COLONIAL POSTAGE.
Towards the end of 1851, learning that an influential association had been formed for obtaining a low rate of transmarine postage, and fearing that the Government might be placed in the dilemma of having either to resist a popular demand or to submit to a very serious loss of revenue, I proposed to the Postmaster-General (Lord Clanricarde) a middle course, viz., a reduction of colonial postage generally to sixpence, the rate at the time being for the most part one shilling. Had I foreseen, what experience has now shown, viz., that where long distances are concerned the increase of correspondence bears comparatively little relation to the amount of charge, I should probably have hesitated before advising concession even so far. The proposed measure, however, was not adopted at the time, nor under the administration of Lord Derby. Early in 1853 it was at length sanctioned; too late, indeed, to forestall public demand, but still early enough to prevent this from acquiring troublesome force.
“March 5th, 1853.—The Daily News of this morning contains an account of the Postmaster-General’s reception of a deputation yesterday, which came to urge the extension of penny postage to the colonies.”
It may not be amiss to remark here that this demand, which has often been repeated, is generally based on a false analogy. Penny postage, it is contended, is eminently successful at home, therefore it must needs succeed abroad; distance is not taken into account on land, therefore it need not be reckoned by sea; home letters have multiplied enormously under reduced rates in the United Kingdom, and the same result may be counted on in our correspondence with the most distant colonies. Here it is forgotten that before a penny postage was established at home it was ascertained that a penny charge was more than sufficient to defray all expenses, while no such proof has been given with regard to expenses abroad. Distance by land was not disregarded until it was shown that the variation in cost was far too small to be expressed in the lowest coin of the realm. Moreover, where very great distances are concerned, where in the nature of things answer is slow, multiplication of letters is but moderately affected by the lowering of rate. When contractors will undertake to carry letters to India or Australia for the same charge as to Glasgow or Aberdeen—starting at fixed times and proceeding at the highest practicable speed—ocean penny postage will become a practical question. Till then the consideration must, I fear, be postponed.
On the subject of the deputation my Journal thus continues:—
“The Postmaster-General explained the intentions of the Government on the subject. The Treasury authority for the sixpenny rate has now been received; it postpones, however, the extension of the measure to any of the colonies till the necessary negotiations have been entered into with those not under our control.”
Here, too, it may be useful to touch on a popular misconception. It is commonly supposed that the Home Government can of its own authority make changes as regards colonial postage, whereas, save in some of the smallest colonies, such changes must await the consent of the Colonial Governments.
“March 5th, 1853.—The Times of this morning contains an admirable leader on the above subject [the general reduction of Colonial Postage]. A little complaining at the hardship of charging a penny for carrying a newspaper to the antipodes must be forgiven.”
From this article I make the following extracts:—
“We have this day to announce a step which, simple and unpretending as it may seem, is really a greater move towards a complete unity of our independent empire than the most splendid conquest or the largest annexation. In reply to a deputation last Friday the Postmaster-General stated that as soon as the colonial assents could be obtained and the proper arrangements made, it was intended to reduce the postage of letters for every part of the British dominions abroad to the uniform rate of sixpence the half-ounce. The present average postage of colonial letters is not less than fourteen-pence. What will be gained is the low rate, and the uniformity, which experience has shown to be scarcely less appreciated than cheapness. Very shortly, therefore, it will be in the power of any of our readers to drop a letter into the box of the next cottage or in the next street, to his friends on the slopes of the Himalaya, or at Mount Alexander, or at Vancouver’s Island, or at Toronto, with the certainty, as far as the whole power of Government can secure it, of having an answer back at the cost, for the postage of the two letters, of one shilling. The answer from across the Atlantic will probably be within a month; that from Simla or Lahore within three months; and that from the antipodes within half a year. A party of emigrants sailing this week may hope to arrive at Geelong or Adelaide soon after Midsummer, and about Michaelmas their friends at home, supposing the arrangement completed, may hope to receive full accounts of their voyage and safe arrival at the moderate cost of sixpence. Let people talk as they please of the sun never setting on our dominions, and of the British flag waving over every sea and every shore, nothing brings before our mind so forcibly the fact that we are everywhere, and that everywhere we represent the spirit of progress, as this little type of universal power—this letter given to the village postman in March, with an answer from mid-Asia in June. There is something grand and showy enough in the returns that appear from time to time in our military and naval journals, giving the stations of our ships and of soldiers in every part of the world; but the grandeur of the idea is qualified by many painful considerations, for the whole is merely an ill remedy for a still worse evil. But there is no such alloy in the thought that any member of the British Empire, comprehending an eighth of the human species, will be able to communicate with any other within a space of time and at a cost incredible to our forefathers, and even hitherto unattainable. Considering how much there is that is questionable in our dominion, in its means and in its results, it is satisfactory to find one means and one result of undoubted advantage to the whole human race, viz., that we draw mankind together, and bring the whole world, so to speak, within hearing distance.”