If the reader will be so good as to multiply the amount of correspondence caused by one depositor, by the total number, viz., 857,701, he will then be able to estimate what is the annual amount of work that is involved in the carrying out of the Post Office Savings Bank system, and also how completely it depends for its success upon railways. It is pleasant—it is more than pleasant—it is deeply gratifying and satisfactory, to know that the business increases, and will continue to increase, for the reason that the humblest classes of the community have now learned to appreciate the facilities which these institutions offer for the safe and fructifying deposit of their little earnings. To Mr. Gladstone is due the honour of their introduction. It was on the 8th of February, 1861, that he presented to the House of Commons the resolution that affirmed the principle upon which they are based, and both Houses of Parliament responded so promptly, that by the 17th of May following, an Act, the title of which is, “An Act to grant additional facilities for depositing small savings at interest with the security of the Government[40] for the due repayment thereof,” received the Royal assent. Mr. Gladstone, you have done many great and many good acts in your time, but you have never done one greater or better than this.[41]
The Government Insurance and Annuities Act, which received the Royal assent on the 14th July, 1864, enables persons proposing to effect insurances on their lives, or to purchase deferred monthly allowances, to transmit their proposals, and to send and receive all correspondence between themselves and the Post Office relating to their proposals free of all postal charges. The Postmaster-General is compelled to admit, in his Twelfth Report, that the proposals, from their bulk, “present a somewhat formidable appearance.” But, thanks to railways, these formidable-looking documents go free through the post. So do also their acknowledgments from head quarters; the numerous and minute inquiries made to friends and medical referees as to the proposer’s age, health, habits, and occupation, likewise the replies to all these inquiries. If these replies are deemed satisfactory, a letter is transmitted to the proposer, post free, directing him to present himself for examination to a medical man, and the report of the latter often leads to much correspondence, all of which goes without postal charge. If the proposer be rejected he is informed accordingly by a free letter, and there is an end of the matter; but if he be accepted, the insurance or annuity contract is sent to the Post Office at which the proposer desires to receive it, and he is apprised to that effect by another free letter. The system is in its infancy as yet, but the postal transmissions which it will involve, even at its greatest, will never be of the same extent as those connected with the Post Office Savings Banks. Nevertheless, they will be considerable, for every payment to an annuitant, and every receipt of money from a person assured, must be transmitted either from or to London, as the case may be. So that, in addition to the proposals of the “somewhat formidable appearance,” thousands of documents per annum in connection with that business will find their way into the mail bags.
Let us hark back to say that no rejoinder to Mr. Stephenson’s answer was ever given. Nevertheless, the answer, complete and conclusive as it was, had no effect on Post Office intentions, for during the session of 1857, the Duke of Argyll,[42] then Postmaster-General, was induced by the permanent officers of the establishment to introduce a bill into the House of Lords for making “further Provision for the Conveyance of Mails by Railway.” Mr. William Lewins[43] tells us, in his book called Her Majesty’s Mail, that His Grace deserves the gratitude of his country for introducing it. But it was well known that His Grace, like most of the Postmasters-General who have preceded him during the last twenty years, took but little interest in the working of the department over which he nominally presided, and knew little, probably nothing, of the bill, the obnoxious contents of which he was called upon to father.
It was, however, justly viewed with great apprehension by all the railway interests of the kingdom, and in consequence of the hostility excited by its appearance, it was withdrawn before it reached a second reading. In the very lame defence of it, given in the Fourth Annual Report, we find it mildly stated, that “taken as a whole, the bill certainly cannot fairly be represented as a measure opposed to railway interests.” Whether this be correct or not, at all events it can be stated that the department has never since proposed any similar enactment. From 1858 it has also ceased to use language such as “experience has satisfied me, that as the law now stands, it is impossible either to secure regularity in the conveyance of the mails, or to have that full use of the railways which the public demand, which the department is anxious to afford, and which would be beneficial to the companies themselves.”[44] The relations between the companies and the department have been amicable during the last seven or eight years, and there is now scarcely a railway in the kingdom upon which mails are conveyed that has not adopted a system of general contracts. The Post Office acquires, by means of them, the right, for a fixed gross payment per annum, of using all the trains of the company for the transport of mail bags. There are certain trains which of course must be run for the convenience of the Post Office, such as the night mail trains to and from London, with their branch trains and ramifications. The same as regards Dublin, and, in a lesser degree, Edinburgh. But the expenses of these trains to the companies is considered in coming to a decision as to the total price to be paid. These arrangements are based altogether upon the voluntary principle, but when agreed to, they are necessarily embodied in legal contracts.
We have no earlier return of postal railway mileage than 1855; that was at the height of the antagonism with the Post Office. The miles run were then 27,109 per diem, but so rapidly had friendly arrangements been entered into, that in 1862 (the last year for which a mileage return is published) it had risen to 49,782 miles per diem. Had these returns been continued to the present time, they would have exhibited an increase to 60,000 per diem, for in 1863, there were three hundred and ninety-three towns having a night and day mail from London, fifty having 3 mails daily from London, seven having 4, three having 3, and three having 4. But in 1865, the number had increased as follows: four hundred and ten having a night and day mail from London, fifty-seven having 3 daily from London, nine having 4, and six having 5.
The gross sum paid by the Post Office to the railways of the United Kingdom in 1866 was £570,500, only £170,500 more than, as Mr. Page states, were paid to railways in 1855; but at that time the Post Office, with only few exceptions, did not run more than one day and one night mail train in each direction on the greater portion of the 8,280 miles which then constituted the railway system of the kingdom; but on the first of January, 1866, the railway system was 13,289 miles, over about 12,000 miles of which, the Post Office was able by its contracts, to send mail bags by whatever trains, whether goods or passenger, they chose to select from. At the present time (as already stated) the railway service of the Post Office cannot be less than 60,000 miles a day[45].
The following statement exhibits the amount paid by the Post Office to the Railway Companies of the United Kingdom in 1866, together with the mileage length of most of them. Of the total sum of £570,500, the London and North-Western, with its 1,320 miles of railway, naturally earns the largest share, £132,997. The other railways come as follows:—Great Western (1,311 miles), £50,789; North Eastern (1,229), £41,397; North British (732), £8,696; Great Eastern (710), £22,357; Midland (695), £44,600; Caledonian (574), £29,101; London and South-Western (503), £21,950; Great Northern (441), £9,805; Lancashire and Yorkshire (403), £6,500; South Eastern (330), £23,571; London, Brighton and South Coast (320), £1,977; Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire (246), £2,618; North Staffordshire (144), £1,000; Bristol and Exeter (134), £9,888; Cambrian (130), £2,413; South Devon (110), £7,485; London, Chatham and Dover (94), £268; Brecon and Merthyr (68), £50; Cornwall (66), £5,500; Taff Vale (63), £1,000; Shrewsbury and Hereford (51), £2,030; Llanelly (46), £39; Monmouthshire (44), £147; Birkenhead (43), £2,500; North Union (40), £4,878; Maryport and Carlisle (28), £841; West Cornwall (27), £1,500; Isle of Wight (12), £31; Whitehaven Junction (6½), £363. There were not any contracts in 1866 with the Furness Company (85), the Somerset and Dorset (66), nor with the Metropolitan Underground (4¾), but the Post Office has recently entered into contracts for the conveyance of mails on the first and the third of the three.
The foregoing, with some payments to minor companies, make the total which the English and Welsh Companies receive from the Post Office, £407,512. Some of these minor companies, however, are not over-handsomely paid; for instance, the Colne Valley, 6½ miles long, receives the modest sum of £15 a year; the Tenbury, 5¼ miles long, which nevertheless has a Board of Directors consisting of seven members, and is presided over by a noble Baron, receives only £7. Never having heard of the Pontop and Jarrow Railway, we looked in all the usual sources of information without success, but we perceive by the Post Office estimates that the company earns £5 a-year for the services it renders to the department. If the amounts paid by the Post Office to English Railways be divided by its total mileage, it makes the average payment per mile per annum to them a little less than £58.
The Irish railways receive £84,508 per annum from the Post Office, of which the Great Southern and Western (420 miles), obtains £29,500; the Midland Great Western (261), £14,920; Irish North-Western (145), £1,540; Dublin, Wicklow and Wexford (107), £4,700; Ulster (106), £5,800; Belfast and Northern Counties (100), £2,950; Great Northern and Western (83), £2,349; Waterford and Limerick (77), £3,150; Dublin and Drogheda (75), £4,700; Dublin and Belfast Junction (63), £6,000; Londonderry and Enniskillen (60), £3,150; Belfast and County Down (44), £206; Londonderry and Coleraine (36), £1,300; Cork and Youghal (34), £1,150; Waterford and Kilkenny (31), £486; Cork and Limerick direct (25), £50; Cork and Bandon (20), £757. There are three companies that only receive £30 each, and two have twice as much as the Pontop and Jarrow. They have £10 each. The average Post Office payment per mile (assuming that the Post Office sent mails by all the railways in Ireland, which is not the case) is about £44. 10s.
The Scotch railways receive £78,482, of which the North British and Edinburgh and Glasgow (748) has £8,696; Caledonian (573), £29,101; Scottish Central and Scottish North-Eastern (459), £22,136; Great North of Scotland; (257), £3,830; Glasgow and South-Western (249), £3,436; the Highland Railway (245), £10,454. The average per mile per annum paid to Scotch railways by the Post Office, assuming that it availed itself of the whole of them, is £36.