE INTRODUCTION OF PENNY POSTAGE.]
Mr. Warburton and Mr. Wallace were the two members of Parliament who most warmly advocated the project of Rowland Hill. But credit is due to the courage shown by Mr. Spring Rice, Chancellor of the Exchequer, who, in the face of a deficit of three-quarters of a million, was bold enough to adopt the scheme and make provision for it in his Budget. Sir Robert Peel and Mr. Goulbourn criticised the proposal mainly on the ground that it involved a risk of loss to the revenue which ought not to be incurred in the existing state of the finances; but on a division the resolution was carried by a majority of 102, and the Bill carrying it into effect subsequently pa.s.sed without a division. This reform, the offspring of the genius of an obscure mathematical teacher, and so modestly brought to light, has since been adopted by every civilised community in the world. To realise the boon thereby conferred on commercial and general intercourse it is only necessary to recall the postal regulations in force in Great Britain previous to 1839. Letters could not be prepaid; the charge for postage varied according to distance, and also according to the weight, shape, and size of letters. Thus, a letter posted in London for Brighton cost the recipient a fee of eightpence; the rate from London to Aberdeen was 1_s._ 3-1/2_d._, and to Belfast 1_s._ 4_d._ No wonder, then, that, in a time of expanding trade, the Chancellor of the Exchequer found himself supported in his proposal by countless pet.i.tions from commercial centres in favour of cheaper postage. But there was more than this: there was the flagrant injustice of the system of official franks. Members of the Government and of Parliament had the privilege of free postage, not only for their own letters but for those of their friends by simply writing their names on the cover.
This privilege had grown to the dimensions of a gross abuse; people who enjoyed the friends.h.i.+p of a Minister were not the least shy of pestering him for franks; the revenue was defrauded, and those who were least able to bear the cost had to pay a high fee in order to recoup the Department for the loss on letters written by wealthy people.
[Ill.u.s.tration: GENERAL POST OFFICE, ST. MARTIN'S LE-GRAND, IN 1837.
This building, erected in the reign of George IV., is still used as the central office for sorting and forwarding the mails.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: MAIL COACHES LEAVING THE GENERAL POST OFFICE, 1837.
_From a print of that date._]
Such being the case for reform from a popular point of view, it was hardly less urgent from a departmental one. The Post Office had then, as it has now, a monopoly of conveying correspondence; but the high rates charged had driven people to various means of infringing that monopoly.
There had arisen all sorts of illegal and clandestine enterprises for carrying letters at cheap rates. It had been proved before the Committee which considered Mr. Hill's scheme that five-sixths of the correspondence between London and Manchester had been smuggled for many years; one great firm having despatched sixty-seven letters by unlawful agency for every one that went through the Post Office. Between 1815 and 1835 the population had increased by thirty per cent., and the stage-coach duty by 128 per cent., yet the revenue of the Post Office had remained stationary.
The proposed reduction from an average rate of sixpence farthing to one penny was certainly a startling one. The Committee above referred to had recommended an uniform twopenny rate, but Spring Rice told the House of Commons that he had become convinced that the loss to the revenue (for no practical man, except, perhaps, Rowland Hill himself, doubted that loss there must be) would be less from a penny rate. He estimated in his Budget the sacrifice at about 700,000.
[Sidenote: Its remarkable Success.]
The wildest enthusiasts can never have contemplated what have been the actual results as revealed by the Post Office returns of 1895-6. In 1837 there were 80,000 letters and 44,000 newspapers delivered through the Post Office in the United Kingdom--a total of 124,000 deliveries. In the twelve months of 1895-6 the returns show that the deliveries (exclusive of telegrams) amounted to the stupendous figure of 3,031,553,196, representing 2,248 times the volume of business transacted in 1837, and producing a nett profit of 3,632,122. Certain races of primitive savages, it is said, have never acquired the art of counting beyond two; everything beyond a pair being reckoned as ”plenty.” Such figures as those quoted above baffle even ordinary civilised powers of calculation; very few persons are able to apprehend the idea of a million; much less can they grasp the reality of growth represented in thousands of millions. Perhaps, the magnitude of the Post Office business at the present day can be best ill.u.s.trated by its miscarriages. The value of property found in letters opened in the Returned Letter Offices in 1896 amounted to 580,000.
[Ill.u.s.tration: GENERAL POST OFFICE--NEW NORTH BUILDING.
This building, completed in 1895, is occupied by the official, financial, and clerical staffs of the Post Office.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: {_From an Engraving._
HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN LEAVING WINDSOR CASTLE FOR THE REVIEW,
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