Cheap Postage

by Joshua Leavitt

Lord Ashburton expected the cost of the department, under the new system, would amount to a million sterling, which must be made up out of several pence before you could touch one farthing of the present income of a million and six hundred pounds. There could be no doubt that the country at large would derive an immense benefit, the consumption of paper would be increased considerably, and it was most probable the number of letters would be at least doubled. It appeared to him a tax upon communication between distant parties was, of all taxes, the [pg 007] most objectionable. At one time he had been of the opinion that the uniform charge of postage should be two pence, but he found the mass of evidence so strongly in favor of one penny, that he concluded the ministers were right in coming down to that rate.

The Earl of Lichfield, Postmaster-General, said the leading idea of Mr. Rowland Hill's book seemed to be “the fancy that he had hit upon a scheme for recovering the two millions of revenue which he thought had been lost by the high rates of postage.” His own opinion was, that the recovery of the revenue was totally impossible. He therefore supported the measure on entirely different grounds from those on which Mr. Hill placed it. In neither house had it been brought forward on the ground that the revenue would be the gainer. He assented to it on the simple ground that THE DEMAND FOR IT WAS UNIVERSAL. So obnoxious was the tax upon letters, that he was entitled to say that “the people had declared their readiness to submit to any impost that might be substituted in its stead.”

The proof is thus complete, that the British system was actually adopted with sole reference to its general benefits, and the will of the people, and not at all in the expectation of realizing, in any moderate time, as much revenue as was derived from the old postage. The revenue question was discarded, from a paramount regard to the public good, which demanded the cheap postage, even if it should be necessary to impose a new tax for its support. The extravagant expectations of some of the over-sanguine friends of the new system, were expressly disclaimed, and the government justified themselves on these other considerations entirely—considerations which have been most abundantly realized. It will be easy to show that the benefits and blessings anticipated from the actual enjoyment of cheap postage, have fully equalled the most sanguine expectations of the friends of the measure, and have far exceeded in public utility, the pittance of income to the treasury, which used to be wrung out by the tax upon letters. The same examination will also show, that there is no substantial reason, either in the system itself, or in any peculiarity of our circumstances, why the same system is not equally practicable and equally applicable here, nor why we should not realize at least as great benefits as the people of Great Britain, from cheap postage.

Mr. Rowland Hill published his scheme in a pamphlet, in 1837. In 1838, it had attracted so much notice, that between three and four hundred petitions in its favor were presented to Parliament, and the government consented to a select committee to collect and report information on the subject. This committee sat sixty-three days, examined the Postmaster-General and his secretaries and solicitors, elicited many important tabular returns, and took the testimony of about ninety other individuals, of a great variety of stations and occupations. They also entered into many minute and elaborate calculations, which give to their results the value of mathematical demonstration. Their report, with the accompanying documents, fills three folio volumes of the Parliamentary Papers for 1838. Its investigations were so thorough, its deductions so cautious and candid, and its accumulations of evidence so overwhelming that they left nothing to be done, but to adopt the new system entire.

In this country, no such pains were taken to collect facts, no means were used to spread before the people the facts and mathematical calculations and irrefragable arguments of the parliamentary committee; little study was bestowed on the subject even by our legislators but [pg 008] with a prejudged conclusion that the reasonings and facts applicable to Great Britain could not apply here, on account of the length of our routes and the sparseness of our population, a partial reduction was resolved upon, which retained the complication and the cumbersome machinery of the old system, while affording only a small portion of the benefits of the new.

The effect has been, that while the British system has gone on gathering favor and strength, the American system, after less than three years' trial, has already grown old, the private mails are reviving, the ingenuity of men of business is taxed to evade postage, and a growing conviction already shows itself, that the half-way reduction is a failure, and it is time to make another change. That is to say, the partial reduction has failed to meet the wishes of the people, or the wants of the public interest, or the duty of the government in discharging the trust imposed by the constitution. Indeed, there ought not to be a great deal of labor required to prove that there is only one right way, and that the right way is the best way, and that it is better to adopt a scientifically constructed machine, which has been proved to be perfect in all its parts, than a clumsy contrivance, the working principle of which is contradicted by mathematical demonstration. I propose to present several of the main principles involved in the reduction of postage, illustrated by facts drawn from the parliamentary papers, and from other authentic sources.

I. Reduction of Price tends to increase of Consumption.

Our own partial reform in postage proves this. In a report of the committee on post-offices and post-roads, made to the House of Representatives, May 15, 1844, it is said,

“Events are in progress of fatal tendency to the Post-office Department, and its decay has commenced. Unless arrested by vigorous legislation, it must soon cease to be a self-sustaining institution, and either be cast on the treasury for support, or suffered to decline from year to year, till the system has become incompetent and useless. The last annual report of the Postmaster-General shows that, notwithstanding the heavy retrenchments he had made, the expenditures of the department, for the year ending June 30th, 1843, exceeded its income by the sum of $78,788. The decline of its revenue during that year was $250,321; and the investigations made into the operations of the current year, indicate a further and an increasing decline, at the rate of about $300,000 a year. Why this loss of revenue, when the general business and prosperity of the country is reviving, and its correspondence is on the increase?”

The report of the Senate Committee at the same session, made Feb. 22, 1844, says that “the cause of this great falling off, in a season of reviving prosperity in the trade, business and general prosperity of the country, cannot be regarded as transient, but, on the contrary, is shown to be deep and corroding. The cause is the dissatisfaction felt generally through the country, but most strongly in the densely peopled regions to with the rates of postage now established by law, and the frequent resort to various means of evading its payment.”