Thinking his prattle to be tedious.”
CHAPTER IX.
[In the Summer of 1833, as has been shown, Rowland Hill had gone abroad for the benefit of his health. In the Prefatory Memoir to the History of Penny Postage, he thus carries down from that date the history of his life to the year when his great occupation first took strong hold of his mind.]
“I had spent some weeks in France, without, however, having gone further than Orleans (travelling was slow in those days), when an opportunity for such a change as I was revolving in my mind happened to present itself. A project was forming for the colonisation of the then unoccupied territory now called South Australia, the prime mover being the late Mr. Edward Gibbon Wakefield, with whom I had previously some acquaintance, and who, indeed, had shown me a year before a prospectus of his enterprise, in which, however, all places for names, whether directors or officers, were then vacant. Meeting him now in France, I was invited by him to join in the scheme, being also assured that several men of high character and position had already done so. His proposal was that, in the event of his project being launched, I should be secretary in England; while another gentleman, the late Mr. Gouger, was to be secretary in the new colony. Though very unwilling to cut my holiday so short, yet fearing that if I missed this opportunity I might not soon find another equally promising, I determined on accepting the offer, and went forthwith to my work.
“The change was obviously a very great one, and it was to be seen how far my past training, if I may apply the term to what was in so large a degree fortuitous, had fitted me for the duties that now devolved upon me. Necessity had taught me diligence, punctuality, and perseverance; and combined with inclination, and perhaps some natural aptitude, it had cultivated in me the power and habit of invention, created a certain versatility, and armed me with boldness to surmount obstacles, to disregard mere conventionalisms, and to feel and exercise a certain independence of spirit. I had also been led to acquire a power of influencing and directing others, and of holding subordinates to responsibility. In my new occupation all these powers and habits were to find abundant exercise; and the question naturally arises in my mind whether, considering all that lay before me, the course of circumstances by which they had been formed or strengthened was not more fortunate than the training which would have been given by a more premeditated and systematic mode of proceeding, with ample means at command. Had I been more regularly prepared for the profession I was leaving, should I have been equally able to perform what I afterwards accomplished, or indeed equally fitted to make those improvements in school management of which I have already spoken, and which, however trivial some of them may appear in these more advanced days, were at the time decided and even bold innovations?[80]
“Before going on to my proceedings in reference to the South Australian Association, I will, for the sake of convenience, mention two passages which occurred in the midst of them; and here I will take the liberty to remark that, though I had ceased to take part in formal education, I nevertheless bore the general object constantly in mind, and made all my subsequent efforts more or less subservient thereto.
“In the year 1834 I took, with others, an active part in proposing that total abolition of the stamp duty on newspapers which was effected about twenty-five years later: and I endeavoured to show, I still think correctly, that this might be done with little or no loss to the revenue. It must be remembered that there was then a heavy duty on advertisements, and my expectation was that the field for advertising would so increase, and thereby so multiply advertisements, as soon to restore the whole fiscal produce of newspapers to its former amount. In estimating the probable increase in the number of newspapers, I applied a principle on which I subsequently relied in reference to postal reform, viz., that the cheapening of an article in general demand does not as a rule diminish the total public expenditure thereon, the increased consumption making up for the diminished price. Perhaps the actual state of things (1869), though the matter is complicated by the repeal of the advertisement duty, may be regarded as sufficient to show that such expectation was not unreasonable. These views I set forth when I went up in a deputation to the Chancellor of the Exchequer; and the late Lord Monteagle, who then held the office, not only did me the honour to listen with much attention, but requested that he might be supplied with further information on the subject—a request with which I complied as soon as I could collect the necessary materials. The result, as may be remembered, was not the total abolition, but a reduction of the stamp duty, from about threepence-halfpenny (net) to one penny; an excellent measure in itself, yet but feebly tending to that recuperation for which I looked; since the retention of any duty left a serious obstacle to the multiplication of journals, a fact abundantly shown e converso by subsequent events. My argument on the subject will be found in full in the ‘Companion to the Newspaper’ for June 1st, 1834; where also, I may observe, may be seen the first suggestion of stamped covers, though not in relation to letters. The suggestion came from the editor, Mr. Charles Knight, and was indeed in some sort indispensable to the plan of total abolition, since the unstamped newspapers would not be transmissible by post without payment; and this, if made in money, would seriously add to the trouble of transmission. Of course, adhesive stamps were as yet undreamt of.
“In looking over the paper referred to, I find that, at the time when I drew it up, London was the only town in Great Britain which produced a daily newspaper; that there were but six other towns with papers issued oftener than once per week; only two of the six being in England, viz., Liverpool and Canterbury.