CHAPTER XVI
THE BEGINNING OF THE END
1817-1836
We must now go back a few years. On the cessation of hostilities with France the state of the finances occupied a large share of men's thoughts, and among the plans for relieving the burden upon the taxpayer none perhaps was more obvious than to abolish sinecures and useless offices.
On the 16th of February 1817 Mr. Lambton, member for the county of Durham, gave notice of motion for a return shewing the number of Boards which had been held by the postmasters-general during the last twenty years, and distinguishing the names of the places where such Boards had been held and the persons by whom they were attended. The Post Office was in a flutter. Just twenty years before, the Commissioners of Inquiry into Public Offices had recommended, and the recommendation had been approved by the House, that a Board should be held by the postmasters-general at least once a week; and from that date to the present not a single Board had been held. The position was no doubt embarrassing, and not the less so because the postmasters-general, Lords Chichester and Salisbury, were the one at Stanmer and the other at Hatfield. Nothing could be done without the concurrence of both, and at such distances, little as would be thought of them now, it was a tedious process eighty years ago to arrive at a common understanding.
Freeling, who regarded it as little short of an outrage that the two noble peers, his masters, should be thus called to account, appealed to the Chancellor of the Exchequer to have the terms of the motion altered; but Vansittart refused, and the return was granted and ordered to be laid on the table of the House. Of course it was necessary to admit that no Boards had been held; but the work of the Post Office, the return went on to state, did not lend itself to Boards. Boards could be held only at intervals, and the work of the Post Office was so continuous and pressing that, without detriment to the public interests, it could not be kept waiting for a single day. A daily transmission of papers to the postmasters-general was, therefore, necessary; and by such means the business was better conducted than it would be by any system of Boards. Such was the substance of the return which was now laid before the House. Eventually the matter was referred to a friendly Committee, and the appointment of second postmaster-general escaped for a time.
But it was for a time only. In May 1822, on the motion of Lord Normanby, an address to the throne was adopted in the following terms: "His Majesty's faithful Commons, relying upon His Majesty's gracious disposition expressed in answer to former addresses of that House to concur in all such measures of economy as the exigencies of the time require, and in such reductions in the civil department of the State as may be consistent with due consideration for the public service, humbly pray that His Majesty will be graciously pleased to give directions that the office of one of the postmasters-general may be abolished and the salary thereby saved to the revenue." It was Lord Salisbury, as the junior of the two postmasters-general, that was affected by the resolution of the House. Many men, incensed by such treatment, would have thrown up their appointments in disgust. Lord Salisbury did nothing of the kind. The very day he received official intimation that the address had been acceded to by the King he gave directions that his salary should be stopped;[91] but the appointment of postmaster-general he retained, and to the duties of it he gave at least as much attention as before. It was not until his death a year later that Lord Chichester was appointed sole postmaster-general, and the Post Office received the constitution under which it still remains.
Other economies followed. All periodical increases of salary were suspended and salaries were for the first time made subject to abatement in order to provide a superannuation fund.[92] The effect of these two measures was to reduce the Post Office servants to a state of destitution not very far short of that from which Pitt had rescued them some thirty years before. It must not be thought, however, that ministers imposed upon others conditions to which they were unwilling to submit themselves. On the contrary, they procured an Order in Council to be passed reducing their own salaries and those of all the great officers of State by 10 per cent, and the reduction was to continue for five years. The desire to be just and equal was present; the one thing wanting was a due sense of the difference between superfluity and need.
And now a blow which had long been impending fell. This was the transfer from the Post Office to the Admiralty of the packets stationed at Falmouth. The question had been discussed again and again during the war; but how it came to be revived at this particular time is not very clear. There had indeed been a mutiny among the seamen at Falmouth, and the packets had been temporarily removed to Plymouth; but many years had since elapsed, and now, so far as appeared, matters were perfectly quiet. We only know that at the instance of Lord Liverpool a memorandum was prepared by Lord Melville, the First Lord of the Admiralty, and that after a sharp paper-warfare between him and Freeling the arguments in favour of the change prevailed. At Falmouth thirty packets were employed, nearly double the number at all the other stations put together; and these thirty packets with their crews of 600 seamen, whose deeds of daring had often shed lustre on the Post Office, were now made over to another department. Freeling was in despair. This little fleet had, next perhaps to the mail-coaches, been the object of his keenest solicitude; and it gave him little consolation that the packets at the other stations—at Dover and Harwich, at Weymouth, Milford, Holyhead, and Portpatrick, were to remain under the charge of the Post Office.
Some little comfort, however, was at hand. Steam packets being beyond the means of the captains to purchase, the Government provided them and purchased the sailing packets, which they replaced, at a valuation. Thus the Post Office became once more absolute owner of its own boats. This, though by no means reconciling Freeling to the loss of the Falmouth packets, was at all events some compensation. "The steam flotilla belonging to the Post Office," he was able to write in 1827, "consists of no less than nineteen vessels complete, to the aggregate amount of 4000 tons, with machinery equal on the whole to the power of 1540 horses."
Exaggerated opinions have been expressed as to the speed of the mail-coaches during the first two decades of the present century. In 1821 few mail-coaches travelled as much as eight miles an hour, and only one mail-coach attained to a speed of nine miles, and that for only part of the journey. The exact rates of travelling are shewn in the following table:—
1821.
| Number | Hour | Hour | Rate of | ||
| Mail Coach | of | of | of | Travelling | Remarks. |
| from London to | Miles. | Despatch. | Arrival. | per hour. | |
| M. F. | M. | ||||
| Berwick | 341 6 | 8.0 p.m. | 6.15 p.m. | 7-13/16 | The rates of |
| Berwick to | travelling | ||||
| Edinburgh | 59 4 | — | 2.55 a.m. | 7-2/16 | include |
| Birmingham | 110 2 | 8.0 p.m. | 10.0 a.m. | 7-13/16 | stoppages for |
| Bristol | 122 4 | " | " | 8-10/16 | change of |
| Carlisle by | horses, but | ||||
| Manchester | 311 4 | " | 1.30 p.m. | 8-5/16 | not stoppages |
| Carlisle by | for refresh- | ||||
| Boroughbridge | 302 6 | " | 1.40 p.m. | 7-10/16 | ment and for |
| Carlisle to | Post Office | ||||
| Glasgow | 103 2 | — | 4.50 a.m. | 7-4/16 | business. |
| Chester | 191 0 | 8.0 p.m. | 10.50 p.m. | 7-8/16 | |
| Chester to | |||||
| Holyhead | 88 0 | — | 7.5 a.m. | 7-7/16 | |
| Dover | 73 4 | 8.0 p.m. | 6.45 a.m. | 7 | For a |
| Exeter | 176 2 | " | 7.40 p.m. | 7-11/16 | considerable |
| Exeter by Bath | 194 0 | " | 7.50 p.m. | 8-7/16 | part of the |
| Gloucester | 111 0 | " | 10.0 a.m. | 8-3/16 | distance the |
| Holyhead | 264 6 | " | 6.50 a.m. | 7-15/16 | London and |
| Leeds | 196 0 | " | 11.25 p.m. | 7-8/16 | Bristol |
| Liverpool | 207 4 | " | 12.10 a.m. | 7-6/16 | coach |
| Norwich by | travelled at | ||||
| Ipswich | 114 4 | " | 11.0 a.m. | 7-14/16 | the rate of |
| Ipswich to | nine miles an | ||||
| Yarmouth | 54 2 | — | 11.56 a.m. | 7-15/16 | hour. |
| Poole | 117 4 | 8.0 p.m. | 11.20 a.m. | 7-14/16 | |
| Portsmouth | 72 6 | " | 6.45 a.m. | 7-1/16 | |
| Worcester | 114 4 | " | 10.40 a.m. | 8-7/16 |
It was not until some fourteen or fifteen years later, when the main roads of the kingdom had passed under Telford's hands and vehicles of lighter build had been introduced, that mail-coaches attained the speed which is very commonly ascribed to an earlier period. In 1836 there were in England 104 mail-coaches, all drawn by four horses. Of these the fastest was the Liverpool and Preston coach, which travelled at the rate of ten miles and five furlongs an hour; and the slowest was the coach between Canterbury and Deal, which travelled at the rate of only six miles an hour. The average speed of all the mail-coaches in 1836, namely eight miles and seven furlongs an hour, was actually higher than the highest speed attained by any one mail-coach in 1821. It should be added that in 1821, as in 1836, the number of passengers by a mail-coach was limited to four inside and four out. On some mail-coaches, indeed, no more than three outside passengers were allowed.
But the mail-coach at the beginning of the present century did something more than carry mails and passengers. It was the great disseminator of news. In times of excitement men would stand waiting along the mail roads and learn the latest intelligence as shouted to them from the tops of the coaches. It may well be believed that this mode of communication did not tend to either accuracy or completeness of statement. We cannot, therefore, be surprised that on important occasions or occasions on which false or inexact intelligence might lead to mischief recourse should have been had to the expedient of printing hand-bills, and sending them to the postmasters with instructions to distribute them in their respective towns. The following are specimens of hand-bills which were so distributed:—
London, February 10, 1817.
The statement in the morning papers that several persons have been arrested by warrants from the Secretary of State is true.
The meeting was held this morning at Spa Fields; but the arrests which have taken place and the precautions adopted by Government caused everything to end peaceably and the town is perfectly quiet.
17th November 1818.Her Majesty the Queen expired at one o'clock this day.
The following hand-bill sent to the different ports where vessels from Jamaica were likely to arrive is interesting in so far as it shews the exceptional facilities which, even seventy or eighty years ago, the Post Office possessed for making inquiries:—
General Post Office, February 10th, 1821.
Mr. Freeling requests the postmaster to make inquiries of the master of any ship arriving from Jamaica into the state of the Duke of Manchester's health, and inform him of the result by the first post.
Of the reason of this solicitude we are not aware.
Police notices, notices giving particulars of crimes which had been committed and offering rewards for the apprehension of the criminals, were similarly dealt with. These, like the hand-bills of which specimens have been given, were sent from Lombard Street under cover to the postmasters with instructions to circulate them in their respective towns. The propriety of this proceeding is not free from doubt. Of course, every department of the State is interested in the detection and punishment of crime; and yet it may be a question whether by taking an active part in the distribution of these documents the Post Office was not to some extent identifying itself with a class of business from which, for obvious reasons, it had better hold itself aloof.
While changes were taking place in other directions, the regulations for the transmission of newspapers through the post remained as they had been at the beginning of the century. Within the United Kingdom newspapers could not pass free except under the frank of either members of Parliament or of the clerks of the roads. To the Continent of Europe and to the colonies they could pass only at the letter rate of postage unless they were franked, in the case of the Continent, by the comptroller or clerks of the foreign department, and, in the case of the colonies, by Freeling. This privilege of franking was to the Post Office servants who possessed it a source of considerable profit. Freeling's share alone amounted to nearly £3000 a year; but he, unlike his subordinates, claimed to frank not newspapers alone but the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews and other publications of a like nature.
The West India merchants had long writhed under this exaction, and now at their instance Joseph Hume, the member for Montrose, brought the matter under the notice of the House of Commons. The practice had only to be made known in order to secure condemnation. A bill was brought in and passed extinguishing the privilege so far as the colonies were concerned, empowering the Treasury to grant compensation for the loss of it, and providing for the transmission of newspapers at easy rates. These rates were, from the United Kingdom to the colonies, 1-1/2d. and, from the colonies to the United Kingdom, 3d. for each newspaper, the reason for the difference of charge being that the paper would bear a stamp-duty in one direction and not in the other.
In the case of newspapers for the Continent the franking privilege remained untouched. It may seem strange that this should have been so; indeed, not more than two or three years had elapsed before members of Parliament were expressing surprise that the Act which had taken away the privilege in respect to one class of newspapers had not taken it away also in respect to the other. But the explanation, we think, is simple. Some nine or ten years before it had been rumoured that in the case of all Post Office servants the franking privilege was to be abolished, and those who would have been injured by its abolition proceeded to shew cause why in their own case an exception should be made. Only by those who franked to the Continent were even plausible reasons given; and there can be little doubt that, at all events to some extent, the same reasons operated now. These were that over a great part of the Continent, except for the arrangements made by the Post Office servants in Lombard Street, English newspapers could not circulate at all or could circulate only under most onerous conditions. In France their circulation was prohibited. To Holland they could not be sent unless ordered by some postmaster there. In Germany and Sweden, unless so ordered, they could not pass through the post except at the letter rate of postage. In Portugal the letter rate of postage was always charged. In Russia, besides being charged 7s. 6d. apiece, they were generally delayed and not seldom suppressed altogether. These obstacles had been overcome by the private arrangements made from Lombard Street, and, if these should be disallowed, the transmission of newspapers to the Continent, instead of being facilitated, would be rendered more difficult and costly. Thus in 1816 argued those who were interested in the maintenance of the privilege, and we can well understand that in 1825 much the same considerations prevailed.
The same Act of Parliament which imposed upon newspapers to the colonies a postage of 1-1/2d. allowed newspapers within the United Kingdom to pass through the post free from any postage at all. This was the effect of the Act, but it was accomplished in a roundabout manner. By a statute passed early in the century[93] a member of Parliament was required, in order to send his newspapers free, to sign his name on the outside in his own handwriting, and, in order to receive them free, to have them addressed to some place of which he had given previous notice in writing at the Post Office. By the present statute these provisions were repealed. A newspaper, to be exempt from postage, need no longer bear the signature of a member of Parliament and need no longer be addressed to a place of which previous notice had been given. In other words, newspapers might pass through the post free; and as a consequence the franking privilege possessed by the clerks of the roads was at an end.
This, it might naturally be supposed, was a signal epoch in the history of the Post Office. As a matter of fact, it was nothing of the kind. For many years past the law had been disregarded. It had indeed been insisted upon that a newspaper, in order to pass free, must bear a member's name, without which the full letter rate of postage would be charged; but by whom the name was written, whether it was written at all or only printed, and whether the use of it had been authorised, had long ceased to be considered material. So well was this understood that some of the largest news-vendors in the kingdom adopted a member's name without the slightest reference to the member himself, and had it printed on their newspaper-covers.
This laxity in the case of newspapers may appear all the more extraordinary in view of the stringency which was observed in other matters. The Chelsea pensioners had by statute enjoyed the privilege of sending and receiving letters at low rates of postage. Freeling never rested until the statute was repealed. At the close of hostilities with France letters which had been detained in Paris since the war broke out in 1803 were forwarded to London, and the merchants urged that they might be delivered free. The Treasury were in favour of granting the request; but Freeling energetically opposed it. The delivery of such letters free, he insisted, would be a plain breach of the law. On a dissolution of Parliament those who had been members lost their privilege in the matter of franking; and yet it might be supposed that a short period of grace would have been allowed, a period sufficient to admit of letters which were already in the post being delivered free. Nothing of the kind. These letters were surprised in course of transit and charged with postage.[94]
Lord Salisbury when at the Post Office contrasted the stringency of later years with the laxity which prevailed in his early manhood. "In the year 1778," he wrote, "and in many succeeding ones while I took the field with the militia it was the constant practice to write on all regimental papers the words, 'On His Majesty's service,' which insured a free delivery; but in process of time the Post Office became rather stricter and more attentive, and then such a superscription was charged except when addressed to peers and members of Parliament, and I have frequently paid for such letters overweight without getting any redress."
When such strictness was observed in other matters, one can only wonder at the liberties which were allowed to be taken with newspapers, and it appears all the more strange because the very act which in the case of newspapers was countenanced and encouraged was in the case of letters a highly penal offence. Was it not for forging a single frank, the frank of Sir William Garrow, that the clerical impostor, Halloran, was in 1818 sentenced to seven years' transportation? The plain truth would seem to be that vested interests were so deeply involved in the matter of newspapers that there was on the part of the Post Office the utmost indisposition to make them the subject of legislative enactment; and yet, without some concessions to the news-vendors, it would have been impossible to resist the pressure which would have been brought to bear. This, we doubt not, is the true explanation; and it will account for much that is otherwise dark and obscure. It will explain why that which was regarded as a heinous offence in the case of letters was sanctioned and encouraged in the case of newspapers; why, enormously as the circulation of newspapers within the United Kingdom increased during the first quarter of the present century, we look in vain for any legislative enactment regulating the conditions under which, except when sent or received by members of Parliament, they might pass through the post; and why in 1825, when at length they had conceded to them the right to pass free, the concession was enacted in an indirect and circuitous manner.
So far, therefore, as inland newspapers were concerned, the practical effect of the statute which now passed was little more than to make law correspond with usage. During many years newspapers had been passing through the post, as they were to pass for the future, free. The only difference was that, in order to secure exemption, it was no longer necessary to go through the farce of either writing or printing the name of some member of Parliament on the outside of the cover. The clerks of the roads were unaffected by the statute. The advantage which these officers had at one time derived from their franking privilege had already been lost to them through the action of the Post Office in evading the law; and we can well believe that even so they considered themselves fortunate in being permitted to escape with their newspaper-business. This business, long after they had begun to compete with the news-vendors on equal terms, was of large dimensions. During the year 1829, out of 11,862,706 newspapers despatched from London into the country, 1,207,794 or more than one-tenth of the whole number were despatched by the clerks of the roads.
But it was not only in respect to newspapers that the House of Commons began about this time to manifest in the proceedings of the Post Office an interest such as it had never taken before. Committee after Committee was appointed to report upon the communications of the country, upon roads, mail-coaches, and steam packets; but without any definite result. Obviously the House was not satisfied with things as they were, and yet did not well see how to improve them. Only one man appears to have had a clear perception of what he wanted, and to have been possessed of the requisite ability to carry his object. This was Sir Henry Parnell, chairman of the Select Committee on the Holyhead Road, a Committee the title of which only inadequately denotes either its scope or importance. Parnell, presuming on the authority which this position gave him, and convinced no doubt of the feasibility of his scheme of improvement, adopted towards the Post Office an air of superiority which was peculiarly galling to Freeling, who for the first time in his life found himself dictated to in respect to matters in which he had hitherto been regarded as supreme. The effect of this Committee was not only to keep the Post Office busily employed in the preparation of returns but to put it on the defensive.
Another inquiry which was going on contemporaneously contributed to the same result. Early in the reign of George the Fourth a Commission had been appointed to inquire into the state of the revenue, and this Commission, which began with the Post Office in 1823, did not report the result of its labours until 1829. Meanwhile the Post Office, which was practically on its trial, put forward as few proposals as possible; and even from those that were put forward the Treasury withheld assent on the pretext that the Commission had not yet reported. Hence followed the somewhat curious result that the very period during which the House of Commons began to manifest an interest in the Post Office was on the part of the Post Office itself a period of more than ordinary inaction.
And yet the period in question, though not remarkable for Post Office progress, is by no means an uninteresting one if only because within its limits the old and the new are brought together in striking contrast. In 1818 the express office in the Haymarket is closed, an office which had been established in 1797 for the purpose of facilitating the receipt and despatch of Government expresses. In 1821 gas, or oil-gas as it was then called, is introduced into the Post Office, and at once asserts its superiority over oil in point not only of illuminating power but of cheapness as well. In 1822 the Post Office, by virtue of a warrant under the royal sign-manual, is cleared of its irrecoverable debts. These have been accumulating during a period of 137 years—since 1685, when the Post Office was first taken out of farm, and now amount to £62,141.
About the same time Thomas Gray, writing from Brussels, advocates the introduction of steam engines on iron railways and predicts that, once established, they will absorb the carrying trade of the kingdom and displace mail-coaches. In 1823 Brunel, who has already achieved distinction, offers his services in the construction of a steam engine which shall prove as efficient and as safe at sea as when employed on land. The brilliant engineer receives no encouragement, and Gray receives not even the courtesy of an answer. In the same year passes away at Tunbridge Wells, James Sprange, the courtly old postmaster, who up to the date of his last illness might be seen pacing the Pantiles scrupulously dressed in the costume of the reign of George the Second, even to the long ruffles. In 1825 Glasgow is pleading, and pleading in vain, for a Post Office which shall not be kept at a shop. In 1828 the Roman Catholic peers are once more protesting against the outrage which precludes them, on the score of their religion, from exercising the privilege of franking. In 1829 Waghorn is vainly striving to induce the Post Office to co-operate in facilitating communication with the East.
The inferiority of sailing vessels to vessels propelled by steam has now been conclusively established, and steam packets are being placed on every station. Not the Holyhead Road alone but all the great roads of the kingdom have passed under Telford's hands and are beginning to assume the condition in which we see them to-day. And all this while postage remains at the ridiculously high level at which it was fixed in 1812. To Windsor the charge on a single letter is still 6d., to Birmingham 9d., and to Liverpool 11d. Letters are still held up to a strong light to see whether they contain an enclosure or not, and are to be charged as single or as double. The first general delivery in St. James' Square is not begun before twelve o'clock in the day or finished much before one. Offices for the receipt of general post letters are still kept separate and distinct from those for the receipt of letters for the twopenny post. By the twopenny post the postage is not necessarily 2d., but, according as it is a twopenny post letter, a general post letter, or a foreign letter, may be 3d., 2d., or nothing. On a letter for abroad the fee for registration is still one guinea.[95] An additional penny is still charged upon every letter that crosses the Conway or the Menai Bridge. Two hundred and seventy-five post towns still remain without a free delivery, and—what proves a constant source of contention between the Post Office and the inhabitants—even in those towns in which the letters are delivered free, the limits of the free delivery are not defined.
Twenty years before, the office in Gerrard Street, the headquarters of the twopenny post in Westminster, had been enlarged. Of this office, which ranked next in importance to the General Post Office in Lombard Street, the postmasters-general wrote in 1809—not, surely, without a touch of exaggeration: "The sorting office, where fourteen persons are generally employed at a time and nearly one-half of which is occupied by tables, is only seventeen feet long by thirteen wide"; and, again, "The letter-carriers' office, in which fifty persons are employed at a time and one-fourth of which is occupied by tables, is but eighteen feet by sixteen." Such were the conditions under which, until lately, the Post Office servants had been accustomed to work; and now on a site rich in historical associations is rapidly approaching completion a stately edifice which not only provides ample and even lavish accommodation for the present, but will, it is confidently predicted, suffice for all time.
The new Post Office in St. Martin's-le-Grand was opened on the 23rd of September 1829. Little more than sixty years have since elapsed, and the building has been shorn of its chief attraction, the central hall, and has otherwise been so altered internally that even the accomplished architect, were he to revisit us, would probably fail to recognise his own handiwork. Of the old Post Office in Lombard Street, with its courts and its alleys and its interesting associations, not a fragment remains. Part of the site was retained for Post Office purposes, and is now occupied by what is known as the Lombard Street Branch Office; part was thrown into the street then forming, and to be called after the King, King William Street; and the remainder was sold, and has long been covered with banks and counting-houses.
It were much to be wished, if only for his own reputation and peace of mind, that Freeling had now retired. Full of years, recently created a baronet, of ample means, and enjoying the confidence of the Government as probably civil servant had never enjoyed it before, he could not have selected a better moment for relinquishing the duties of his arduous post. But a man who has been accustomed to exercise power is seldom willing to give it up. And in Freeling's case we suspect there was an additional reason. Of the large income which he derived from the Post Office, exceeding £4000 a year, considerably more than two-thirds was compensation for the loss of the franking privilege; and this compensation, according to a well-understood rule, was not to count for pension. As the fees which had been received for the exercise of the privilege must have ceased on retirement, so the compensation was to cease also.
That Freeling would have received a special pension is beyond doubt; but even a special pension, with the utmost goodwill on the part of the Government, could not have approached the amount of his official income. And of this Freeling must have been well aware, for grumblings were already to be heard. The Commissioners of Revenue Inquiry, indeed, had gone so far as to question his right to receive any fees at all, and, even assuming such right to exist, had impugned the conduct of the Government in fixing the amount of his compensation at close upon £3000 a year.
The removal into the new building was celebrated by two important steps in advance. Two branch offices were opened, one at Charing Cross and the other in Oxford Street, where letters were received without a fee until half-past six o'clock in the evening. Up to this time, except in Lombard Street, no office for the receipt of letters had been kept open later than five o'clock. A still more important step was the earlier delivery of letters in the morning. This was accomplished within the city by the employment of additional letter-carriers, and in the more distant parts by conveying the men to their walks in vehicles. A whole hour was thus gained. In the west end of London the delivery had not been completed until between twelve and one o'clock. It was now to be completed, except on Mondays, when the greater number of letters caused delay, between eleven and twelve.
It will be convenient here to notice, though not strictly in chronological order, a third step in advance which took place about a year later, a step regarded as of little moment at the time, and yet one which, in view of subsequent events, was of the highest importance. On the 11th of November 1830 the first mail was sent by railway, this being the mail between Liverpool and Manchester. Except as the opening of a new era, the fact would hardly deserve to be recorded, for many years had yet to pass before railways became sufficiently general to afford to the Post Office any sensible relief. Meanwhile the roofs of the mail-coaches groaned under the weight of the mails. Time had been when no mail was allowed to be put on the roof or elsewhere than in the mail-box; but, as the correspondence increased, the Post Office was forced to countenance a practice of which it highly disapproved. What, except for the railways, would have happened on the introduction of penny postage is a question into which, happily, we need not inquire.
The new Post Office had not been long occupied before the Government changed hands, and Earl Grey came into power with the Duke of Richmond as postmaster-general. It is not often that a change of Government affects the proceedings of the Post Office. One postmaster-general may be more active than another, or he may take a more lively and personal interest in the questions with which he has to deal; but there must, from the nature of the case, be a continuity of policy which can seldom be broken. Nor was there in this respect any exception to rule in the present instance. And yet the peer who now assumed the direction of the Post Office adopted a mode of procedure so different from that of his immediate predecessors that it is impossible to pass over the occasion in silence.
Richmond on his appointment as postmaster-general declined to receive any salary; and having formed this determination on the ground that the office was notoriously a sinecure, he straightway proceeded to shew that a sinecure was the very thing which in his hands the office was not to be. He devoted himself heart and soul to his new duties. Early and late, at his private residence as well as the Post Office, he was in constant and personal communication with officers of all classes from the highest to the lowest. Nothing like it had been seen since the days of Walsingham. He frequented the sorting office, saw for himself how the work was done, and with many a kindly word encouraged the men to do their best. With his own hands he on one occasion opened a bag for the colonial office, and, in confirmation of the suspicion which had prompted the act, found it full of letters for bankers, army agents, and others, representing postage to the amount of £60.
Yet hard as he laboured, the Duke's repugnance to receive remuneration for his services could not be overcome. Learning that his salary remained undrawn, the Treasury addressed to him a letter of gentle remonstrance. To this letter he returned no reply. Fourteen months later the Treasury wrote again. To gratuitous service there were, in their Lordships' opinion, serious objections. The Lord Privy Seal had declined to receive the salary annexed to his office, and a Select Committee of the House of Commons had expressed disapproval of the step as being inconsistent with the wishes and the dignity of the country. Could that be right on the part of the postmaster-general which had been held to be wrong in the case of the Lord Privy Seal? Richmond now yielded, feeling that it would be indelicate, if not disrespectful to the House, to force gratuitous service where he was authoritatively informed gratuitous service would not be welcome; but while yielding he managed to draw as little of the arrears of salary as possible. His appointment as postmaster-general bore date the 14th of December 1830, and the views of the Committee were for the first time made known to him at the end of April. The end of April, he was pleased to say, was an inconvenient time to begin. It was a broken quarter. He would, in deference to the opinion of the Committee, draw salary from the 5th of July but not before.
Richmond had been only a short time at the Post Office when he had a most invidious task to perform. This was the carrying out of the arrangements consequent upon the consolidation of the Irish Post Office with the Post Office of Great Britain. The state of things arising from the maintenance within the United Kingdom of two independent Post Offices had long been felt to be intolerable. Until four or five years before, not only had the rates of postage in Ireland been different from those in England, but on a letter passing from one part of the kingdom to another both the English and the Irish rates had been charged. This had now been altered,[96] but the inconvenience of the dual control remained. A letter from Ireland might have miscarried or been delayed. The postmaster-general of England could not answer for its course except on this side of the Channel, and for further particulars the complainant had to be referred to Dublin. The English packets were timed to arrive in Ireland at a particular hour; but on the goodwill of the authorities in Dublin it depended whether the Irish posts corresponded or whether, as had not been unknown to be the case, their times were perversely fixed so as to keep the English mails waiting.
Nor was this all. The Revenue Inquiry Commissioners had recently reported upon the Irish Post Office, and the evidence, on which their report was based, revealed the existence of scandalous abuses such as no Government could suffer to continue. For nearly fifty years the Irish Post Office had been independent of the Post Office of Great Britain, and it was now determined that this independence should cease. In 1831 an Act was passed incorporating the two Post Offices into one, and Richmond's patent as postmaster-general of Great Britain had hardly been completed before another passed constituting him postmaster-general of the United Kingdom.
Upon Richmond as postmaster-general of Ireland as well as England and Scotland it now devolved to sweep out the Augean stable; and his stern sense of duty peculiarly qualified him for the task. Rosse and O'Neill had ceased to be postmasters-general of Ireland upon the Act of incorporation passing. Lees, their secretary, was removed from Dublin to Edinburgh. Only those who had performed their duties in person were retained. All others were summarily dismissed and pensions were refused to them. In the result the Irish establishment was reduced in point of numbers by one-half, and in point of cost by nearly £10,000 a year; and this after the salaries of those who were retained had been increased all round.
One important function had yet to be performed. This was to audit the Irish accounts, which had not been audited for fourteen years, and were known to be in a state of the utmost confusion. The receiver-general, who carried on the private business of banker and money-lender, had recently died, and speculation was high as to what further scandals the audit would reveal. All preparations had been made, and the persons selected for the task were on the point of starting for Dublin when intelligence reached London that the receiver-general's bond was not forthcoming. It had, shortly after his death, been surrendered under an instruction from Lees which, like the instruction which conferred upon his brother a valuable appointment, purported to have been given at a Board at which were present "the earls." The earls, as a matter of fact, had not been present and had never been consulted on the point. As it was felt that in the absence of the bond an audit would be of little use, the Government abandoned their intention, and the Irish Post Office accounts from 1817 to 1831 remain unaudited to the present day.
Lord Althorp was at this time Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the position which he assumed towards the Post Office was probably unique. Ordinarily, between the Treasury and the Post Office there is a certain amount of antagonism which, deplorable as it may be, is not difficult to understand. The Post Office wants to spend money; the Treasury wants to save it. The Post Office knows by experience that it must sow before it can reap; the Treasury, while ready enough to reap, has a rooted aversion to sowing, and resolutely shuts its eyes to the fact that between the two processes there is a direct and necessary connection. All this was reversed in Althorp's time. Often, during his tenure of office, might be witnessed the strange spectacle of a Chancellor of the Exchequer urging the Post Office to adopt some improvement, and the Post Office attempting to frighten him with the bogey of cost.
The first matter on which Althorp brought his authority to bear was the boundary of the general post delivery. The limits of this delivery were irregular and capricious in the extreme. Of two streets, possibly adjoining streets, one might receive its general post letters for the general post rate alone, while the other, though at no greater distance from St. Martin's-le-Grand, had to pay the twopenny rate as well.
The question now forced itself into prominence. Belgrave Square had been laid out, and the houses were being occupied as fast as they could be built. Those of the occupiers who were members of Parliament found to their chagrin that every letter they received cost them 2d., for the franking privilege did not clear the twopenny post; and, of course, by those who were not members of Parliament, 2d. had to be paid in addition to any other postage to which their letters might be liable. Althorp insisted that the general post limits should be not only extended but fixed on some definite principle. But what was the principle to be? Contiguity of building? This was held to be impracticable. A line drawn on such a basis would extend beyond Brentford on the west to Hampstead and Highgate on the north, and beyond Clapham on the south. A line drawn according to parishes would be little better. The parish of St. Pancras, which nearly touched Holborn in its southern extremity, extended as far as Finchley in the north, and the parish of Lambeth reached nearly to Croydon.
Another course would be to draw a circle of which the Post Office should be the centre, and let all letters within this circle be delivered free; but even with a radius of no more than three miles, the additional cost would be £25,000 a year. This was an outlay which the Post Office could not recommend, and, if it were incurred, the Government must take the responsibility. Althorp was not to be daunted, and after April 1831 the general post limits extended for a distance of three miles from St. Martin's-le-Grand. A little later, the threepenny post was extended to a radius of twelve miles. This, boon as it was considered to be sixty years ago, was shorter by some miles than the radius of the penny post when Queen Anne ascended the throne.
Althorp was hardly less determined on the subject of the packets. It had been a matter of principle with Freeling, that to all places beyond the sea to which there was regular communication the Post Office should carry its own mails. That they should be carried in vessels belonging to private persons, however respectable these persons might be, appeared to him to be unworthy of the English Government, and on this ground many an advantageous offer had been refused.
Althorp held a different opinion, and an opportunity soon offered of carrying his own view into effect. From Harwich the mails to Holland and to Hamburg were still carried by sailing packet, and the merchants of London, regarding this as an anachronism, urged that the sailing packets might be replaced by steam packets. The request was not unreasonable, but, unwilling that the Government should be at the cost of substituting one description of packet for the other, Althorp directed that the service should be put up to public competition. Here we see the first application of a principle which in the result has furnished us with a fleet of packets such as no other country in the world can produce. The tender of the General Steam Navigation Company was accepted, though saddled with the condition that its vessels should start from the Thames. This was a death-blow to Harwich. The sailing packets for Sweden were, indeed, still retained there; but in little more than eighteen months the Swedish Government contracted for the mails to be forwarded from Hull, and Harwich as a packet station was closed.
But of all the changes which Althorp introduced perhaps the most important, and certainly the one which excited most opposition at the Post Office, was the abolition of the newspaper privilege. The number of newspapers sent by post from London into the country had, within the last fifty or sixty years, increased enormously. In 1764 they averaged 3160 a day, in 1790 the daily average was 12,600, and in 1830 it had risen to 41,412. The rate of increase, moreover, was advancing. In 1829 the total number of such newspapers was 11,862,000, and in 1830 12,962,000; and more than one-tenth part of the whole number was supplied by the clerks of the roads.
The news-vendors now took the matter up in earnest. A general meeting was held to protest against the Post Office servants being any longer allowed to compete with the private dealers, and a petition to the same effect was presented to Parliament. This called forth a vigorous rejoinder from Freeling, and it is interesting to note by what arguments he defended his position. So far, he said, from the news-vendors having any ground of complaint against the Post Office servants, it is the Post Office servants who have reason to complain of the news-vendors. For their own interest and advantage a few persons engaged in a trade of modern creation are endeavouring by clamour to deprive others of the remains of an old and long-established privilege, which they exercise not only under the sanction of immemorial usage, but by the direct authority of Acts of Parliament. It is not as though the public were interested in the question. The public have absolutely no interest in it, except indeed to this extent—that, if what remains of the privilege be withdrawn, they will be asked to compensate those whose incomes are reduced in consequence, and to provide higher salaries for their successors; and this "for the sole purpose of transferring their authorised official remuneration to the pockets of a few individuals who, having been admitted to a participation in what was originally an exclusive privilege, have now thought proper to set up a claim to the whole."
Such were Freeling's arguments, but Althorp was not convinced by them. By his direction the privilege was withdrawn as from the 5th of April 1834, and those whose incomes suffered were handsomely compensated. Thus ended a practice which had existed from the first establishment of the Post Office, and which, while the Post Office was still in its infancy, may perhaps have had this to justify it—that except for the franking privilege possessed by the clerks of the roads the provinces would probably have had to go without even the few copies of newspapers which at that time found their way there.
It may appear strange that, while Althorp was thus applying his sturdy common sense to the affairs of the Post Office, no steps were taken to correct what most needed correction—the exorbitant rates of postage. Our own belief is that in a very short time, had the Government of which he was a member remained in office, a reduction would have been made, and that it was to this result that he and Richmond, who worked hand in hand together, were preparing the way. As to Richmond's views on the matter there can be little doubt. Under previous Governments the Post Office had been accustomed in exceptional cases to appeal to the Chancellor of the Exchequer to mitigate the severity of its own rates by the exercise of a dispensing power; but Richmond set his face against the practice, insisting that the law should be obeyed until it was altered; and, after being released from the trammels of office, he was one of the first to propose an alteration.
But if such were indeed Althorp and Richmond's intention, we cannot regret that it was not carried into effect. The illustrious man who gave us penny postage had not yet directed his attention to the subject; and, as he tells us himself, it was with him a matter of long and careful consideration whether he should devote his energies to the reform of the Post Office or to the improvement of the printing machine. If in 1834 only a moderate reduction had been made in the extortionate rates of postage which were then in force, Rowland Hill might not have embarked upon his plan, and, even if he had done so, that plan might have failed to evoke from the public sufficient support to overcome opposition in high quarters. In proportion to the extent of the evil did men welcome the remedy.
Meanwhile, although the demand for cheap postage had not yet taken shape, profound dissatisfaction existed with the conduct of the Post Office. This, under the reformed Parliament, was perhaps to be expected in any case; but there were special circumstances which contributed to the result. Nearly five years had elapsed since the Royal Commission of Inquiry had reported upon the Post Office, and nothing had since been done to carry its recommendations into effect.
It is not difficult to understand this inaction. In Freeling's view the Post Office had been brought to a pitch of perfection such as it had never reached before, and he regarded it as little short of sacrilege that a body of outside novices should presume to lay its hands upon the sacred ark which he had now for more than a generation been moulding into form. Of the change of opinion which the labours of the Commission had wrought he appears to have been utterly unconscious. Hitherto the Post Office had been regarded as a marvellous mystery, which none but experts could understand. This mystery had now been invaded, and men were beginning to wonder, not, as in the past, at the things which the Post Office was able to do, but how it was that these things were not done better.
The Commission had also brought to light the existence of abuses, and these on one pretext or another had remained uncorrected. We will give a single instance. The Money Order Office had been established in 1792 with the object of facilitating the transmission of small sums from one part of the country to the other by means of orders drawn on the different postmasters. The plan was excellent and deserved success. The only objection to it was that the enterprise was a private one, undertaken by a few Post Office servants for their own benefit, and that to make it remunerative to the projectors required from the authorities an amount of favour which they had no right to bestow. Originally there had been no limit to the amount for which a money order might be drawn;[97] but long before 1829, in order to prevent interference with the banking interest, the limit had been fixed at £5:5s.; and the commission chargeable was at the rate of 8d. in the £1 on the sum remitted. Of this amount 3d. went to the postmaster who issued the order, 3d. to the postmaster who paid it, and the residue to the proprietors.[98]
Seeing that the postage on a single letter between two towns no farther apart than London and Bristol was at this time 10d., it will be obvious that in respect to orders for small sums the enterprise would have been conducted at a loss unless the correspondence on money order business had been exempt from postage. And such indeed was the case. All letters passing from London to the country were impressed with the official stamp, and those passing from the country to London were enclosed in printed covers addressed to the secretary, and bearing, immediately below the secretary's name, that of the proprietors, "Stow and Company." For correspondence between themselves on money order business the postmasters were supplied with franks sent down from London in blank. Strongly as the Commission of Inquiry had animadverted on this abuse, nothing had been done to correct it, and the franking privilege was, for money order purposes, being as freely used as ever.
The returns which the House of Commons called for about this time, and the returns which the Post Office furnished, shew, more forcibly perhaps than anything else, in what direction men's minds were tending, and how hollow was the foundation on which a part of the Post Office system rested. More than sixty years had elapsed since the Law Courts decided that inhabitants of post towns were entitled to a gratuitous delivery of their letters. The House now inquired at how many post towns a charge on delivery was still being made, and by what authority. The return furnished by the Post Office shewed the number of towns to be eighty-nine, and after giving as the authority for the charge "immemorial usage," went on to state that "the payment is not compulsory if the parties choose to object."
It was still the practice to hold up to a strong lamplight every letter that passed through the post in order to see whether it was a single or a double one; and the House called upon the Post Office to state by what authority this was done. The Post Office, having no authority to adduce, returned an evasive reply. The House next called for the number of persons who had been prosecuted in the course of the year for the illegal conveyance of letters. The Post Office return shewed that on this ground, during the last twelve months, as many as 341 prosecutions had taken place, many of them involving a large, and some of them a very large, number of persons, and that the cases were still more numerous in which, in order to avoid prosecution, the transgressors had submitted to fines. And how had the revenue been prospering meanwhile? A return called for by the House in April 1834 answers the question. During the last ten years, despite the increase of population, the net Post Office revenue had actually declined. In 1824 the receipts were £2,055,000 gross and £1,438,000 net, as against £1,391,000 net and £2,062,000 gross in 1833.
In 1834 Earl Grey was succeeded by Viscount Melbourne; and one of the first acts of the new Government was to appoint another Commission of Inquiry into the Post Office, with directions to ascertain and report how it was that the recommendations of the former Commission had not been carried out. These recommendations were now set down one by one, and the Post Office was called upon to explain, opposite to each, whether any and, if so, what steps had been taken to give effect to it. One or two of them had indeed been adopted—such, for instance, as the recommendation that Post Office servants should cease to deal in newspapers—but only under compulsion. Others affecting the internal administration of the Post Office were certainly not feasible. But there remained not a few which, while excellent in themselves, had been discarded on the merest pretext.
The Commissioners had recommended that the "early," that is the preferential, delivery of letters should be discontinued. The Post Office replied that it was impossible. The Commissioners had recommended that, instead of the receiving houses for general post letters being separate and distinct from those for the letters of the twopenny post, every receiving house should take in letters of both kinds. The Post Office replied that the existing arrangement was the best adapted not only to the convenience of the public but to the business of the department. The Commissioners had recommended that the letter-carriers, instead of being separated into general post, twopenny post, and foreign letter-carriers, should all form one corps and deliver letters of every description. The Post Office replied—a reply all the more extraordinary inasmuch as the very arrangement which the Commissioners recommended was already in force both in Edinburgh and Dublin—that "it would be productive of the greatest confusion and delay."
The last of the recommendations to which we shall refer was that "the total charge upon all letters should be expressed in one taxation." The Post Office replied that it was "not possible for country postmasters to know the precise line of demarcation between the general post and twopenny post deliveries." In other words, no postmaster could know what, in the case of letters for London—and, it might have been added, for any other town than his own—the proper charge should be. This was no pretext. It was, on the contrary, perfectly true; and perhaps no more striking testimony could be afforded to the unsoundness of the system then in vogue.
It is impossible to conceive that on Freeling's part there can have been anything in the shape of contumacy, still less of defiance; but we are by no means sure that the House of Commons did not incline to that view. Be that as it may, however, the Post Office was in bad odour, and an unfortunate series of incidents which occurred about this time little tended to remove the unfavourable impression which the unwillingness to carry out the Commissioners' recommendations had created. The House, at the instance of the Select Committee on Steam Navigation, had called for a return of the casualties which within a given period had happened to the Irish packets. The return furnished by the Post Office omitted two accidents in which one of the members of the Committee had himself assisted; and the Committee forthwith ordered the attendance of a witness from the Post Office to explain the omission. Another return contained obvious errors, and was sent back to the Post Office to be corrected.
But the two returns which excited most comment referred to the mileage allowance received by the mail-coach contractors, and to the Money Order Office. As regards the mileage allowance the only reply vouchsafed by the Post Office was that it "has not the means of furnishing any account of the amount paid." The return as regards the Money Order Office was still more unfortunate. The ground on which this office had been condemned by the Revenue Inquiry Commissioners was that it was carried on for the benefit of individuals, and yet in so far as its correspondence was exempt from postage, at the expense of the revenue. Several years had since passed, and the House, not doubting that the abuse had been corrected, called for a return shewing the amount of postage derived from letters containing money orders, and to what purpose it was applied. "The Money Order Office"—thus ran the return which the Post Office furnished—" is a private establishment, and the business is carried on by private capital under the sanction of the postmaster-general; but as no accounts connected in any degree with it are kept at the Post Office, no return can be made by the postmaster-general to the order of the House of Commons." The House was highly incensed, and ordered that, both as regards the Money Order Office and the mileage allowance, proper returns should be rendered at once.
The energy of the new Commission had now nearly brought the Post Office into trouble. The contract for the supply of mail-coaches was in the hands of Mr. Vidler of Millbank, who had held it for more than forty years, and little had been done during this period to improve the construction of the vehicles he supplied. Designed after the pattern in vogue at the end of the last century, they were, as compared with the stage-coaches, not only heavy and unsightly but inferior both in point of speed and accommodation. Moreover, the charge made for them, namely, 2-1/2d. a mile in England and 2d. a mile in Scotland, was considered to be high; and the Commissioners, altogether dissatisfied with the manner in which the contract had been performed, arranged with the Government not only that the service should be put up to public tender, but that Vidler should be excluded from the competition. This decision was arrived at in July 1835, and the contract expired on the 5th of January following. To invite tenders would occupy time, and, after that mail-coaches would have to be built sufficient in number to supply the whole of England and Scotland. A period of five or six months was obviously not enough for the purpose, and overtures were made to Vidler to continue his contract for half a year longer. Vidler, incensed at the treatment he had received, flatly refused. Not a day, not an hour, beyond the stipulated time would he extend his contract, and on the 5th of January 1836 all the mail-coaches in Great Britain would be withdrawn from the roads.
A man less loyal than Freeling or endued with less generous instincts might have felt a twinge of satisfaction at this result of interference with what he considered his own domain. But such emotion, if indeed he felt it, was not suffered to appear. With a difficulty to overcome, some of his old energy returned, and when the 5th of January arrived there was not a road in the kingdom from Wick to Penzance on which a new mail-coach was not running.
It was now that the mail-coaches reached their prime. Eight or nine miles an hour had hitherto been their highest speed, and now, with vehicles of lighter build, the speed was advanced to ten miles an hour and even more. Truth compels us to add that while the fastest mail-coach on the road, the coach between Liverpool and Preston, travelled at the rate of ten miles and five furlongs an hour, a private coach accomplished within the hour rather more than eleven miles. This was the coach between Edinburgh and Aberdeen, of which Captain Barclay of Ury was the proprietor. Besides coachman and guard it carried fifteen passengers, namely, four inside and eleven outside, while a mail-coach carried four in and four out or eight altogether. Nor would Captain Barclay admit that, in order to attain this high rate of speed, recourse need be had to anything like furious driving. Nothing more, he maintained, was necessary than to keep the horses at a "swinging trot."
Freeling's success in averting a breakdown with the mail-coaches did little or nothing to arrest the tide which had set in against him. After exercising an influence such as probably no civil servant had exercised before, he found himself discredited and the object of vehement and not over-scrupulous attack. Of the ministers under whose orders he had acted not a few had passed away, and none were in a position to share his responsibility, while their successors only knew him as identified with a system which had become unpopular. Owing to an unusually rapid succession of postmasters-general,[99] he was without even the solace and support which a chief of some years' standing might have given him. Single-handed, the old man had maintained a gallant defence; but his spirit was now broken. In the midst of his exertions to prevent any interruption of travelling facilities the House of Commons had called for a return which was calculated to wound him deeply. This return implied not only that he had been guilty of gross mismanagement, but that his salary was higher than he was entitled to receive, that he was drawing unauthorised emoluments, and that the Post Office was made subordinate to his personal interests.
To the outside world Freeling maintained much the same demeanour as before, and few would have suspected the weight that pressed at his heart; but in the solitude of his study he was an altered man. There he brooded over the past and contrasted it with the present. Notes jotted down haphazard on official papers that chanced to be on his table reveal the inner workings of his mind. We know few sadder records. He recalls the time when Governments consulted him and he stood high in favour with the public. He cannot forget how, in the course of debate in the House of Commons, his own proficiency and devotion to duty were urged as reasons for not retaining the second appointment of postmaster. In the recollection of those happy days he endeavours to find consolation for the calumny and detraction of the present. He repudiates as unfounded the charge that he has long ceased to consult the interests of the public, and affirms that in this cause he has of late years laboured even more abundantly than he did of old.
Then there is a break, after which he takes up his pen again. "Cheap postage,"—to this effect he writes. "What is this men are talking about? Can it be that all my life I have been in error? If I, then others—others whose behests I have been bound to obey. To make the Post Office revenue as productive as possible was long ago impressed upon me by successive ministers as a duty which I was under a solemn obligation to discharge. And not only long ago. Is it not within the last six months that the present Chancellor of the Exchequer[100] has charged me not to let the revenue go down? What! You, Freeling, brought up and educated as you have been, are you going to lend yourself to these extravagant schemes? You, with your four-horse mail-coaches too. Where else in the world does the merchant or manufacturer have the materials of his trade carried for him gratuitously or at so low a rate as to leave no margin of profit?"
Here the manuscript abruptly ends. It is dated the 24th of June 1836. Within sixteen days from that date Francis Freeling was no more.
We have done. From 1836 downwards the story of the Post Office is told, far better than we could tell it, in the Autobiography of Sir Rowland Hill and the reports which, since 1854, the department has issued annually. The story of the preceding period is less well known, if indeed it be known at all. To tell the earlier story—to trace the Post Office from its humble beginnings down to the time when the illustrious reformer took it in hand—this has been the extent of our object, and no one perhaps is more conscious than ourselves how imperfectly it has been accomplished.