How best to collect the prepaid postage had next to be decided; and among other things, Rowland Hill bethought him of the stamped cover for newspapers proposed by his friend Charles Knight three years before, but never adopted; and, finally, of the loose adhesive stamp which was his own device. The description he gave of this now familiar object reads quaintly at the present day. “Perhaps this difficulty”—of making coin payments at a post office—“might be obviated by using a bit of paper just large enough to bear the stamp, and covered at the back with a glutinous wash which, by applying a little moisture, might be attached to the letter.”[80]
The disuse of franks and the abandonment of illicit conveyance, the breaking up of one long letter into several shorter ones, and the certain future use to be made of the post for the distribution of those circulars and other documents which either went by different channels or were altogether withheld,[81] should cause the number of missives to increase enormously. Although, were the public, in accordance with its practice in other cases, to expend no more in postage than before, the loss to the nett Revenue should be but small. Even were it to be large, the powerful stimulus given by easy communication and low-priced postage to the productive power of the country, and the consequent increase of revenue in other departments, would more than make up for the deficiency. On all these grounds, then, the adoption of the plan must be of incalculable benefit.
The uniform rate of a penny the half-ounce ought to defray the cost of letter-carriage, and produce some 200 per cent. profit. My father originally proposed a penny the ounce; and thirty-three years later, being then in retirement, he privately advised the Government of the day to revert to the ounce limit. His suggestion was adopted; but the limit has since been brought up to four ounces—a reduction which, had it been proposed in 1837, must inevitably have ensured the defeat of the postal reform.
As regards the speedy recovery of the nett Revenue appearances seem to indicate that he was over-sanguine; the gross Revenue not reaching its former amount till 1851, the nett till 1862.[82] The reasons were several, but among them can hardly be counted faulty calculations on Rowland Hill's part. We shall read more about this matter in a later chapter. Meanwhile, one cause, and that a main one, shall be mentioned. As railways multiplied, and mail-coaches ceased to ply, the expenses of conveyance grew apace.[83]
No. 2, BURTON CRESCENT,
Where “Post Office Reform” was written. A group of people stand opposite the house.
From a Photograph by Messrs. Whiteley & Co.
Under the increased burden the old system, had it endured much longer, must have collapsed. The railway charges for carrying the mails, unlike the charges for carrying passengers and goods, have been higher, weight for weight, than the charges by the mail-coaches, and the tendency in later years has by no means made towards decrease.
The pamphlet was entitled “Post Office Reform: Its Importance and Practicability.”[84] Use of the words “Penny Postage” was carefully avoided, because a reformer, when seeking to convert to his own way of thinking a too-often slow-witted public, is forced to employ the wisdom of the serpent in conjunction, not only with the gentleness of the dove, but also with something of the cunning of the fox or weasel. Thus canny George Stephenson, when pleading for railways, forbore to talk of locomotives running at the tremendous rate of 12 miles an hour lest his hearers should think he was qualifying for admission to a lunatic asylum. He therefore modestly hinted at a lower speed, the quicker being supposed to be exceptional. So also Rowland Hill, by stating the arguments for his case clearly, yet cautiously, sought to lead his readers on, step by step, till the seeming midsummer madness of a uniform postal rate irrespective of distance should cease to startle, and, instead, be accepted as absolutely sane.
In this way he engaged the attention, among others, of the once famous Francis Place, tailor and politician, to whom he sent a copy of “Post Office Reform.” Mr Place began its perusal with an audible running accompaniment of “Pish!” and “Pshaw!” varied by an occasional remark that the “hitch” which must inevitably destroy the case would presently appear. But as he read, the audible monosyllabic marginal notes ceased, and when he turned the last page, he exclaimed in the needlessly strong language of the day: “I'll be damned if there is a hitch after all!” and forthwith became a convert. Leigh Hunt expressed his own sentiments in happier form when he declared that the pamphlet's reasoning “carries us all along with it as smoothly as wheel on railroad.”