Meanwhile the Post Office had shewn its appreciation of Telford's achievement in a remarkable manner. It had imposed an additional charge of 1d. upon every letter carried over Conway Bridge, and a second penny for carriage over the Menai Straits.[90]
CHAPTER XVI
THE BEGINNING OF THE END
1817-1836
We must now go back a few years. On the cessation of hostilities with France the state of the finances occupied a large share of men's thoughts, and among the plans for relieving the burden upon the taxpayer none perhaps was more obvious than to abolish sinecures and useless offices.
On the 16th of February 1817 Mr. Lambton, member for the county of Durham, gave notice of motion for a return shewing the number of Boards which had been held by the postmasters-general during the last twenty years, and distinguishing the names of the places where such Boards had been held and the persons by whom they were attended. The Post Office was in a flutter. Just twenty years before, the Commissioners of Inquiry into Public Offices had recommended, and the recommendation had been approved by the House, that a Board should be held by the postmasters-general at least once a week; and from that date to the present not a single Board had been held. The position was no doubt embarrassing, and not the less so because the postmasters-general, Lords Chichester and Salisbury, were the one at Stanmer and the other at Hatfield. Nothing could be done without the concurrence of both, and at such distances, little as would be thought of them now, it was a tedious process eighty years ago to arrive at a common understanding.
Freeling, who regarded it as little short of an outrage that the two noble peers, his masters, should be thus called to account, appealed to the Chancellor of the Exchequer to have the terms of the motion altered; but Vansittart refused, and the return was granted and ordered to be laid on the table of the House. Of course it was necessary to admit that no Boards had been held; but the work of the Post Office, the return went on to state, did not lend itself to Boards. Boards could be held only at intervals, and the work of the Post Office was so continuous and pressing that, without detriment to the public interests, it could not be kept waiting for a single day. A daily transmission of papers to the postmasters-general was, therefore, necessary; and by such means the business was better conducted than it would be by any system of Boards. Such was the substance of the return which was now laid before the House. Eventually the matter was referred to a friendly Committee, and the appointment of second postmaster-general escaped for a time.
But it was for a time only. In May 1822, on the motion of Lord Normanby, an address to the throne was adopted in the following terms: "His Majesty's faithful Commons, relying upon His Majesty's gracious disposition expressed in answer to former addresses of that House to concur in all such measures of economy as the exigencies of the time require, and in such reductions in the civil department of the State as may be consistent with due consideration for the public service, humbly pray that His Majesty will be graciously pleased to give directions that the office of one of the postmasters-general may be abolished and the salary thereby saved to the revenue." It was Lord Salisbury, as the junior of the two postmasters-general, that was affected by the resolution of the House. Many men, incensed by such treatment, would have thrown up their appointments in disgust. Lord Salisbury did nothing of the kind. The very day he received official intimation that the address had been acceded to by the King he gave directions that his salary should be stopped;[91] but the appointment of postmaster-general he retained, and to the duties of it he gave at least as much attention as before. It was not until his death a year later that Lord Chichester was appointed sole postmaster-general, and the Post Office received the constitution under which it still remains.
Other economies followed. All periodical increases of salary were suspended and salaries were for the first time made subject to abatement in order to provide a superannuation fund.[92] The effect of these two measures was to reduce the Post Office servants to a state of destitution not very far short of that from which Pitt had rescued them some thirty years before. It must not be thought, however, that ministers imposed upon others conditions to which they were unwilling to submit themselves. On the contrary, they procured an Order in Council to be passed reducing their own salaries and those of all the great officers of State by 10 per cent, and the reduction was to continue for five years. The desire to be just and equal was present; the one thing wanting was a due sense of the difference between superfluity and need.