[127] Hansard, 1844-5.
[128] Ibid.
[129] Among many expressions of opinion to which the inquiry on the subject gave rise, we find the following characteristic effusion from Thomas Carlyle: "It is a question vital to us that sealed letters in an English post-office be, as we all fancied they were, respected as things sacred; that opening of men's letters, a practice near of kin to picking men's pockets, and to other still viler and far fataler forms of scoundrelism, be not resorted to in England, except in cases of the very last extremity. When some new Gunpowder Plot may be in the wind, some double-dyed high treason, or imminent national wreck not avoidable otherwise, then let us open letters; not till then. To all Austrian Kaisers and such like, in their time of trouble, let us answer, as our fathers from of old have answered—Not by such means is help here for you."
[CHAPTER X.]
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE POST-OFFICE.
From the year 1844 to the present time the progress of the Post-Office institution has been great and unexampled. Among Mr. Hill's minor proposals were those for the institution of day-mails, the establishment of rural posts, and the extension of free deliveries. The period between the passing of the Penny Postage Act and the year 1850 saw these useful suggestions carried out to an extent which proved highly beneficial to the public. With regard to the day-mails, Mr. Hill proposed that on the morning of each day, as well as evenings, mails should leave London after certain country and continental mails had arrived, by which means letters, instead of remaining nearly twenty-four hours in London, might be at once forwarded to their addresses, and two mails per diem be thus given to most English towns. The Earl of Lichfield would seem to have seen the useful and practicable nature of these proposals, for, being Postmaster-General at the time, he did not wait to adopt them till the passing of the Act of 1839. As early as 1838 one or two day-mails were established, running out of London. Before 1850 we find the list included those of Dover, Southampton, Bristol, Birmingham, and Cambridge. These day-mails are now established on every considerable line of railway in the kingdom. London, in 1864, possesses not only day-mails on all the lines running from the metropolis, but one to Ireland, and two by different routes into Scotland. Further, a great number of railways in the United Kingdom have stipulated to take mails by any passenger-train.
Mr. Hill also contemplated the establishment of rural posts in every village. In 1840, the number of village post-offices was about 3,000. At that time nothing but "guarantee posts"—by means of which parties in the country might obtain additional accommodation on their consenting to bear the whole additional expense—were granted to new localities. Mr. Hill urged upon the Post-Office authorities the abandonment of this plan, and the gradual establishment of ordinary post-offices. He calculated that an annual outlay of 70,000l. would suffice to give 600 additional daily posts to neglected districts, and he pledged his word that the outlay would be remunerative. There are now more than 8,000 additional rural post-offices, the erection of which has done all for the public and the Post-Office revenue that Mr. Hill anticipated.
The extension of free deliveries, also strongly urged by Mr. Hill, has progressed fairly from that time to this. Round each provincial town there used to be drawn a cordon, letters, &c. for places beyond which had either to be brought by private messenger, or were charged an extra sum on delivery as a gratuity to the postmaster. From year to year new places have been included in these free deliveries; soon the most remote and inaccessible parts of our country—the nooks and crannies of our land—will enjoy nearly equal privileges with our large towns, more rural messengers being appointed as this work approaches completion.
In 1848, the advantages of a book-post were granted to the country. By the new rate, a single volume might be sent to any part of the United Kingdom at the uniform rate of sixpence per pound. The privileges of this book-post were gradually extended to the colonies. The railway companies, at the time and subsequently, complained loudly that the Post-Office, by establishing the book-post, had entered into an unfair competition with them. This competition was described as very injurious, on account of the low rates at which books and book-packets were conveyed. It was answered, however—and in this answer the country very generally agreed—that the railway companies had no legal or equitable right to the monopoly of parcel-traffic; and if they had, the exceptions taken in the case of the book-post were only to books and printed matter intimately connected with objects such as the diffusion of knowledge and the promotion of education—matters with which the Post-Office was now most immediately concerned. The facts, however, were, that very few indeed of the packets sent by the book-post were such as had been previously sent by railway. The Post-Office, by offering its vast machinery for the transmission of such articles, especially to remote districts, gave facilities which had never before been offered, and which caused books and documents to pass through the Post-Office which otherwise, had no book-post existed, would not have been sent through any other channel. A Select Committee, which sat in 1854, on the conveyance of mails by railway, took evidence on this point, and in their report stated it as their opinion, that a large proportion of the packets sent would not have been so forwarded but for the facilities offered by the Post-Office in their distribution.
Any loss, however, which the railways might experience in this respect was more than counterbalanced when the Executive abolished the compulsory impressed stamp on newspapers, this arrangement giving rise to a conveyance of newspaper-parcels by railway-trains to an enormous extent, and proportionately lessening the work and profits of the Post-Office.