Construction of Reports.
The Reports themselves, though always perused and often curtailed or otherwise modified by the Postmaster-General, were, from the beginning to the close of my secretaryship, substantially the work of my brother, with whom indeed the plan originated, being but the application to the Post Office of a practice which he had very fully maintained during sixteen years as an Inspector of Prisons. It must be observed that the surveyors and heads of departments were called on to supply the necessary materials by reporting each on his own division of the service. This arrangement obviously supplied an additional motive for exertion, and more especially for bringing all matters in hand to a speedy completion. It may be added that in the year 1856, that is to say within two years from our first issue, a letter was addressed by the Treasury to the other departments of the public service, calling attention to the Post Office Reports, and inviting similar reports from them, and that in the following year there appeared a First Annual Report from the Board of Customs, and from the Commissioners of Inland Revenue, each containing a mass of valuable information.
RATE OF IMPROVEMENT.
The following passage in the First Report throws light on the rates of improvement:—
“On the first day of every month a report is laid before the Postmaster-General, showing the principal improvements in hand, and the stage at which each has arrived. The latest of these reports (which is of the usual length) records one hundred and eighty-three measures, in various stages of progress, or completed, during the month of December, 1854. Minor improvements, such as extension of rural posts, &c., are not noticed in these reports.”
BUILDING.
At various towns correspondence having far outgrown the space provided for dealing with it, existing offices were enlarged or new offices erected. Though, at times, there was more or less of contest with influential corporations, naturally inclined to adorn their respective towns at the national expense, yet, so long as the matter was left in our hands, we were able, upon the whole, to effect these changes at moderate cost.
A far larger outlay than was involved in all these provincial erections and enlargements, however lavishly made, had already been staved off by my brother. He learning, soon after his appointment to the department, that there was a great demand for room at the chief office (a building originally erected with far more regard to outward appearance than inward convenience, as was found out as work increased), and that the purchase of Smithfield had been suggested, together with the erection of an entirely new building, examined the present office from the roof to the basement. He found several rooms filled with old and useless papers, and one large apartment, in the immediate neighbourhood of others where clerks were working, employed as a laundry; while for extinguishing fire, of which the risk was thus thoughtlessly incurred, there was not then in the whole building any provision whatever. He also found a great deal of unoccupied space available for the construction of large additional rooms. With the assistance of Mr. Gould, the intelligent clerk of the works, he recommended alterations which, being carried into effect, greatly added to the capacity of the office. While the danger of fire was diminished, provision was made against its occurrence by the erection of tanks on the roof, with a provision of pipes, cocks, hose, and buckets, in different parts of the building, and by appointing firemen to be on duty, by relays, throughout the day and night. In short, the improvement in the building was so effectual, that when I resigned my post, more than twelve years afterwards, there appeared every reason to hope, especially considering the relief afforded by the district offices, that the erection of a new chief office might be indefinitely postponed; though I learn now (1868) that such expectation is disappointed, and that land in the immediate neighbourhood has actually been purchased as an additional site.
Long before my resignation, however, a change had been made, the benefit of which I have never been able to discover,—the construction and alteration of Post Office buildings being transferred by the Treasury, in the year 1858, from the Post Office to the Board of Works. I attempted to obtain a reversal of this order, knowing that the change by no means tended to economy; and, in support of my view, I produced the following striking contrast. A new post office had lately been erected at Brighton, the cost, excluding a very moderate sum expended in fitting up a portion of it as a residence, being no more than £1,600. A similar erection had now to be made at Dundee; and as the correspondence of this town is not more than about half that of Brighton, the least to be expected was that the cost here should be within the cost there; instead of which, the estimate sent in by the Board of Works raised it to four-or five-fold the amount; nor could all the remonstrance I made, and I was not sparing in my representations, bring it lower than £5,700. My general pleading availed no more than my special remonstrance, and the duty in question is still attached to the Board of Works, with what æsthetic advantages I cannot pretend to say, but certainly at a greatly increased expense.