Although in 1857 my father, with the approval of Lord Colchester, the then Postmaster-General, had proposed the extension of the money order system to the Colonies, it was not till the Canadian Government took the initiative in 1859 that the Treasury consented to try the experiment. It proved so successful that the measure was gradually extended to all the other colonies, and even to some foreign countries.
Like Palmer, Rowland Hill was a born organiser, and work such as that effected in the Money Order Office was so thoroughly congenial that it could scarcely fail to be successful. The race of born organisers can hardly be extinct. Is it vain to hope that one may yet arise to set in order the said-to-be-unprofitable Post Office Savings Bank, whose abolition is sometimes threatened? As a teacher of thrift to one of the least thrifty of nations, it is an institution that should be mended rather than ended. Mending must surely be possible when, for example, each transaction of that Bank costs 7.55d. exclusive of postage—or so we are told—while other savings banks can do their work at a far lower price.[184]
The following story is illustrative of the strange want of common-sense which distinguishes the race, especially when posting missives. “Mr Ramsey, (missing-letter clerk),” writes Rowland Hill in his diary of 27th May 1847, “has brought me a packet containing whole banknotes to the amount of £1,500 so carelessly made up that they had all slipped out, and the packet was addressed to some country house in Hereford, no post-town being named. It had found its way, after much delay, into the post office at Ross, and had been sent to London by the postmistress.”
It is not often that the head of so dignified and peaceful an institution as the Post Office is seen in a maimed condition, and that condition the result of fierce combat. Nevertheless, in that stirring time known as “the year of revolutions” (1848), a newly-appointed chief of the French Post Office, in the pleasant person of M. Thayer, arrived in this country on official business. He came supported on crutches, having been badly wounded in the foot during the June insurrection in Paris. He told us that his family came originally from London, and that one of our streets was named after them. If, as was surmised, he made a pilgrimage to Marylebone to discover it, it must have looked to one fresh from Paris a rather dismal thoroughfare.
About 1849 Rowland Hill instituted periodical meetings of the Post Office Surveyors to discuss questions which had hitherto been settled by the slower method of writing minutes. These postal parliaments were so satisfactory that henceforth they were often held. They proved “both profitable and pleasant, increased the interest of the surveyors in the work of improvement, and by the collision of many opinions, broke down prejudices, and overthrew obstacles.”
One of the greatest boons which, under my father's lead, was secured to the letter-carriers, sorters, postmasters, and others, all over the kingdom, was the all but total abolition of Post Office Sunday labour. In a single day 450 offices in England and Wales were relieved of a material portion of their Sunday duties. Three months later the measure was extended to Ireland and Scotland, 234 additional offices being similarly relieved. While these arrangements were in process of settlement, Rowland Hill, in the autumn of 1849, resolved to still further curtail Sunday labour. Hitherto the relief had been carried out in the Money Order Department only, but it was now decided to close the offices entirely between the hours of ten and five. To make this easier, it became necessary to provide for the transmission of a certain class of letters through London on the Sunday, and to ask a few men to lend their services on this account. Compulsion there was none: every man was a volunteer; and for this absence of force my father, from beginning to end of the movement, resolutely bargained. Previous to the enactment of this measure of relief, 27 men had been regularly employed every Sunday at the General Post Office. Their number was temporarily increased to 52 in order that some 5,829 men—all of whom were compulsory workers—should elsewhere be relieved, each of some five-and-three-quarters hours of labour every “day of rest.” In a few months, all the arrangements being complete, and the plan got into working order, the London staff was reduced to little more than half the number employed before the change was made. Ultimately, the services even of this tiny contingent were reduced, four men sufficing; and Sunday labour at the Post Office was cut down to its minimum amount—a state of things which remained undisturbed during my father's connection with that great public Department.
The actual bearing of this beneficent reform was, strange to say, very generally misunderstood, and perhaps more especially by “The Lord's Day Society.” Thus for some months Rowland Hill was publicly denounced as a “Sabbath-breaker” and a friend and accomplice of His Satanic Majesty. The misunderstanding was not altogether discouraged by some of the old Post Office irreconcilables; but it is only fair to the memory of the chief opponent to record the fact that when the ill-feeling was at its height Colonel Maberly called his clerks together, told them that, owing to unjust attacks, the Department was in danger, and exhorted them to stand forth in its defence.[185]
When the turmoil began the Postmaster-General was inclined to side with some of the leading officials who advocated compulsion should the number volunteering for the London work be insufficient. Happily, the supply was more than ample. But when the trouble subsided Lord Clanricarde generously admitted that he had been wrong and my father right.
Some of the provincial postmasters and other officials, misunderstanding the case, joined in the clamour, and went far on the way to defeat a measure planned for their relief. Others were more discerning, and the postmaster of Plymouth wrote to say that at his office alone thirty men would be relieved by an enactment which was “one of the most important in the annals of the Post Office.”