“Maria Edgeworth.”
CHAPTER IX.
PROGRESS UNDER DIFFICULTIES.
At the opening of 1841 I had been a year and a quarter in office; and, as has been seen, had been enabled, by dint of great efforts, backed by the increasing confidence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to bring into operation the most striking parts of my plan; those, indeed, which many, probably most, people at the time regarded as the whole plan; though the reader must be aware that very much was still lacking to its completion, to say nothing of those further improvements of which I was necessarily getting sight as I advanced in my work. If it had ever been supposed by Government that the whole plan could be established within the two years for which alone I had been engaged, either unfounded expectations must have been held as to Post Office co-operation, or I must have been accredited with such energy—moral and physical—such powers of convincing, persuading, or over-riding, as have been vouchsafed to few indeed. I had worked, and was still working, to the utmost extent of my power; but not only was every onward step retarded by the adverse feeling and cumbrous routine already referred to, but, as has been seen, the very maintenance of Stamp Office and Post Office action in such efficiency as to prevent clog or disaster, had demanded of me almost incessant watchfulness and exertion. In short, it might by this time have been perceived that to give full effect even to my published plan would require at least several years of unremitting labour; while the field of postal improvement, taken as a whole, was (as, indeed, it still is) absolutely boundless. However, I felt at this time no further anxiety about the durability of my engagement than such as related to the stability of the existing administration. Not only had Mr. Baring expressed in words his increasing confidence, but yet greater assurance came to me from his increasing readiness to adopt my suggestions (whenever I could get opportunity to explain them), and from his leaving the routine work, so great in amount, more and more to my decision. Nay, should there arrive the calamitous event just alluded to, the exchange of the Liberal for a Tory Administration, I could not avoid indulging in the hope that even the latter, accepting the new order of things as they had done on a far greater question[311] six years before, might, if only in a spirit of emulation, carry on the good work; retaining my services as a necessary means to the end. Should the reader be inclined to think that I was dwelling too much on my own interests, let him review all the main circumstances, and I think he will judge me more charitably. Let him remember how important complete efficiency in the plan was, alike to public convenience and fiscal ends; let him remember that in the Post Office itself the plan was already declared a failure; that its very permanence was yet problematical: let him consider all the reasons there were to believe that the great ends in question could be attained only by the constant efforts of one who combined, with the knowledge drawn from long and laborious investigation, a personal interest so deep that failure in this would seem to be failure in all, and he will not find it very hard to understand how, apart from private considerations (to which, nevertheless, I could not be insensible), I looked upon the retention of my post as a point of almost vital importance.
However, though these thoughts could not but pass through my mind, their only immediate effect was to confirm my previous determination (if that could be strengthened) to make myself so useful that my services should be regarded as indispensable. I had yet to learn that men in power do not always prefer public good to party advantage. Meantime, was it possible that I misapprehended the state of feeling at the Post Office in respect of my plan and myself? The Chancellor of the Exchequer, friendly as he had shown himself to both, held a more favourable opinion, and might he not be in the right? Events were in progress towards the complete resolution of this question; but, meantime, the difference of opinion between the Chancellor of the Exchequer and me was necessarily an obstacle to progress, since it led me to urge what he was often at first, and sometimes at last, inclined to resist.
I must admit, however, that the first passage in my Journal for the year 1841 which bears at all on the question of Post Office management is far from being of an adverse character; it is as follows:—
“January 16th.—Yesterday I wrote by post to Colonel Maberly to ask for certain information which was supposed to exist, but which could not be found in the Treasury, owing to their having no index to their minutes, and I was only able to indicate very vaguely what I wanted. To-day I received copies of a letter from the Postmaster-General to the Treasury and the reply, both [written] in 1837, containing the information I desired. I mention this to show that the Post Office still deserves the high reputation it has long enjoyed for promptitude in replying to letters (no unimportant convenience to those who, like myself, have frequent occasion to address it) and because, as I have frequently to find fault, I am the more anxious to praise when I can do it conscientiously.”
It may be not unprofitable to mention an arrangement at the Post Office, explaining, in a measure, its habitual promptitude in reply. The papers constantly accumulating in the Secretary’s office, I should think, at the rate of a small cart-load per week, are in the keeping, not of clerks, but of a corps of messengers, chosen from the general body for their superior intelligence. These, under one of their own number, manage the whole business of tying up, docketing, indexing, and arranging; and are always ready on occasion for the duty of research. The whole is admirably managed; and, contrary to what any one would have expected, is believed to be better done than it would be by men of higher station. Many years after the events now in narration, it was hastily thought, in a general revision of duties, that the head officer of the corps should be taken from a higher grade; but the change was found far from beneficial, and was soon reversed. The explanation seems to be that the higher officer, thinking himself rather lowered by his new employment, the more so as handling dusty papers must, in some degree, have marred the results of his toilet, discharged the duty in but a perfunctory manner; while those of the lower grade, justly regarding themselves as raised in trust and position, executed it as men perform a task in which they take pride.
It has been seen how much care was taken to prevent unlawful practices relative to the stamp; and the experience of many years attests the efficacy of the means adopted. Of course, too, when discovery, or seeming discovery, was made of a flaw in our security, the fact was carefully withheld from the public during the period of experiment and rectification. What, then, was my surprise and vexation at an occurrence thus recorded in my Journal?—