Rambles on Railways

by Sir Cusack P. Roney

This example proves this part of the case. The Report omits to take into account the amount thus saved; or any similar savings, such as £25,000 a-year formerly paid for conveyance of mails by steam packets from London to Rotterdam and Hamburgh, now sent to Dover by the South-Eastern Railway. If I admit that which the Report does not establish, that £400,000 is paid to railway companies for postal service, at any rate I am entitled to have the public savings put against that amount. If I consider the vast total of those savings, I cannot doubt, for a moment, that railways are in reality not getting what they are fairly entitled to, for performing the duties for which the State formerly had to pay so largely. Considering the enormous item of turnpike tolls remitted to the old mail coaches,—the vast saving effected in the maintenance of the roads themselves,—the greatly increased facilities demanded by the new postal system,—the incalculable gain in consequence of the increased speed,—and the diminution of heavy loss upon steam packet and such like traffic, I should really be tempted to say, that if the Government paid to railways double what they paid to the proprietors of old stage coaches, they would still be gainers by the use of railways for the purposes of the Post Office. But when I consider, that according to the showing of this Report itself, they pay no more, if so much to railways, as they paid under the old system, whilst they carry five-and-a-half fold more letters, to say nothing of newspapers and parcels, I am surprised at the assertion that “The penny postage, without railways, would even have been more profitable than it now is.”

I stated, in my address, that not only was the Post Office dealing illiberally with the railway companies, but that it was absolutely entering into competition with them, as carriers, by undertaking the conveyance of books and other parcels, at very reduced postal rates. The Post Office authorities open their reply by saying, that they shall not stop to inquire whether railway companies have any legal, or equitable right to the monopoly of parcel traffic.[154] I shall not stop to inquire, by what policy a Government department steps in to interfere with the free course of trade. But, argues the Report, the companies sustain no loss, “for the general rates paid by the Post Office to railway companies are largely in excess of those paid by the booksellers for their parcels.” The Post Office has never paid one farthing to the railway companies in respect of these parcels. The Post Office pays the companies so much per mile for the whole service. It carries what it pleases. It chooses to carry books. Those books formerly went by the companies’ luggage vans, and were paid for to the companies by the public. The Post Office undertakes the carriage of these parcels, puts them into its letter bags, and carries them, under its contract with the railways, without paying the railways a single farthing extra. The railways suffer all the loss: the Post Office obtains all the profit. And then the Report tells you that “the companies, instead of being injured, are benefited by the abstraction.”

“By far the larger portion of the book parcels,” says the Report, “which the Post Office carries, would not be sent at all, but for the peculiar facilities offered by the extensive organisation of the Post Office.” But there is one remarkable fact in the Report which is inconsistent with this theory. Since the stamp duty has been removed from newspapers, the Post Office, on their own showing, has lost the annual delivery of nearly 28,000,000 of newspapers, which formerly passed through the post;[155] and there is reason to believe, that the number of such transmissions is daily decreasing. Now, if the superior facilities of the Post Office induce the public to get their book parcels by post, how is it that they are gradually relinquishing the use of the post as a means of getting their newspapers? The superior facilities, if there are any, are precisely of the same description both for newspapers and book parcels; yet, nevertheless, the public, who best know how to appreciate superior facilities, are gradually giving up the facilities of the post in respect to newspapers, and employing the facilities afforded by the railway. The superior facilities, are, therefore, not estimated by the public as equivalent to 1d. per newspaper parcel.

It would appear, therefore, that the question was rather one of “charge” than of superior facilities. The Post Office chooses to undersell the railways, availing itself of the facilities railways afford it for the purpose of so doing. The public always buy in the cheapest market. They send their books by post, because the post takes them cheaper than the railways took them. And I told you, in my Address, why the Post Office is able to do this. The Post Office insists on the right of travelling over the railways at a fixed cost per mile; and, as I have just observed, without paying anything additional whatever for book parcels. The railways have to pay, not only expenses, but interest on capital; and it is to be expected therefore, that they cannot compete, in respect to this traffic, with a public department which contributes to neither. But how far this use of the railways for the purpose of the Post Office, and to the detriment of the railways is equitable, or proper, is another question.

The Post Office itself seems to feel that it is not quite equitable or proper, for the Postmaster-General, in the body of the Report, treats the question solely on the ground that “a benefit” is conferred on the railway companies by this abstraction of their traffic, and that, even if that is not the case, the companies are compensated by the transference to the luggage vans of the newspapers previously carried by the mails. I think it is in “Gil Blas” that the gentleman who takes the canon’s purse, is made to prove that the abstraction was a “benefit” to his soul’s health, and would keep him free from many of the pomps and vanities of this wicked world. Upon the same principle, I suppose it is intended to be argued, that the abstraction of their traffic is a benefit to the railway companies. But, with regard to the second part of the argument, I deny that the railways are “compensated” for their loss by the transference to their vans, of the newspapers which the Post Office used to carry for nothing, and which it is admitted the officers would be “only too glad to see removed from the Post Office altogether.”[156] The stamp duty, you will remember, never was a postal duty under the old system; it went into the accounts of another branch of the revenue. The Post Office consequently never benefited, but, on the contrary, was only taxed for the performance of its duty as the carrier of newspapers. Latterly, this duty became so onerous, that the Post Office felt itself almost incompetent to its due performance. To save itself the trouble and expense of receiving all the papers, at the last moment, at the Post Office, it was in the habit of sending its own vans to the offices of the great news publishers, and carrying their papers in bulk to Euston Square, where an office was assigned to the Post Office for newspaper purposes. The change effected by the removal of the stamp might have been taken advantage of as a great source of revenue to the Post Office, which failed, however, to work out a system that would have been remunerative to itself, and advantageous to the public; and the consequence has been, that the public have resorted to what I may call, in the words of the Report, the “superior facilities” of the railway. But the railway gets for the carriage of these parcels nothing like the amount that the Post Office would get. The Post Office is bound, under Act of Parliament, to charge 1d. per paper, but the railways take these papers in bulk, several hundreds in a package; and carry them at the rate of so much per ton. To tell us, that an act of their own, by which they threw off an excess of labour which had become not only burdensome, but overpowering to the Post Office, was done out of consideration for the railways, and as a compensation for the abstraction of the book parcels, is not likely to be entirely acquiesced in.

The number of book parcels that passed through the Post Office last year was a million and a-half. Captain Huish, in his evidence before Parliament in 1854, has shown, that the loss of revenue to railways, by the abstraction of book parcels has, in some cases, borne a large proportion to the sum paid to railway companies for the conveyance of the mails. A stronger proof than this, of the unfair dealing of the Post Office towards the railway companies, could scarcely be afforded. But I own, that I do not look so much to the actual loss as to the bad precedent. It seems to me, that there is no limit to what the Post Office may carry, if this is permitted. There are many lighter articles than books forming the substance of railway packages. Is the Post Office to undertake all the light carrier trade of the kingdom, without extra payment to the railways for the use of the roads?

The Report says, “Mr. Stephenson is unfortunate in putting forward as an illustration the cheap transmission of printed proceedings of Parliament. Under the old postal system, and during the existence of mail coaches, Parliamentary reports and proceedings were conveyed by post free of all charges. On the introduction of a penny postage, a postal charge for their conveyance was imposed, which continues up to the present day.”

If I am unfortunate in referring to this charge, the Report, I must say, is doubly so. For if all Parliamentary papers have been subjected to a penny postage, who receives the money? The railways ought to have a share of it; but they get nothing. The public ought to have a share of it; but on the contrary, the Post Office, which has greater facilities for carrying public papers, makes the public pay more for their transmission instead of carrying them for less. Who, then, does get the penny? The only answer is, that it goes to the credit of the Post Office account in reduction of the expenses incurred in carrying out the penny postage system.

[Mr. Stephenson having reviewed the complaints made by the Post Office about irregularities in 1856, and previously, and stated facts to show their injustice, and that they were fully as much attributable to the department as to the companies, proceeded with his address as follows.]

If the Post Office authorities want the highest rates of speed, with perfect observance of time, they have an easy mode of securing it. Let them contract with the railway company for special trains, exclusively for the purposes of the mails. The companies will be only too glad to provide those trains, at the same, or even a less rate, than that at which they provide special trains for the public. They will, no doubt, enter into any arrangement for the arrival of such trains at their respective destinations, at the hour agreed upon. On the side of the Post Office, all that is requisite to secure this, is an equitable payment for the service, which, considering the great importance of the subject, ought not to be grudged to secure a rapid and punctual delivery of letters.