As the postage between Manchester and most parts of Ireland was then about double the present postage (1869) from any part of England or Ireland to Australia, the separation between the Irish in Lancashire and their countrymen at home must then have been, postally considered, not only as great, but about twice as great as is now that between the Irish at home and their friends at the Antipodes.
Of the desire of the poor to correspond, Mr. Emery gave further evidence, stating:—
“That the poor near Bristol have signed a petition to Parliament for the reduction of the postage. He never saw greater enthusiasm in any public thing that was ever got up in the shape of a petition; they seemed all to enter into the thing as fully, and with as much feeling as it was possible, as a boon or godsend to them, that they should be able to correspond with, their distant friends.”[191]
Much evidence was also given as to the extent of moral evil caused by the suppression of correspondence. On this point Mr. Henson speaks again:—
“When a man goes on the tramp, he must either take his family with him, perhaps one child in arms, or else the wife must be left behind; and the misery I have known them to be in, from not knowing what has become of the husband, because they could not hear from him, has been extreme. Perhaps the man, receiving only sixpence, has never had the means, upon the whole line, of paying tenpence for a letter to let his wife know where he was.”[192]
Mr. Dunlop believed that—
“One of the worst parts of the present system of heavy postage is, that it gradually estranges an absentee from his home and family, and tends to engender a neglect of the ties of blood, in fact, to encourage a selfish spirit; at the same time he has known very affecting instances of families in extreme poverty making a sacrifice to obtain a letter from the Post Office.”[193]
Mr. Brankston said:—
“I have seen much of the evils resulting from the want of communication between parents and their children among the young persons in our establishment; I find the want of communication with their parents by letter has led, in some instances, to vice and profligacy which might have been otherwise prevented.”[194]
It was also shown that one effect of suppression of correspondence was to keep working-men ignorant of the state of wages in different parts of the country, so that they did not know where labour was in demand. Thus Mr. Brewin said:—