A Second Letter on the late Post Office Agitation

by C. J. Vaughan

My antagonist is fond of recurring to first principles. When he was engaged, some years ago, in what he now denominates “the easy and pleasant task” [13c] of a somewhat similar controversy with a very different Correspondent, [13d] he constructed for that Gentleman, in a catechetical form, a sort of Rudimenta Minora of Theology, [13e] adapted to what he conceived to be the extent of his religious attainments. Starting from the immortality of the soul, he descended, by stages judiciously graduated, to a humbler and more practical question—the Sunday labours of the Bath Post Office. For me, a somewhat more advanced pupil, he has drawn up a series—indeed two series [14]—of rather less elementary propositions, ending with this revolting (though certainly unquestionable) truism, “That it is better for sixty thousand letters to be burned, unopened, than for one Post Office Clerk to perish in hell for ever.” Now, if I might be permitted to assume for a moment an office which my opponent appears to regard as peculiarly his own, that of a theological preceptor of adults, I would start, like him, from some elementary axiom, such as the authority of Revelation, or the Inspiration of the Bible, and, leading him, by an easy train of reasoning, through a few brief truisms on the properties of Christian charity, I should not despair of gaining his acquiescence at last in this singularly startling paradox, That it is the duty of every Christian to believe his neighbour’s word until it is proved to be false, and to put upon his conduct, not the least but the most favourable construction of which it is reasonably capable. Tried by this test, the personalities of this question would be scattered to the winds. It might remain to be considered, whether in the measure of the Government there had been anything of mistake or miscalculation; whether their hopes had been too sanguine, or their assertions too positive; but for imputations of malignant design, of intentional deception, no place whatever could have been found.

When the opponents of a measure turn aside from the consideration of its inherent merits, to that of the secret motives and intentions of its author, the attempt injures their cause far more than the success of the attempt could aid it. No man would resort to such an argument, till all else had been exhausted. And if unhappily such outrages upon common honour and morality be excused, as here, by the plea of zeal for religion, it is well if the cause of religion itself do not suffer by its association with practices so unworthy.

But even upon the merits of the case my Reviewers are ready to join issue. I am accused of the grossest ignorance of the facts involved in the discussion. The Record, refraining with an unwonted tenderness from the imputation of a more corrupt motive, or unwilling to expend upon a less formidable enemy any portion of that artillery which must be reserved entire for the devoted head of Mr. Rowland Hill, is contented to represent me as “a respectable man, occupied for the last three months in reading nothing but the Times,” and an instructive example of the pernicious influence of its “suppressions.” [16] Now, if the burden of this charge is a preference of the Times to the Record as a channel of political information, I must plead guilty. But, if it be intended, as the context implies, that I borrowed from that or any other Newspaper the statements of facts contained in my Letter, I can only reply that the charge is false. Not one assertion is there made, which was not obtained by explicit information from what every candid enquirer would regard as the most authentic source. I do not for one moment hesitate to confess that I regard an official Government return as better evidence on a question of fact than the irresponsible publications of a “Lord’s Day Society.” If the latter informs me that “the new Sabbath labour already employs a considerably larger number of men on the Sabbath than was professed by Mr. Hill’s Minute;” and if I learn from what I must regard as higher authority that the amount of extra-work to be done on Sundays in the London Office will, in all probability, be very shortly reduced to the employment of six persons, and may ultimately be accomplished even without any such addition, nay, with an actual diminution of the original number; while, at the same time, more than one hundred and ninety persons, who have hitherto performed regular work on Sundays, are set entirely free, within the London District itself; can I hesitate which to follow?

But, on other points, the conflict of evidence is less real than nominal. The Society for Promoting the Observance of the Lord’s Day has forwarded to me a table of returns from its Secretaries and Correspondents, showing the hours of labour in seventy-three Country Post Offices, both before and since the recent Order. It is there stated, that, “putting together all these seventy-three Post Towns, the aggregate number of additional hours for which the Post Offices are now closed, does not exceed one hundred and ten hours, being on an average one hour and a half for each place.” Even in that document are contained the names of several Towns in which the relief thus afforded has amounted to four hours of additional rest on the Sunday. But I will allow, for argument’s sake, the entire correctness of their calculations. In seventy-three Country Post Offices the average of relief amounts but to one hour and a half. The Government, in the meantime, has received returns, not from seventy-three, but from upwards of four hundred and eighty Towns, in which the amount of relief has varied from one half-hour to seven hours on the Sunday, and the average has amounted to between three and four hours. Where is the real inconsistency of these statements? The Lord’s Day Society, on a much smaller induction, and with materials (it may be) carefully selected, arrives at one result; the Government, on larger and less partial information, presents another. But in this case again, I ask, can I doubt for one moment which to follow?

You express some hesitation as to the justice of one statement contained in my Letter, that the new Regulation involves no change of principle. [19a] You consider that the attendance on Sunday in the London Post Office, whatever its extent, has been hitherto private and unnoticed, whereas in future it will be public and notorious. Nor can I deny that the publicity which has been given to the subject by the recent agitation has attracted to the proceedings of the Post Office a degree of public attention to which they were never before exposed. But the distinction you draw, though I understand it, seems to me somewhat arbitrary. The attendance of the twenty-six [19b] will henceforth, at all events, be as notorious as that of the twenty-five, [20a] or the six. [20b] Henceforth, at all events, the two objects of Sunday attendance will be separated by no such line of distinction. If the one does not involve publicity, does not constitute what can fairly be called an opening of the London Post Office, neither will the other. The Public will have no admission. The London Public will be unaffected by the change. As far as London is concerned, the Office will still be closed. If the former attendance was not enough to open it, the present Regulation, when the tumult of this agitation has once subsided, will work no less privately. If it is otherwise now, whose fault is it?

The Author of the Reply, with singular inconsistency, has thus disposed of this part of the question. “The Office in London has been considered as uniformly at rest, and always spoken of as such by both parties, the slight exceptions being not of a nature to be cited honestly against that position.” [20c] Slight exceptions! Is this the same hand which penned the ninth axiom? [21a] Twenty-six Post Office clerks, involved in perils such as he has painted, a slight exception, not of a nature to be cited honestly! Why then the twenty-five, or the six, or the gradually vanishing number, of additional clerks required by the new measure?

Again, you can see no obvious connection between the additional Sunday labour in London and the additional Sunday rest in the country Offices. Is it fair, you ask, to append to a measure of relief a condition of an opposite kind? You would be the last man in the world, I well know, to impute to me (even as “an elegant close to a period” [21b]) the horrid and impious crime of “striking a balance with Jehovah” by “offering Him a lesser sin instead of a greater.” [21c] You would not call it a sin in one member of a family to endeavour to lighten the Sunday labour of another by the sacrifice of a portion of his own Sunday leisure. You would not call it a violation of the consciences of others, or an exchange of sin for sin, if the Master of a family proposed to his servants such an equalization of their Sunday employments. And on the same principle, if there be any connection between Sunday work in London and Sunday relief in the country, I cannot admit for one moment that it is a sin to propose to a clerk in the London Post Office the discharge of a duty which shall lighten the work elsewhere, not of one, but of tens and perhaps hundreds, of his fellow-servants; and this, without forfeiting for himself the opportunity of attending Divine service twice on the Lord’s Day, with all comfort and quietness, and with leisure, besides, for reflection and repose. [22a] Are domestic servants, to speak generally, even in Christian families, in a more favourable position than this for their religious welfare? The Author of the Reply objects to these “national” views of the question. With him, “national” is the opposite of “scriptural” and “spiritual.” [22b] He can see nothing but the individual; the “one Post Office clerk.” He would deny the applicability to a nation of the command to “bear one another’s burdens.” What in a family would be virtues, in a wider sphere are sins.

Your view, I am persuaded, is not thus microscopic. You will grant the conclusion, if the premises are established. Your only doubt is as to the effect of the labour here upon the labour there. The Government have coupled the burden and the relief; but is there any real and natural connection? It was the object of my Letter to indicate, chiefly by references to Mr. Hill’s Minute, the existence of this connection. I will not repeat now the obvious statement that the cessation of the Sunday detention of letters in London will obviate at once those circuitous methods of communication by which the detention was formerly evaded, and Sunday labour, in various ways, materially increased. [23] I will rather select the point to which you particularly direct my attention. And I would show you, as briefly as possible, the operation of the new Order in diminishing the amount of letters delivered and read, written and posted, in the country on the Sunday. [24]

Under the old system, the average number of letters passing through the London Office was greater by six per cent. on Saturday than on other days. Why? Because it was known that the following was a blank post. If not transmitted before Sunday, they must wait in London throughout that day. Now the augmentation of letters passing through London on Saturday caused an augmentation of letters delivered and read in the country on Sunday. The effect of the new Regulation is at least to obviate this excess, and to reduce the Sunday morning delivery in the country to the measure of an ordinary day. The labours of sorting and of distribution will be diminished obviously to a proportionate extent.

Again, the average number of letters passing through London on Monday was greater, not by six, but by twenty-five per cent., than on other days. Such letters must have been posted in the country either on Saturday evening or on Sunday. But Saturday evening, under the old system, was in most Towns a blank post time. Sunday, therefore, was the day to which the excess was to be attributed. The knowledge that letters posted on Saturday evening would lie in London till the Monday, led to a very general habit of either writing, or at least posting, letters on the Sunday. The latter habit, equally with the former, involved a corresponding increase of the Sunday labours of the country Offices. Under the present system, the temptation to prefer Sunday for either purpose is removed. Saturday now offers equal advantages with any other day for sending letters from the country through London. In the same degree, the burdens of the country Offices on Sunday are lightened: the excess, at least, of those burdens, a marked and heavy excess, above those of common days, is effectually removed. And, beyond this, the religious feeling which leads so many to shrink from such an employment of the Lord’s Day cannot but operate in diminishing the Sunday occupations (in this respect) of the country Offices even below those of other days. Of the actual result, the relief actually experienced in the provincial Offices, I have before spoken. [26] And it is the cessation of the Sunday detention—in other words, the introduction of a Sunday transmission through London—to which, as you have seen, the result, whatever it be, is strictly and wholly due.