Charles Knight found that the reduced rates of postage stimulated every branch of his trade—an opinion endorsed by other publishers and book-sellers; and the honorary secretary to the Parker Society, whose business was the reprinting of the early reformers' works, wrote, two years after the abolition of the old system, to tell the author of the new one that the very existence of the Society was due to the penny post.
“Dear Rowland,” wrote Charles Knight, in a letter dated 10th May 1843, “The Poor Law 'Official Circular' to which par. No. 7 chiefly refers, is one of the most striking examples of the benefit of cheap postage. It could not have existed without cheap postage. The Commissioners could not have sent it under their frank without giving it away, which would have cost them £1,000 a year. It is sold at 4d., including the postage, which we prepay; and we send out 5,000 to various Boards of Guardians and others who are subscribers, and who pay, in many cases, by post office orders. The work affords a profit to the Government instead of costing a thousand a year.”
After four years of the new system Messrs Pickford said that their letters had grown in number from 30,000 to 720,000 per annum. And testimony of similar character was given either in evidence before the Committee on Postage of 1843, or, from time to time, was independently volunteered.
The postal reform not only gave a vast impetus to trade and education, but even created new industries, among them the manufacture of letter-boxes and letter-weighing machines—which were turned out in immense quantities—to say nothing of the making of stamps and of stamped and other envelopes, etc.
In two years the number of chargeable letters passing through the post had increased from 72,000,000 per annum to 208,000,000. Illicit conveyance had all but ceased, and the gross revenue amounted to two-thirds of the largest sum ever recorded. The nett revenue showed an increase the second year of £100,000, and the inland letters were found to be the most profitable part of the Post Office business.[134] It is a marvel that the new system should have fared as well as it did, when we take into consideration the bitter hostility of the postal authorities, the frequent hindrances thrown in the path of reform, to say nothing of the terrible poverty then existing among many classes of our fellow country people under the blighting influence of Protection and of the still unrepealed Corn Laws; poverty which is revealed in the many official reports issued during that sad time, in “S.G.O.'s” once famous letters, and in other trustworthy documents of those days, whose hideous picture has, later, been revived for us in that stirring book, “The Hungry Forties.”
The hindrances to recovery of the postal revenue were in great measure caused by the delay in carrying out the details of Rowland Hill's plan of reform. Especially was this the case in the postponement of the extension of rural distribution—to which allusion has already been made—one of the most essential features of the plan, one long and wrongfully kept back; and, when granted, gratefully appreciated. Issue of the stamps was also delayed, these not being obtainable for some months after the introduction of the new system; and there was a still longer delay in providing the public with an adequate supply.[135]
The increase of postal expenditure was another factor in the case. The total charge for carrying the inland mails in 1835—the year before “Post Office Reform” was written—was £225,920; and it remained approximately at that figure while the old system continued in force. Then it went up by leaps and bounds, till by the end of the first year of the new system (1840) it reached the sum of £333,418. It has gone on steadily growing, as was indeed inevitable, owing to the increase of postal business; but the growth of expenditure would seem to be out of all proportion to the service, great as that is, rendered. By 1868 the charge stood at £718,000,[136] and before the nineteenth century died out even this last sum had doubled.
The following instance is typical of the changes made in this respect. In 1844 the Post Office received from the coach contractors about £200 for the privilege of carrying the mail twice a day between Lancaster and Carlisle. Only ten years later, the same service performed by the railway cost the Post Office some £12,000 a year.[137]
Another form of monetary wastefulness through overcharge arose from misrepresentation as to the length of railway used by the Post Office on different lines, one Company receiving about £400 a year more than was its due—although, of course, the true distance was given in official notices and time-tables. Even when the error was pointed out, the postal authorities maintained that the charge was correct.
This lavish and needless increase of expenditure on the part of the Post Office made Mr Baring as uneasy as it did my father. Not infrequently when explanations were demanded as to the necessity for these enhanced payments, evasive or long-delayed replies were given. Thus Rowland Hill found himself “engaged in petty contests often unavailing and always invidious”;[138] and in these petty contests and ceaseless strivings to push forward some item or other of his plan, much of his time, from first to last, was wasted. Thus, at the beginning of 1841, when he had been at the Treasury a year and quarter, it became evident that, unless some improvement took place, two years or even a longer period would not suffice to carry out the whole of his plan.