1842-1885.] POST-OFFICE 569 Baring, the chancellor was very much of Colonel Maberly s way of thinking. It happened, too, that the scheme had to be tried and carried through at a period of severe commercial
- .suits, depression. Nevertheless, the results actually attained in
the first two years were briefly these : (1) the chargeable letters delivered in the United Kingdom, exclusive of that part of the Government correspondence which theretofore passed free, had already increased from the rate of about 75,000,000 a year to that of 196,500,000 ; (2) the London district post letters had increased from about 13,000,000 to 23,000,000, or nearly in the ratio of the reduction of the rates; (3) the illicit conveyance of letters was substan tially suppressed ; (4) the gross revenue, exclusive of re payments, yielded about a million and a half per annum, which was about 63 per cent, of the amount of the gross revenue in 1839. These results at so early a stage, and in the face of so many obstructions, amply vindicated the policy of the new system. But by its enemies that system was loudly declared to be a failure, until the progressive and striking evidence of year after year silenced opposition by an exhaustive process. Seven years later (1849) the 196,500,000 letters de livered throughout the United Kingdom in 1842 had increased to nearly 329,000,000. In addition, the follow ing administrative improvements had been effected: (1) the time for posting letters at the London receiving-houses extended ; (2) the limitation of weight abolished ; (3) an additional daily despatch to London from the neighbouring (as yet independent) villages ; (4) the postal arrangements of 120 of the largest cities and great towns revised; (5) unlimited writing on inland newspapers authorized on payment of an additional penny; (6) a summary process established for recovery of postage from the senders of unpaid letters when refused ; (7) a book-post established ; (8) registration reduced from one shilling to sixpence ; (9) a third mail daily put on the railway (without additional charge) from the towns of the north-western district to London, and day-mails extended within a radius of 20 miles round the metropolis; (10) a service of parliamentary re turns, for private Bills, provided for ; (11) measures taken, against many obstacles, for the complete consolidation of the two heretofore distinct corps of letter-carriers, an improvement (on the whole) of detail, which led to other improvements thereafter. 1 Improvements, more conspicuous still, in the money-order branch of the postal service will be noticed in a subsequent section of this article (page 572). Later History (1842-1885). When Sir R. Hill initiated his great reform the post- master.ship-general was in the hands of the earl of Lich- field, the thirty-first in succession to that office after Sir Brian Tuke. It was under Lord Lichfield that the legis lation of 1839 was carried out in 1840 and in 1841. In September of the last-named year Lord Lichfield was succeeded by Viscount Lowther. O tiing- In the summer of 1844 public attention was aroused in a re- ai de- markable manner to a branch of post-office administration which tcion hitherto had been kept almost wholly out of sight. The state- oi ment that the letters of Mazzini, then a political refugee, who had leers, long been resident in England, had been systematically opened, and their contents communicated to foreign Governments, by Sir James Graham, secretary of state for the home department, aroused much indignation. The arrest of the brothers Bandiera, 2 largely 1 Hill, History of Penny Postage (1880), Appendix A (Life, &c. , ii. 438). Part of the strenuousness of the opposition to this measure arose, it must be owned, from the "high-handedness" which in Sir R. Hill s character somewhat marred very noble faculties. The change worked much harm to some humble but hardworking and meritorious functionaries. 2 Ricnrdi dei fratelli Bandiera e dei loro compagni di martirio in Cosen:.a (Paris, 1844), p. 47. in consequence of information derived from their correspondence with Mazzini, and their subsequent execution at Cosenza made a thorough investigation into the circumstances a public necessity. The consequent parliamentary inquiry of August 1844, after retrac ing the earlier events connected with the exercise of the discretional power of inspection which parliament had vested in the secretaries of state in 1710, elicited the fact that in 1806 Lord Spencer, then secretary for the home department, introduced for the tirst time the practice of recording in an official book all warrants issued for the detention and opening of letters, and also the additional fact that from the year 1822 onwards the warrants themselves had been pre served. The whole number of such warrants issued from 1806 to the middle of 1844 inclusive was stated to be 323, of which no less than 53 had been issued in the years 1841-44 inclusive, a number exceeding that of any previous period of like extent. It further appeared that the whole recorded number of warrants from the beginning of the century was 372, which the committee classified under the following heads : Subject-Matters in relation to ivhich Warrants were issued for the Opening of Letters, 1799-1844. Bank of England 13 Foreign correspondence 20 Letters returned. Address copied Forged frank Uncertain The committee of 1844 proceeded to report that "the warrants issued during the present century may be divided into two classes, 1st, those issued in furtherance of criminal justice, . . . 2d, those issued for the purpose of discovering the designs of persons known or suspected to be engaged in proceedings dangerous to the State, or (as in Mazzini s case) deeply involving British interests, and carried on in the United Kingdom, or in British possessions beyond the seas. . . . Warrants of the second description originate with the home office. The principal secretary of state, of his own discretion, determines when to issue them, and gives instructions accordingly to the under -secretary, whose office is then purely ministerial. The mode of preparing them, and keeping record of them in a private book, is the same as in the case of criminal warrants. There is no record kept of the grounds on which they are issued, except so far as correspondence preserved at the home office may lead to infer them. 3 . . . The letters which have been detained and opened are, unless retained by special order, as sometimes happens in criminal cases, closed and resealed, without affixing any mark to indicate that they have been so detained and opened, and are forwarded by post according to their respective super scriptions." 4 Almost forty years later a like question was again raised in the House of Commons (March 1882) by some Irish members, in relation to an alleged examination of correspondence at Dublin for political reasons. Sir William Harcourt on that occasion spoke thus: " This power is with the secretary of state in England. . . . In Ireland it belongs to the Irish Government. . . . It is a power which is given for purposes of state, and the very essence of the power is that no account [of its exercise] can be rendered. To render an account would be to defeat the very object for which the power was granted. If the minister is not fit to exercise the power so entrusted, upon the responsibility cast upon him, he is not fit to occupy the post of secretary of state." 5 The House of Commons accepted this explanation ; and in view of many recent and grave incidents, both in Ireland and in America, it would be hard to justify any other conclusion. The increase in the number of postal deliveries and in increase that of the receiving-houses and branch-offices, together m postal with the numerous improvements introduced into the /-."g^f S working economy of the post-office, when Rowland Hill at 5^ " length obtained the means of fully carrying out his reforms by his appointment as secretary, speedily gave a more vigorous impulse to the progress of the nett revenue than had theretofore obtained. During the seven years 1845-51 inclusive the average was but 810,951. During the seven years 1852-57 inclusive the average was 1,166,448, the average of the gross income during the same septennial period having been 2,681,835. The following table (V.) shows the details (omitting fractions of a pound) for the entire period from 1838, the last complete year of the old rates of postage, to 1857 inclusive : 3 Repcyrtfrom the Secret Committee on the Post-Office (1844), p. 11. 4 Ibid., pp. 14-17. 5 Hansard Debate.", vol. cclxvii. cols. 294-296 (session of 1882).
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