[CHAPTER I.]
THE ORGANIZATION OF THE POST-OFFICE.
The Post-Office being a branch of the public service, instituted by statute, is, of course, under the control of the Government of the country in every respect. The principal Acts of Parliament which now regulate the Post-Office are those of 1 Vict. c. 32-36, entitled "An Act to repeal the several laws relating to the Post-Office;" "An Act for the management of the Post-Office;" "An Act for consolidating the laws relative to offences against the Post-Office;" one to which we have previously referred, 2 Vict. c. 98, "An Act to provide for the conveyance of mails by railway;" 3 & 4 Vict. c. 96, "An Act for the regulation of the duties of Postage." Besides these more important Acts, there are others of later date relating to the Money-order Office, colonial posts, and, more recently, one relating to the Post-Office Savings' Banks.
According to the latest returns,[139] there are 11,316 post-offices in the United Kingdom, of which 808 are head-offices, and 10,508 sub-offices. To these must be added a great number of road letter-boxes, making a total of 14,776 public receptacles for letters, or more by 10,000 than the total number before penny postage. The total number of letters passing through the Post-Office during the year 1863 was 642,000,000, or, in the proportion of letters to population, no less than 22 to each person in the three kingdoms. As contrasted with the last year of dear postage, the number of letters show an eightfold increase. The distance over which the mails travel with this enormous amount of correspondence, in the United Kingdom alone, is nearly 160,000 miles per day. Of the mails conveyed by railway, a distance of 50,000 miles is accomplished every working-day; 72,000 miles per diem are traversed on foot; and the rest are carried by mail-coaches, mail-carts, and steamboats.
The gross revenue of the Post-Office for the year 1863 was, in round numbers, 3,800,000l., being more by nearly a quarter of a million sterling than the proceeds for the year 1862. Of this enormous total, England contributed upwards of 3,000,000l., the remainder having been raised from Ireland and Scotland. To this sum should be added a further item of 130,000l. for the impressed stamp on newspapers sent through the post, the charges for which are collected by the Commissioners of Inland Revenue. The actual expenditure of the Department, including the expenses of mail-packets (great part of which appertain to the Admiralty), amounted, in round numbers, to 3,000,000l. The amount of all the items belonging exclusively to Post-Office charges is, however, less than two and a quarter millions. The net revenue of the Post-Office for 1863 may, therefore, be stated at 1,790,000l.; or, counting the whole of the packet expenses—which mode of reckoning, however, would lead to erroneous notions of the financial success of penny postage—to a clear revenue of 900,000l.
At the end of 1862, the staff of officers employed in the British Post-Office numbered 25,380. Of this number 25,285 were engaged in the British Isles, 73 in foreign countries (as agents collecting the British share of foreign postage), and 22 in the colonies.[140] Of the employés at home, between 3,000 and 4,000 are attached to the London Office alone, while the remainder, including more than 11,000 postmasters, belong to the establishments in the various towns and villages of the United Kingdom. The entire staff is under the immediate control of the Postmaster-General, assisted by the General Secretary of the Post-Office in London. The service of the three kingdoms, notwithstanding this direct control, is managed in the respective capitals, at each of which there is a chief office, with a secretarial and other departmental staffs.[141]
The Postmaster-General, the highest controlling authority at the Post-Office representing the Executive, is now always a peer of the realm, a member of the Privy Council, and generally, though not necessarily, a Cabinet Minister. Of course he changes with the Government. As we have seen in the origin of the office, he holds his appointment by patent granted under the Great Seal. The Postmaster-General has in his gift all the postmasterships in England and Wales where the salary is not less than 120l. per annum (all under that sum being in the gift of the Treasury Lords), and to those in Ireland and Scotland where the salary is 100l. and upwards. Besides this amount of patronage, now dispensed to officers already in the service, he has the power of nomination to all vacancies in the General Post-Offices of London, Edinburgh, and Dublin.[142] The following noblemen have occupied the position of Postmaster-General during the last forty years, or since the joint Postmaster-Generalship was abolished in 1823,[143] viz. Earl of Chichester (1823), Lord Frederick Montague (1826), Duke of Manchester (1827), Duke of Richmond (1830), appointed Postmaster-General of Great Britain and Ireland the year after; Marquis of Conyngham (July, 1834), Lord Maryborough (December, 1834), Marquis of Conyngham again (May, 1835), Earl of Lichfield (June, 1835), Viscount Lowther (September, 1841), Earl St. Germains (June, 1846), Marquis of Clanricarde (July, 1846). Still more recently, we find the Earl of Hardwicke, Viscount Canning, Duke of Argyll (twice), Lord Colchester, the Earl of Elgin, and Lord Stanley of Alderley.
The Secretary of the Post-Office holds the highest fixed appointment in the establishment, and may be regarded, therefore, as the responsible adviser of the Postmaster-General. The principal secretaries during the century have been Francis Freeling, Esq. (1797), created a baronet in 1828; Lieut.-Colonel William Leader Maberly (1836); Rowland Hill, Esq. (1856), knighted in 1860; and, as at present, John Tilley, Esq. (1864).[144]
The chief office in London is divided into six principal departments, each under the charge of a chief officer. These heads of departments are severally responsible to the Postmaster-General for the efficiency and discipline of their respective branches. Something like the same arrangement, though on a much smaller scale, is preserved in the less-important chief offices of Edinburgh and Dublin. The branches in question consist of—(1) The Secretary's Office; (2) The Solicitor's Office; (3) The Mail Office; (4) The Receiver and Accountant-General's Office; (5) The Money-order Office; and (6) The Circulation Office.
1. The Secretary's Office exercises a general surveillance over all the other departments of the Post-Office, including, of course, all provincial offices. It is the medium of communication with the Lords of the Treasury, and also with the public. All important matters originating in other branches, or in country offices, pass through this office to the Postmaster-General, returning through the same channel. In 1763, the secretaries of the Post-Office had one clerk and two supernumerary clerks assigned to them. Now, the three secretaries are assisted in their duties by one chief clerk, one principal clerk for foreign and colonial business, sixteen senior clerks, and thirty-eight clerks in other two classes. There is also a force of nineteen supplementary clerks, five official paper-keepers, and nineteen messengers.[145]
2. The Solicitor's Office, as its name implies, deals with the law business of the Post-Office. It gives employment to a solicitor, an assistant-solicitor, and four clerks.