The Post Office of Fifty Years Ago/Preface Rowland Hill's pamphlet
POST OFFICE REFORM;
its
IMPORTANCE
and
P R A C T I C A B I L I T Y.
BY ROWLAND HILL.
"The facility of frequent, punctual, and quick communication, which the Institution of the Post Office was calculated to secure, may be justly classed among the elements of profitable commerce It is essential to the purposes of government, and subservient to all the ends of national policy."
"The principle of the Post Office at its establishment, as is distinctly laid down in the 12th Charles II., was to afford advantage to trade and commerce. The direct revenue to be derived from the Post Office was not the primary consideration."
"We have sufficiently informed ourselves on this subject to be satisfied that an alteration in the present system is absolutely necessary."
LONDON :
PUBLISHED BY CHARLES KNIGHT AND CO.,
22, LUDGATE STREET.
1837.
PREFACE.
A small edition of this little pamphlet was printed, and privately circulated, early in the month of January. It is unnecessary to trouble the reader with the reasons for adopting this course, but I may remark, that it has been productive of one important advantage,—it has enabled me to submit my plans to the consideration of many able men, who, either from attention to the particular subject, from skill in organization, or from extensive commercial knowledge, are eminently qualified to judge of the practicability of the measures proposed. Their examination has led to some important improvements, which, while they remove certain difficulties that attached to the plan in its original form, tend still further to simplify the proposed mechanism. These modifications are given in the present edition.
Doubts as to the well working of certain parts of the plan, even in its present form, have certainly been expressed by some whose opinion I esteem very highly; such parts have consequently undergone a laborious and anxious re-examination; and have, in the present edition, been treated more fully than in the former. Knowing that I alone am responsible for the practicability of the plans which I have suggested, I should have considered it my duty to reject every alteration, by whomsoever recommended, the reasons for which did not satisfy my own mind. Fortunately, however, in each instance in which I have not been convinced by the arguments in favour of a proposed modification of the plan, my own opinion has been confirmed by a majority of those who have kindly interested themselves in the matter.
The cordial reception which the plan, as a whole, has hitherto met with, has tended to confirm my conviction of its practicability and importance; and it is now submitted to the more severe ordeal of public opinion, in the confident hope that it will receive that candid, though searching, examination which should ever attend the pursuit of truth. Such an examination I respectfully invite from the public press; well knowing that however it may affect the plan here put forth, it cannot but greatly promote the object I have in view, which is not to establish the merits of any peculiar system of management, but to lead to the adoption of the best system, whatever that may be, and thus to render the Post Office efficient in the highest degree.
Fortunately this is not a party question. Whether considered in reference to the remission of taxation, to the extension of commerce, the promotion of friendly intercourse, or the advancement of education, it is interesting to all.
An objection to the proposed plan, which has reached me from an unknown quarter, is too remarkable to be passed over without notice: it is, that the number of letters under the proposed arrangements would be increased so enormously as to render their distribution impossible.
I have reckoned upon a great augmentation of the Post Office business, as affording the means for lowering the rate of postage and increasing the facilities for the transmission of letters. The objector so far outruns my expectations as to convert that which I consider a matter of gratulation into a subject for apprehension.
It seems to me that the Post Office must necessarily be considered as in a defective state, unless it is capable of distributing all the letters which the people of the country can have any motive for writing; at least in ordinary seasons, and under ordinary circumstances; therefore, if at any time the means employed by the Post Office prove insufficient, they should be forthwith increased.
If the objector can be supposed to mean that the number of letters will probably become so great that no practicable increase of the Post Office establishment will be sufficient for their distribution, I may remark upon so extraordinary a supposition, that I never yet heard of a merchant, a manufacturer, or a trader, possessed of sufficient capital and other adequate means, being frightened lest his business should become too large. To go a step further, how ridiculous would it seem should a joint-stock company, with ample capital, an able direction, and active and intelligent agents, decline the undertaking they had proposed to themselves, upon discovering that they must expect an unprecedented demand for the objects of their operations.
With national resources, the transaction of any conceivable amount of Post Office business must be easy; and let it not be forgotten, that under able direction, the more extensive the business, the more systematically it may be conducted, and, consequently, with greater effect, economy, and facility.
The nation can always command the services of men of first rate ability; let that be done, and then we may safely rest assured that all visionary obstacles will at once disappear, and that real difficulties will be vigorously grappled with, and in time overcome.
However, it is always well to have a dernier ressort. If, unluckily, an epidemical passion for letter writing should rage to such a degree as to overpower all ordinary and extraordinary means of control, even let the pent up spirit lift the safety valve and expand itself in freedom. Or, in more staid language, no longer confine the public to the use of the Post Office, but allow letter writers to choose a mode of transmission for themselves.
2, Burton Crescent,
Feb. 22, 1837.