Cornwallis and Craggs had been only a short time at the Post Office before they became profoundly impressed with what they found there. The managers withholding the postmasters' salaries, the postmasters recouping and a good deal more than recouping themselves out of the postage, the post-boys—for so they had begun to be called—clandestinely carrying letters for what they could get, the inordinate number of franked letters—these were among the abuses which arrested the new postmaster-generals' attention; but what excited their most lively surprise was that there should exist a branch of the King's revenue upon the subordinate agents of which there was absolutely no check. At length, on a representation from them as to the scandal of allowing such a state of things to continue, consent was obtained to the appointment of surveyors; and the dismissal of the managers speedily followed.
These remedial measures, though good as far as they went, affected only the internal administration of the Post Office. Of its troubles from without, and how they had been increased by recent legislation, Cornwallis and Craggs were no less sensible than their predecessors; but here they had no remedy to apply. "The additional penny," they wrote in March 1716, within eighteen months of their appointment, "has never answered in proportion, and we find by every day's experience that it occasions the people to endeavour to find out other conveyances for their letters." "The additional tax," they wrote again two years later, "has never answered in proportion to the produce of the revenue at the time it took place, the people having found private conveyances for their letters, which they are daily endeavouring to increase, notwithstanding all the endeavours that can be used to prevent them."
As with the clandestine traffic, so with the abuse of the franking privilege. In isolated cases, where the abuse was more than usually glaring, the postmasters-general would write to the erring member a letter of mild expostulation, affecting to believe him more sinned against than sinning;[42] but even if this had any effect in the particular instance, to stem the torrent was beyond their power. In Great Britain alone the postage represented by the franked letters, excluding those which were or which purported to be on His Majesty's service, amounted in 1716 to what was for that time, relatively to the total Post Office revenue, the enormous sum of £17,500 a year. In Ireland the members followed the example of their English colleagues, if indeed they did not improve upon it. In 1718 the Irish Parliament sat for three months, and in 1719 it sat for nine months; and it was only during the session, and for forty days before and after, that letters could be franked. Cornwallis and Craggs had now been some years at the Post Office; and yet, with all their experience of the extent to which the abuse of franking was carried, they were startled to see the effect which the duration of Parliament had upon the receipts. In 1718 the gross revenue of the Irish Post Office—and in the gross revenue was reckoned the postage on members' letters, the postage which these letters would have paid if they had not been franked—amounted to £14,592, and the net revenue to £3066. In 1719, although the gross revenue rose to £19,522, an amount higher by £4930 than in the preceding year, the net revenue fell from £3066 to £753. Such was the effect upon the revenue of a difference of six months in the duration of the two Parliaments.
To add to the postmaster-generals' troubles, the merchants of London, groaning under the onerous rates of postage, had recourse to an expedient in order to evade them. They associated themselves together, and all those who had occasion to write to a particular place, though to different persons, would write on the same piece of paper and under the same cover. The postmasters-general contended that these several writings should be charged as separate letters; the merchants contended that there was but one letter, and that it should pass for a single rate of postage.
Their next step was to dispute the postmaster-generals' reading of the statute. Under the law as passed in 1660, and re-enacted in 1711, merchants' accounts not exceeding one sheet of paper, and all bills of exchange, invoices, and bills of lading, were "to be allowed without rate in the price of letters"; in other words, the weight of these documents was not to be reckoned in the weight of a letter for the purpose of charging it with postage. This exemption, however, had hitherto been allowed only in the case of foreign letters; and the postmasters-general held that such was the intention of the statute. The merchants retorted that no such intention was expressed, and that to act as though it had been brought about this anomaly—that on a letter containing any one of the documents in question the charge from Constantinople was actually less than from Bristol. Was it possible that the Legislature could ever have enacted such an absurdity? It was an old contention, as old as the Post Office itself,[43] and the merchants took the present opportunity to revive it. On both questions Northey, the Attorney-General, advised that the Post Office should adhere to its ancient practice as the best expositor of the meaning of the new law; but excellent as this advice may have been, its adoption failed to satisfy the merchants and it was not until a declaratory Act had been passed that they ceased to contest the points.
Much the same sort of thing occurred a few years later in connection with the penny post. From the first establishment of this undertaking 1d. had carried only within the bills of mortality; for delivery beyond those limits had been charged 1d. more. Some persons now refused to pay the additional penny, on the ground that it was not prescribed by law. This was perfectly true. The penny post owed its legal sanction to the Act of 1711; and this Act merely provided that "for the post of all and every the letters and packets passing or repassing by the carriage called the penny post, established and settled within the cities of London and Westminster and borough of Southwark and parts adjacent, and to be received and delivered within ten English miles distant from the General Letter Office in London [shall be demanded and received the sum of] 1d." Again an Act of Parliament had to be passed in order to assimilate law and practice. This Act, which was not obtained until 1730, made legal the twopenny post, just as the penny post was made legal by the Act of 1711; although, as a matter of fact, both posts had been in existence since April 1680.
In 1721 Lowndes, who was still at the Treasury, called for a return of the Post Office income and expenditure. Ten years had now elapsed since the imposition of the new rates. Of these ten years eight, as compared with the eight which preceded them, had been years of prosperity and peace; the population had increased, and the reductions in the packet service had effected a saving of many thousand pounds a year. Certainly the circumstances had not on the whole been unfavourable for testing the results of the new policy. The return was rendered. During the year ending the 29th of September the gross Post Office revenue was, in 1721, £168,968, and in 1710, £111,461, being an increase of £57,507; in 1721 the cost of management was £69,184, as against £44,639 in 1710; and the net revenue, which in 1710 had been £66,822, was in 1721 £99,784, an increase of £32,962. But the case does not end here. Under the terms of the Act the sum of £700 a week, or £36,400 a year, was to be allocated to a specific object. This sum had been regularly paid into the Exchequer, and, after deducting it from the net revenue, there remained for the use of the Sovereign a balance of £63,384, or less than in 1710 by £3438.
While the contingency of a loss to the Civil List had not been either foreseen or provided against, elaborate precautions had been taken for the disposal of a surplus. If the gross Post Office revenue should exceed the sum of £147,861, the excess was to be divided between the Sovereign and the public in the proportion of one-third to the public and two-thirds to the Sovereign. As a matter of fact, the gross Post Office revenue in 1721 had exceeded, and exceeded by a considerable amount, the sum of £147,861; and yet there was no excess to divide. The plain truth is that, in preparing the Act of 1711, Lowndes had forgotten the cost of management. It must have sounded strange in the ears of an assistant Chancellor of the Exchequer to be told, as Cornwallis and Craggs did not scruple to tell him, that he had confounded gross and net revenue, and that by this blunder Parliament had been misled.
The Act of 1711, disastrous as it proved in its effects on the wellbeing and morality of the nation, is only one more instance of the mischief which may be done with the best intentions; and it was perhaps meet that its author should have remained long enough at his post to witness the results of his own handiwork.