Rambles on Railways

by Sir Cusack P. Roney

2nd. That railway companies, instead of being liberally treated by the Post Office, are called upon to perform the service of that department at a rate of remuneration which affords little or no profit.

3rd. That the Post Office has lately entered into a competition which is injurious to railway companies, by conveying books and other parcels at very reduced rates.

My object in this Report is to direct your attention to the facts on which, in my opinion, the Post Office is entitled to rely in opposition to the above allegations, the last of which has likewise been recently adopted in the Report of the Committee of Consultation of the London and North-Western Railway. It may perhaps be the desire of the Postmaster-General to furnish, in his Report for the current year, some corrections of these misconceptions, the more especially as Mr. Stephenson states, in the very outset of his address, that his chief object is to suggest topics for communications and discussion at future meetings over which he may have to preside. Such a correction is the more necessary, because there is reason to apprehend that these and other similar opinions which have been at various times promulgated have, by being made the ground for claiming special additional payment for the mail service, affected to a certain extent the arbitrations between the Post Office and railway companies, and have thus acquired practical importance.

On the first point (taking the subjects in the order in which they are named above), it is hardly to be wondered at that the public generally should be led to form erroneous impressions, seeing how imperfectly the details of the Post Office are usually understood. But it will not be difficult to prove that the conclusion arrived at by Mr. Stephenson cannot be supported, and to show that the increase which has taken place in the weight of the mails would have presented no difficulty to their conveyance by mail coaches, and that since the transfer of the mails from coaches to railways, the cost of transmission has increased in a far greater degree than it would probably have done had railways never been constructed.

I should premise that it has been ascertained from returns kept by the department, that while the whole number of chargeable letters delivered in the United Kingdom has increased about six-fold, the increase has been about nine-fold with respect to letters to and from London; and the same remark applies, although the increase is in a somewhat different ratio, to newspaper and book parcels. If, therefore, it can be shown that the weight of mails at present despatched from London (which greatly exceeds that of mails brought to London) could have been carried by mail coaches, it follows that no difficulty would have arisen with the mails in other parts of the country, where the increase of weight has not been so large.

The actual increase in the weight of the mails has been much less than is generally believed. It is often supposed that, because the whole number of letters has, since the introduction of penny postage, increased six-fold, therefore the whole weight of the mails has also increased six-fold. But when it is recollected that by far the larger portion of the mails has always consisted of newspapers, which were not in any way affected by the scheme of penny postage, it will be obvious that it would require a very large increase in the weight of the small or letter portion of the mails before the total weight would exhibit more than a small per centage of increase.[145]

In 1838 the gross weight of the night mails despatched from London in a single evening was about 4 tons 6 cwt. 1 qr. At the present time the total weight of the night mails despatched in a single evening may be stated at about 12 tons 4 cwt. 3 qrs. It will be seen, therefore, that the total increase in the weight has been only 183 per cent., or less than three-fold.

Mr. Stephenson correctly states that in 1838 the number of mail coaches leaving London each evening was twenty-eight, giving an average load for each coach of 3 cwt. 9 lbs., supposing the weight to have been equally distributed, which I am far from assuming was the case. Taking the present weight of mails, and assuming that these twenty-eight mail coaches were still running, the average load for each coach would be 8 cwt. 3 qrs. Now a reference to the Third Report of the Select Committee on Postage in 1838, pages 48 and 50, will show that, according to the testimony of the Post Office witnesses[146] (the general tendency of whose views was certainly not at that time favourable to the practicability of penny postage), a weight of bags amounting to 18 cwt., or more than double what the present average load would have been, was sometimes carried on one mail coach, and that a load of 15 cwt., in addition to the usual limited number of passengers and luggage, was by no means too high a maximum to fix for mail coaches generally.

Admitting, however, that the weight was not equally distributed over all the mail coaches, and recollecting, at the same time, that this average load of 8 cwt. 3 qrs. would be above the average ordinary load on any other than weekly newspaper nights, when it would no doubt be higher, the inference is still a fair one that the greater part of the mail coaches would have borne the increase of weight without any difficulty, although there can be no doubt that, on some of the lines, additional coaches would have been required for a portion of the distance.