[See [p. 101.]]
Letter to Postmaster-General Lord Clanricarde.
Hampstead, 3rd January, 1849.
My dear Lord,—Referring to the various representations which I have at different times taken the liberty of making to your Lordship, relative to my position, and to the difficulties arising out of it which still impede the course of improvement in the Post Office, I find myself called upon by present circumstances to request your kind attention to a review of the whole subject.
Your Lordship will remember that my present duties were undertaken with great reluctance, because of the doubt I felt whether in the position I was to occupy I should be able to secure those great objects whose attainment would naturally be expected of me, as well by the Government as the public, and that one of the most weighty of the considerations influencing me to accept the appointment, was the prospect which was held out of such reorganization in the official arrangements of the Department, as would at no distant time place in my hands such prompt and direct means of acquiring information and exercising control as I have always deemed necessary for the full realization of my plans.
These views, your Lordship will recollect, are fully set forth in my letter to Mr. Hawes, of 23rd November, 1846.
I feel sure that your Lordship will bear witness to my having used, to the best of my ability, all such authority as was placed in my hands, and to my having made every possible effort to surmount or avoid the obstacles incident to my present position.
It was with this view that I selected and submitted to your Lordship those improvements which, from their comparative simplicity, or from the concurrence of the practical officers in my views, were most readily carried into effect, deferring others, either in whole or in part, where the measures, however important and even urgent in themselves, presented great complexity or appeared to be, on whatever grounds, very repugnant to those who had to carry them into effect.
Among the improvements thus effected are the following:—
1st. The time for posting letters at the London receiving houses extended.