The History of the British Post Office

Transcriber's Notes:
(2) Table V in the Appendix has been divided into two parts (Scotland and Ireland), in view of its page width.
(3) All footnotes have been moved to the end of the book, with html links.
(4) The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
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J. C. HEMMEON, Ph.D.
PUBLISHED FROM THE INCOME OF THE WILLIAM H. BALDWIN, JR., 1885, FUND
CAMBRIDGE HARVARD UNIVERSITY 1912 COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY THE PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Published January 1912
In justice to those principles which influenced the policy of the Post Office before the introduction of penny postage, it is perhaps unnecessary to call attention to the fact that no opinion as to their desirability or otherwise is justifiable which does not take into consideration the conditions and prejudices which then prevailed. Some of the earlier writers on the Post Office have made the mistake of condemning everything which has not satisfied the measure of their own particular rule. If there is anything that the historical treatment of a subject teaches the investigator it is an appreciation of the fact that different conditions call for different methods of treatment. For example, the introduction of cheap postage was possibly delayed too long. But during the era of high postal rates a large net revenue was of primary importance, nor were those conditions present which would have made low rates a success.
The consideration of such debatable subjects as the telegraph system of the Postal Department and the department's attitude toward the telephone companies, as well as the intention of the Post Office to acquire the business of the latter, must necessarily give rise to controversy. Thanks to the magnificent net revenue obtained from letters in the United Kingdom the department has been able to lose a good deal of money by the extension of its activities into the realm of affairs not purely postal. Possibly a democratic type of government should, from the financial point of view, interfere least in the direct management of economic institutions, on account of the pressure which can easily be brought to bear upon it for the extension of such institutions on other than economic grounds. If non-economic principles are to be substituted in justifying the initiation or increase of government ownership, a popular form of government seems the least suitable for the presentation of such as shall be fair to all concerned, not to mention the difficult problem of dealing with those members of the civil service who do not hesitate to make use of their political power to enforce their demands upon the government.