The most troublesome and unsatisfactory duty now devolving upon me was resistance to needless increase of expense. I found, with great concern, that augmentation was proceeding rapidly; and, indeed, the addition during the first year of penny postage amounted to something more than £100,000;[304] that, too, following an increase of £70,000 in the previous year; an amount sufficient to produce a very serious injury to fiscal results, the whole of which I well knew would be by many attributed to my reform.
The increase was partly due to what was, in one point of view, an untoward coincidence, viz., the concurrent extension of the railway system. For though this tended greatly to the convenience of correspondents, and therefore to increase in the amount of correspondence, yet its effect in augmenting postal expenditure was quite startling. That an improvement which has so prodigiously cheapened the conveyance of passengers and goods should have greatly raised the cost of conveying the mails, however paradoxical, is demonstrably true, as indeed appears by the following simple statement.
The total charge for carrying the inland mails in the year 1835 (that before the writing of my pamphlet) was £225,920;[305] and it will be remembered that the mail-coaches were then so lightly loaded as to admit of a manifold increase in burden without much addition to their number. By the end of 1840, when the number of chargeable letters had little more than doubled, while that of free missives must have greatly decreased, this charge had risen to £333,418,[306] and at the present time (1868) it appears to be as high as £718,480.[307]
Of course, great benefit to the Post Office is derived from the vast increase in speed, and greater allowance of space; but while in all these the public has its full share, it enjoys at the same time that great reduction in expense, which contrasts so remarkably with the increased charge to the Post Office. To a limited extent, explanation is to be found in the loss of that immunity from tolls which in England all mail-coaches enjoyed on the old roads; but the main augmentation is attributable to circumstances which could not be considered without a too-long digression. The increase was and is unquestionable; and the coincidence, as already implied, was misleading, giving an excellent handle to the enemies of the reform, and demanding of its friends a longer explanation than the public had time or inclination to follow.
A far less serious but more harassing increase of expense arose out of demands for augmented salaries, allowances, &c., which now poured in from all sides; and which came to the Treasury, backed by recommendation from the Post Office authorities; the Chief Office seeming never to question the judgment of the local surveyors, save when there appeared plausible ground for advising yet further augmentation. The reasons advanced were sometimes so insufficient that it was impossible for me, knowing the bitter hostility still entertained towards Penny Postage and its author, to avoid the suspicion that the care incumbent on such occasions was willingly set aside; that increased expenditure was almost welcomed as a means of fulfilling adverse prediction.
Not the least remarkable were two cases afterwards stated in my evidence before a Parliamentary Committee. Additional allowances to two postmasters (at Swinford and Ballaghaderin in Ireland) were proposed, on the ground that the money-order business had become so heavy that each postmaster was obliged to engage a clerk to attend to that duty alone. The accounts in the Post Office would of course have supplied a check to this statement; but it came to the Treasury vouched, first, by the surveyor of the district; second, by the Dublin office; and third, by the London office. The Treasury, at my suggestion, however, called for information as to the actual number of money-orders paid and issued by each office in a given time; and after the lapse of a year the information was supplied, when it appeared that the actual number of money-orders paid and issued, when taken together, was in one office only three per day, and in the other only two. I advised the rejection of the proposed allowances; but this question, with many others of a similar character, remained undecided when my duties were interrupted.[308]
I thus found myself engaged in a constant succession of petty contests, often unavailing, and always invidious; since, while ever called on to resist the demands of the undeserving, I was debarred, by my position, from originating any recommendation in favour of the deserving; a disadvantage under which I laboured for many years, and which seriously clogged my efforts for subsequent improvement.
The information, too, for rightly weighing these various claims, though very accessible to the Post Office, was to me difficult and uncertain of attainment; since, in the investigation, I had of necessity to act through those to whom I stood opposed, and who were naturally unwilling to be found in the wrong. The plan which after some experience I adopted was as follows. I induced the Treasury to issue an instruction to the Postmaster-General that every application for increased force or salary at a provincial office should be accompanied with a detailed statement (in accordance with a printed form prepared by myself) of the work and expenditure of such office. By making good use of these, I gradually arrived at averages which I used as guides in subsequent cases, and thus became enabled to exercise a salutary control. Doubtless many applications were altogether prevented by the conviction that the statement would not justify the demand: in some instances such statement was withheld on the plea of urgency; a move which was met by a temporary grant of force, to be made permanent if shown to be needful. Other modes were tried, but in the end lack of success effectually checked unwarranted attempts. I may add that the plan is still in use, is found to save much perplexity at the Post Office, and has operated beneficially in at once preventing needless expenditure and in enabling the Office to do prompt justice to well-founded claims.
I have already implied that movements were impeded, and labour increased, by difficulty of access to the Chancellor of the Exchequer; but it should be added that this went so far, especially during the parliamentary session, that pressing affairs were sometimes kept for weeks, and even months, awaiting his decision. When, at length, the end of the session came, the exhausted minister felt the imperative demand for rest; and resolved to take six weeks’ holiday. The reader who has accompanied me through the last three years will not wonder to find that I had a like requirement: I, therefore, requested and obtained leave of absence for the same period. What proportion of this furlough was available for its purpose to the Chancellor, I, of course, cannot exactly say; it is sufficient for me to speak for myself. As the difficulties relative to obliteration were still upon me, I should not have left town but from absolute necessity; and even in going I was obliged to make such arrangements as could scarcely fail of producing recall; knowing, too, all the time, that even while I was away, many papers would of necessity be referred to me; so that, at best, my days of vacation would be but half-holidays.
Leaving home on August 14th, I got on pretty well for five days; when, amongst various papers, came the Postmaster-General’s formal announcements relative to the failure of obliteration, with a request from the Chancellor of the Exchequer that I would report upon it. While I was dealing with this, I received, on the 21st, the notice that Mr. Parsons’ obliterating ink had proved ineffectual; and my anxiety was so great, that though but a week of my holiday was gone, I determined on an almost immediate return to town.