[198] Perhaps, however, there is room to doubt whether the true reform will consist in anything less than the entire abolition of packet subsidies, and the offering of the contracts in the ordinary way of commercial transactions. An ocean penny-postage, e. g. penny sea-postage, would then be almost inevitable. A letter charged a penny the half-ounce would amount to nearly 300l. a ton, an enormous freightage it will be admitted, to the United States, being even fifteen times steam freight to India. Nor when the letters get across the sea would they be subject to heavy inland postage either in the one country or the other. In the United States letters are circulated for thousands of miles for three cents, while for half an anna, a sum equivalent to three farthings of English money, a letter may be forwarded through the length and breadth of British India.
[199] As another example, take the United States, with Mr. Anthony Trollope for a judge on postal concerns. In his North America, vol. ii. p. 368, we read: "It is, I think, undoubtedly true that the amount of accommodation given by the Post-Office of the States is small, as compared with that afforded in some other countries, and that that accommodation is lessened by delays and uncertainty.... Here in England, it is the object of our Post-Office to carry the bulk of our letters at night, to deliver them as early as possible in the morning, and to collect them and take them away for despatch as late as may be in the day; so that the merchant may receive his letters before the beginning of his day's business, and despatch them after its close. In the States no such practice prevails. Letters arrive at any hour of the day miscellaneously, and were despatched at any hour. I found that the postmaster of one town could never tell me with certainty when letters would arrive at another. I ascertained, moreover, by painful experience that the whole of a mail would not always go forward by the first despatch. As regarded myself, this had reference chiefly to English letters and newspapers. 'Only a part of the mail has come,' the clerk would tell me. With us the owners of that part which did not come would consider themselves greatly aggrieved and make loud complaint. But, in the States, complaints made against official departments are held to be of little moment." We are further told that the "letters are subject to great delays by irregularities on railways. They have no travelling post-offices in the States, as with us. And, worst of all, there is no official delivery of letters." "The United States' Post-Office," says Mr. Trollope, "does not assume to itself the duty of taking letters to the houses of those for whom they are intended, but holds itself as having completed the work for which the original postage has been paid when it has brought them to the window of the post-office of the town to which they are addressed." The recognised official mode of delivery is from the office window, many inhabitants paying for private boxes at the post-office. If delivered, a further sum must be paid the bearer. Surely English people have reason to be content with their privileges, and in a certain degree to "rest and be thankful."
[200] Report of the Committee of the House of Commons on Packet and Telegraph Contracts, p. 27.
[201] Ibid. p. 34.
[202] A halfpenny post is in full operation at the city of Quebec.
[203] The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in his place in Parliament, has just adverted (April) to the argument indicated above. "If the Post-Office revenue be abandoned in whole, or in part, a gap will be created which will have to be supplied by direct taxation." That our postage rates may be regarded as a kind of mild taxation, not unfairly levied, and that the work is done by the State with more uniformity of purpose and greater regularity than would be possible under any private company, our senators agree, perhaps with the single exception of Mr. Roebuck. That gentleman, however, it will be remembered, held that Sebastapol might have been reduced more easily had the business been made a subject of contract! With respect to the state monopoly and the advantages derived from it, political economists are also pretty well agreed. Blackstone has been referred to previously. Sergeant Stephens, in his Commentaries, endorses Blackstone's views. Mr. M'Cullagh, in his Principles of Political Economy, is so clear on this point that we venture to make a quotation: "Perhaps, with the single exception of the carriage of letters, there is no branch of industry which Government had not better leave to be conducted by individuals. It does not, however, appear that the Post-Office could be so well conducted by any other party as by Government; the latter only can enforce perfect regularity in all its subordinate departments, can carry it into the smallest villages and even beyond the frontier, and can combine all its separate parts into one uniform system on which the public may rely for security and despatch. Besides providing for the speedy and safe communication of intelligence, the Post-Office has everywhere almost been rendered subservient to fiscal purposes, and made a source of revenue; and provided the duty on letters be not so heavy as to oppose any very serious obstacle to the frequency and facility of correspondence, it seems to be a most unobjectionable tax; and is paid and collected with little trouble and inconvenience." Fourth Edition, 1849, pp. 296-7. See also M'Cullagh's Commercial Dictionary, where he speaks still more decidedly, and Mr. Senior's Political Economy. Sydney Smith, who with Mr. M'Cullagh was opposed to the penny-postage movement, was favourable to the Government monopoly of the Post-Office.
[204] These remarks must not be understood to apply to the clerks in the different branches of the London establishment. These clerks, &c., who are required to be educated gentlemen, are as a rule, paid on lower scales of salary than obtain, we believe, in the other Government departments.
[205] Fraser's Magazine, September, 1862, p. 536.