THE QUESTION OF MONOPOLY

The question of the state's monopoly and the opposing efforts of the interlopers to break this monopoly resolves itself into a consideration of the way in which private letters were carried, for the public letters were entirely at the disposal of the state to be dealt with as it saw fit. From the sixteenth century there were several ways in which private letters might be conveyed. Within the kingdom they might be sent by the common carriers, friends, special messengers, or the Royal Posts. Letters sent abroad were carried by the Royal Posts, the Merchant Adventurers' Posts, the Strangers' Posts, and the Merchants' Posts while they lasted. The fact that private letters were conveyed by the Royal Posts is generally expressed in rather indefinite terms or by references to proclamations, but that they were actually so conveyed is entirely beyond doubt.[731] In 1585 a certain Mr. Lewkenor informed Walsingham that the post just landed had brought many letters directed to merchants, besides those for the Court and Government. He asked whether he might open those letters which were directed to suspected merchants.[732] This reference is of course to letters coming from abroad. The same holds true of inland letters, for in 1583 Randolph, the Postmaster-General, wrote to Walsingham, enclosing the names of those "who charge the posts with their private letters and commissions at a penny the mile."[733]

In 1591 the first proclamation affirming the government monopoly in the foreign posts was issued. All persons except the Postmaster-General and his deputies were forbidden "directly or indirectly to gather up, receive, bring in or carry out of this realm any letters or packets," the only exceptions being in the case of the despatches of the principal Secretaries of State, of Ambassadors, and others sufficiently authorized. An appendix to the same proclamation commanded all mayors, bailiffs, sheriffs, justices, etc., and especially all searchers to be on the watch for men coming into or going out of the realm with packets or letters. In this last part of the proclamation we can see why it was thought necessary to restrict the carriage of letters to and from foreign countries to the Royal Posts. It was done that the Government might be able to discover any treasonable or seditious correspondence. This did not always remain the object of the state in restricting competition but was succeeded later by other and different motives. In order that there might be no doubt about the whole question, the Postmaster-General received word from the Council to inform the London merchants, foreigners as well as British subjects and all others whom it might concern, that they should no longer employ any others to carry their letters than those legally appointed in accordance with the terms of the proclamation.[734]

In 1602 the first order concerning the despatch of private letters within the kingdom was issued to the Royal Posts. "The Posts for the Queen's immediate service"[735] were allowed to carry only state despatches, directed by members of the council, the Postmaster-General and certain officials. Such despatches when sent by the regular posts were to be forwarded immediately. The letters of all other persons allowed to write by post must wait for the regular departure of the postmen. In the orders to the posts issued in 1609, the first article reads as follows: "No pacquets or letters shall be sent by the Posts or bind any Post to ride therewith but those on Our special affairs."[736] The first part of this is certainly strong but it is modified by the succeeding clause "nor bind any Post to ride therewith." Evidently he might if he wished, and he would probably hesitate longer over a state packet for the conveyance of which he was never assured of anything than over a private letter for which he was certain of his pay.

It was the custom after 1609 to follow the appointment of every new Postmaster-General with a proclamation assigning him and his deputies the sole privilege of carrying all letters and reading anathema upon all interlopers.[737] Thus King James favoured Stanhope, his Postmaster-General, with a grant of monopoly.[738] On de Quester's appointment as Foreign Postmaster-General a proclamation was issued, forbidding any but his agents from having anything to do with foreign letters.[739] In spite of the improvements which he inaugurated, we find him asking the King a few years later to renew his patent of monopoly and his request was granted.[740] He was evidently suffering from competition. But the Merchant Adventurers' Posts were not yet dead and their Postmaster, Billingsley, abetted by the House of Commons,[741] gave de Quester so much trouble that he was imprisoned by the Council's order.[742]

In the meantime the postmen on the London-Plymouth road had petitioned the Council that they alone should carry the letters and despatches of the merchants over their road. They said they had so improved the service between London and Plymouth that letters were now despatched between the two cities in three days and an answer might be received within one week from the time of first writing. Their complaint was against a certain Samuel Jude, who had undertaken the conveyance of the London merchants' letters. Jude himself acknowledged this, but said that he had never meddled with the "through" post by which he meant the travellers' post.[743]

So long as the Royal Posts did not give satisfaction, competition was inevitable. Under Witherings they had improved so much that what competition there was, received no support from the London merchants. In 1633 they addressed a petition to the King, praying that he would protect Witherings from some strangers in London, who had set up posts of their own. They pointed out how he, acting with some foreign postmasters, had set up packet posts, travelling day and night. By means of these, letters were conveyed between London and Antwerp in three days, while the messengers needed from eight to fourteen days to travel the same distance.[744] The common carriers were giving trouble in the despatch of inland letters at the same time that competition in the foreign posts was attracting attention.[745] It was their custom to send their carts on ahead while they lingered to collect letters. After the collection they hastened on, leaving their carts behind, and delivered the letters on the way. It was provided that no carrier should stay longer than eight hours in a place after his cart had left it, or arrive in any place eight hours ahead of it.[746] As long as their speed was governed by that of their lumbering carts over the wretched roads, no fear was felt that their competition would prove troublesome.

With the growing strength of Parliament, more and more opposition was made to the grants of monopoly and their enforcement. In 1642 the House of Commons passed a resolution "affirming that the taking of the letters from the several carriers and the several restraints and imprisonments of Grover, Chapman, Cotton, and Mackerill are against the law." The House proceeded to state that these several persons should have reparation and damages from Coke, Windebank, and Witherings.[747] Four years later a report was made by Justices Pheasant and Rolls on Witherings' patent.[748] They held that the clause of restraint in the grant to Witherings was void.[749] This decision was quite in accordance with the views of Parliament when they opposed the King and all his works. But after Parliament had obtained control of the Posts, "the President and Governors of the Poor of the City of London" proposed to the Common Council that the City should establish a postal system in order to raise money for the relief of the poor in London. A committee was appointed to inform Warwick, Prideaux, and Witherings of their intention. At the same time an attempt to lay a petition before Parliament on the question failed. Counsel's advice was sought and obtained in favour of the undertaking and in 1650 the Committee received orders to settle the stages. At the end of six weeks they had established postal communications with Scotland and other places. Complaint was made to Parliament, and the Commons passed a resolution "that the office of Postmaster, inland and foreign, is and ought to be in the sole power and disposal of the Parliament." The same year the city posts were suppressed.[750]

Oxenbridge and his friends who had set up posts of their own gave Prideaux and Manley the hardest fight that any Postmaster-General ever had to encounter from interlopers. Joyce says that Oxenbridge had acted as Prideaux' deputy.[751] If this is so, he was soon up in arms against his superior. In accordance with the judicial decision that the clause in Witherings' patent giving him a monopoly of the carriage of letters was void, Oxenbridge, Blackwall, Thomson, and Malyn had undertaken the private conveyance of letters and had set up posts of their own. Prideaux had charged 6d. for each letter and had organized weekly posts from and to London. Oxenbridge charged only 3d. and his posts went from and to London three times a week. Prideaux then did the same and set up posters announcing that the interlopers' posts would be stopped. His agents assaulted Oxenbridge's servants and killed one of them. He also stopped his rival's mails on Sundays but allowed his own to proceed as on other days. In addition to his regular tri-weekly mails, Oxenbridge provided packet boats for Ireland and intended to settle stages between London and Yarmouth and the other places named by the Council of State.[752] To proceed in Oxenbridge's own words: "Suddenly contracts were called for. We offered £9100 a year through Ben Andrews, £800 more than was offered by Manley, yet Colonel Rich allowed Manley to take advantage of an offer made by Kendall then absent and not privy to it for £10,000 a year. Consideration had been offered by Council, but Manley had broken into our offices, taken letters, and had forbidden us from having anything to do with the post." An order of the Council of State, bearing the same date as the grant to Manley, was sent to Oxenbridge and his friends, informing them that Manley had been given the sole right to the inland and foreign letter offices.[753] This did not end the controversy, for six months later we find Oxenbridge and Thomson complaining that a monopoly in carrying letters had been given to Manley. They claimed that all who wished should be allowed to carry letters at the ordinary rates.[754]

Of all the interlopers up to the middle of the seventeenth century, Oxenbridge had proved himself by far the ablest. From the point of view of the legal decision of 1646 and the position of Parliament before 1640, his position was unassailable. With the present policy of the Post Office in view, his actions will probably be condemned by the majority. But in 1650 conditions were entirely different. Before 1635 the state had either tacitly allowed the carriage of private letters to the profit of the postmen or had officially taken over such carriage; but in this case it was largely for the purpose of keeping in touch with the plots of the times. For 200 years after 1635 the idea was to make money from the conveyance of private letters. The effects of Oxenbridge's efforts were certainly beneficial if we are to believe his own story. Prideaux had been forced to cut his rates in half in order to meet competition. The credit for this must lie with the interloper rather than with the monopolist.

At the same time that Oxenbridge was giving so much trouble, letters were being carried by private hands in Bury, Dover, and Norwich. The offenders were summoned before the council for contempt and severely reprimanded.[755] Petitions came from Thetford and Norwich complaining that their messenger had been summoned to present himself before the Council within twenty-four hours and had to travel 100 miles within that time, an impossibility in the opinion of the petitioners.[756] As late as 1635, Prideaux, the Attorney-General, gave his opinion that Parliament's monopolistic resolution of that year affected only the office of Postmaster-General and not the carrying of letters.[757] Perhaps this was only a bit of spite on his part after Manley had succeeded to his old position.

The usual monopolistic powers, hitherto granted by proclamation, were embodied in the first act of Parliament, establishing the postal system for England, Ireland, and Scotland in 1657. The Postmaster-General was given the sole power to take up, carry and convey all letters and packets from and to all parts of the Commonwealth and to any place beyond the seas where he might establish posts. He alone was to employ foot posts, horse posts, and packet boats. Some exceptions were made to these general rules. Letters were allowed to be conveyed by carriers so long as they were carried in their carts or on their pack-horses. The other exceptions were in the case of letters of advice sent by merchants in their ships and proceeding no farther than the ships themselves, and also in the case of a letter sent by a special messenger on the affairs of the sender, and in the case of a letter sent by a friend. Penalties were attached for disobedience to this part of the act, one half of the fine to go to the informer.[758] The same provisions were enacted almost word for word in the act of 1660, with the addition that letters might be carried by any one between any place and the nearest post road for delivery to the postman.[759]

After the restoration and for some months before the act of 1660 was passed, Bishop had acted as farmer of the posts. In the absence of any law on the subject, the King's proclamation granting a monopoly[760] to Bishop was freely disregarded.[761] Competing posts to and from London sprang up, lessening the receipts which he would otherwise have obtained from the carriage of letters. It was calculated that during the three months before these interlopers could be suppressed Bishop lost £500 through them, and orders were given to allow him an abatement in his rent to that amount.[762]

In 1663 a certain Thomas Ibson attempted to come to an agreement with the postmasters on the Holyhead road. He wished to have the privilege of horsing travellers and made an offer to the postmasters to take charge of the post houses if they would allow him to proceed. He told them that they should make an attempt to have their salaries restored to their old value by Bishop, who had raised so much from them by fines and lowering their salaries. The Postmaster-General told his deputies that if they dared to treat with the "would-be" interloper he would dismiss them, and the whole thing fell through.[763] At the same time a warrant was issued by the Council to mayors and other officials to search for and apprehend all persons carrying letters for hire, without licence from the Postmaster-General.[764] Nevertheless interloping did not cease, as is shown by the complaints from the postmasters.[765]

In the proclamation following the appointment of O'Neale as Postmaster-General in 1663, it was ordered that no one should dare to detain or open a letter not addressed to himself unless under a warrant from one of the Secretaries of State. An exception was made in the case of letters carried by unauthorized persons. Such letters should be seized and sent to the Privy Council. In later proclamations it was provided that they might be sent also to one of the Secretaries of State in order that the persons sending or conveying them might be punished.[766]

After Lord Arlington's appointment as Postmaster-General, he addressed a petition to the Duke of York complaining "that carriers, proprietors of stage coaches and others take upon themselves to collect letters to an incredible number and on some stages double what the post brings." On account of this he pointed out to His Royal Highness that a considerable part of his revenue was lost. This was quite true since the Post Office had ceased to be farmed and the whole net revenue went to the Duke.[767] This was followed the same year by a proclamation forbidding any one to collect or carry letters without the authority of the Postmasters-General. Carriers were forbidden to convey any letters which were not on matters relating to goods in their carts. Shipmasters must carry no letters beyond the first stage after their arrival in England with the exception of the letters of merchants and owners. Searchers were appointed to see that the proclamation was enforced.[768] It was even proposed to suppress all hackney coaches, the principal reason given being that they decreased the value of the Duke's monopoly by carrying multitudes of letters.[769]

It is a curious and interesting fact that for a short time London had a Half Penny Post, established in 1708 by a Mr. Povey in opposition to the regular Penny Post. The idea was much the same as that of Dockwra's although Povey seems to have been a far more belligerent individual than his forerunner in the work. The Postmasters-General tried to come to some compromise with him but he would not listen to them. Finally legal action was brought against him, based on the monopoly granted by the act of 1660. Povey lost the suit and his project fell through.[770] His was the last attempt to organize a regular system of competing posts. During the remainder of the eighteenth century, improvements in postal communications disarmed much of the former opposition. Considerable damage was received from the superior speed with which letters might be sent by coaches but, after they were adopted by the Post Office, matters naturally adjusted themselves. Private vessels continued to convey letters which had not paid the rates prescribed in such cases by the act of 1711, but this breach of the law was tolerated by the Post Office.[771]

Before the nineteenth century, opposition to the government monopoly had taken the form of competing systems of communication, started primarily for the sake of making money and at the same time vindicating the principle of competition. During the first forty years of the nineteenth century there was no opposition to the Post Office as a monopoly. The widespread dissatisfaction was due to the exorbitant rates of postage and this dissatisfaction expressed itself in attempts to evade these rates but, with the exception of individual messengers and carriers, there was no competing system of postal communication established. Opposition took the form of evasion of postage payments by legal and illegal means. The various exceptions to the government monopoly continued unchanged[772] until still further modified in 1837. The additional modifications were in the case of commissions and returns, affidavits, writs and legal proceedings, and letters sent out of the United Kingdom by private vessels.[773] The penalty for infringing upon the postal monopoly was placed at £5 for every offence or £100 a week if the offence was continued.[774]

During the official postal year from July 1831 to July 1832, there were 133 successful prosecutions for illegally sending and conveying letters. The fines collected amounted to £1635, the costs paid by defendants to £1085. The prosecutions were generally for a few letters only and the great majority of the cases were brought in Manchester. In the case of forty-one additional actions, the Postmaster-General did not enforce the penalties, certain explanations having been given.[775] Rowland Hill thought that the conveyance of letters by private and unauthorized people was very widespread and the Solicitor of the Post Office agreed with him.[776]

The reports of the Committee appointed to enquire into the condition of the Post Office and to hear the opinions of officials and the public concerning the introduction of Penny Postage disclosed an amazing state of affairs. The opinion that evasion of postage was more or less general had been held by the public for some time as well as by a few of the Post Office officials[777] but, after the evidence upon the question was published, there was no longer any doubt that the views of the public were correct. Some difficulty had been anticipated that men who had violated the law of the land would prefer not to confess their misdeeds before a Parliamentary Committee. They were accordingly assured that any evidence given would not be used against them, and the names of some were expressed by letters only, when the reports were published.

The means by which postage rates were evaded may be conveniently grouped under two main heads, legal and illegal. The most common methods of evading postage in whole or in part by legal means were:—

By the use of Parliamentary and Official franks.[778]
By enclosing invoices and other communications in goods.[779]
By the use of codes and signals expressed by sending
particular newspapers or, when something in the nature
of news or reports was to be communicated to many, an
advertisement or report was printed in a newspaper and
the newspapers were sent.[780]
By means of a letter or package sent to a mercantile house
with many letters on one sheet of paper for other people.
These were delivered by messengers. Money was sometimes
sent in the same way.[781]

Many factors in Ireland had circulars printed, which went free, as newspapers. Their correspondents were distinguished by numbers and opposite the numbers were printed the communications for each particular person.[782]

The majority of letters which paid no postage or only partial postage were sent illegally, most of them by carriers. "A. B." said that in 1836 his mercantile house sent 2068 letters by post and 5861 by other means, principally by carriers, for one penny each.[783] "C. D." testified that carriers called once or twice a day at his house and that they received from 100 to 150 letters a week from him. Sometimes the carriers delivered the letters on foot, sometimes they went by coach.[784] "E. F.'s" letters were carried by newsmen, who distributed the local newspaper.[785] "G. H.," a carrier from Scotland, said that there were six others working with him and that they delivered about 700 letters and parcels a day, for which they received 1d. or 2d. each.[786] Letters were also illegally conveyed:—

By "free-packets," containing the patterns and correspondence of merchants, which the coachmen carried free except for the booking fee of 4d.[787]

In warehousemen's bales and parcels.[788]

In weavers' bags, especially near Glasgow. These were bags containing work for the weavers, sent by and returned to the manufacturers.[789]

By "family-boxes." Students at college in Glasgow and Edinburgh were accustomed to receive boxes of provisions, etc., from home. The neighbours made use of them to carry letters.[790]

By coachmen, guards, travellers and private individuals.[791]

By vans, railways, stage-coaches, steamboats, and every conceivable means.[792]

By writing in newspapers, sometimes with invisible ink or by enclosing accounts or letters in them.[793]

About half of the letters and parcels sent to the seaports for transmission to foreign parts by private ships did not go through the Post Office,[794] and this practice was more or less winked at by the authorities.[795] The letters from Liverpool for the United States numbered 122,000 a year, but only 69,000 of these passed through the Post Office.[796]

Since the Post Office has adopted the policy of charging low uniform rates of postage there has been no concerted attempt to infringe upon its monopoly. The dissatisfied do not now attempt to establish competing posts nor to evade the payment of the legal rates. Any pressure which may be brought to remedy real or supposed grievances takes the form of an attempt to influence the department itself. It is true that a private messenger service was established for the delivery of letters, but the promoters of that service seem to have been unaware of the fact that they were acting in violation of the law, and a satisfactory agreement with the department was soon concluded. As a matter of fact, it is a question whether succeeding governments have not been too subservient in granting the demands of certain sections of the people, notably in connection with the telegraph and telephone systems and the question of guarantees. The position of a government which has abandoned the principle that any extension of services or change in postal policy shall be based upon present or anticipated financial success must necessarily be a difficult one.