When, earlier in these proceedings, I wrote to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, telling him that I thought an additional expenditure of £500 a-year would enable me to adopt measures indicated in my minute of the previous February for bringing the Sunday force within its original limits, his answer was that, if necessary, I might take £1500.
“December 28th.—Another minute has been sanctioned, subject to the approval of the Treasury, which will abolish certain day-mails, cross-posts, and double despatches, now rendered useless by the discontinuance of the second delivery on the Sunday at provincial offices. In addition to this the receipt of inland letters will be confined to the stamped and unpaid, and, as a general result, the offices throughout England and Wales will close from 10 a.m. for the rest of the day, instead of opening again at 5 p.m. as they now do. . . . By these means additional rest, averaging from three to five hours, will be given at the provincial post offices.”
My recommendation for transferring the Sunday morning delivery in the suburbs of London to Saturday night was also carried into effect this day, and I may add that that which was thus found practicable on Saturday night was at length acknowledged to be so on all other nights; and thus was established that late suburban delivery which is still maintained, much to the convenience of the public.
So ended the year 1849, amidst clouds which, though still dark enough to remind me of the storm that had been raging for the last three months, and to warn me that more disturbance might yet come, were at least beginning to break.[70]
I have already referred to hostility in the office as the chief source of the great trouble which had befallen the department in general, and me in particular. If there had not been a mutinous spirit amongst the men, attacks from without, however annoying, could not have produced that grievous anxiety which arose from the knowledge of treason within. This, I may remark, was the third distinct cabal formed with a view to drive me from office. Like the two former ones, and one more yet to be mentioned, it was so timed as to take advantage of a temporary weakness in my position; a weakness caused on this occasion by my having ventured, in quest of a great good, to encounter popular feeling.
I cannot conclude this portion of my narrative without remarking how near the great measure of Sunday relief was to being defeated by public clamour that arose out of the hasty acceptance of mendacious statements from insubordinate officers. At the City meeting in the previous October it had been maintained that the temporary addition of twenty-five men would not only be made permanent, but would soon be swollen to six hundred. Within four months of this prediction, not only had the whole addition been dispensed with, but also the original force of twenty-six men had been reduced to fourteen. Of these, moreover, four only worked during the day, while of the remainder, who were employed in the several travelling offices, five ceased work at about five o’clock on Sunday morning, and the remaining five did not begin work until about eight o’clock on Sunday night. The main results are summed up in a Report which I made to the Postmaster-General on the 28th of January, 1850, and which was afterwards printed by order of the House of Commons.[71] Of this a notice from an impartial quarter will appear later in this narrative.
In the mean time, Dr. Vaughan, of Harrow, had published a second letter in defence of our proceedings. It was written in reply to a violent and unscrupulous attack by a brother clergyman and schoolmaster. This able paper sums up as follows:—
“I have now discharged, however imperfectly, the task imposed upon me by circumstances which I must still deplore. Earnestly, most earnestly, do I desire the thankful and reverent observance of the Lord’s Day, with which I believe our national as well as individual welfare to be closely, inseparably linked. Deeply do I lament the condition of those weary and comfortless labourers who are cut off from the inestimable blessings to be derived from its holy rest. It is because I believe that many of the provincial officers of our national Post Office are involved in this calamity, and that the present measure contemplates, and in part effects, their emancipation, that I have condemned the blind hostility with which it has been assailed, and laboured to expose the misrepresentations by which that hostility has been fostered.”[72]
The complainants had now so far extended their demands as in effect to abandon their former ground, the cry now being for the total abolition of Sunday postal work of all kinds.[73] The Postmaster-General having called upon the Secretaries to report on this demand, I presented my report on the 5th of January, and it was printed, with other documents, by order of the House of Commons.[74] The following is a summary of its contents:—
I first recognise the great relief that would be given to the department by such total suspension, and then proceed to show why I had not ventured to recommend it. I drew a distinction between collection and delivery on the one hand, and conveyance on the other, pointing out that the former could be suspended in any particular place without materially affecting the convenience of any other place, while the latter could not be so suspended even on a portion of a single line of mail without affecting the convenience of every place which that line served, whether directly or indirectly; so that while the former suspension might be adopted in detail, according to the wish of each particular place, supposing this to be really ascertained, the latter would require a much more general concurrence. I advised that wherever Sunday delivery by letter-carriers was abolished, the abolition should extend also to delivery at the window, and I suggested that, where delivery was retained, individuals might be allowed to protect themselves against it by giving in a written notice to that effect at the post office.