CHAPTER VII. CONCERNING SOME OF THE POPULAR MISCONCEPTIONS AND MISREPRESENTATIONS TO WHICH THE POST-OFFICE IS LIABLE.

The Post-Office, from its peculiar organization and the nature of its business, is liable to many misconceptions from which the other great Government Departments are more or less free. In one of the reports of the Postmaster-General, many of these misunderstandings are recounted and answered with an evident endeavour to bring about a better feeling between the people and the people's Post-Office. We cannot do better than refer here to a few of the instances given, supplementing them by more which have been suggested to us from that consideration of the entire economy of the Post-Office, into which we have been led in dealing with our subject.

1. Unquestionably, the Post-Office is blamed for many errors and shortcomings which ought never to have been charged against it. On this important point, the evidence given by each Post-Office Report is remarkably clear, although, by the way, a writer in a recent number of a highly respectable quarterly review regards the instances given by successive Postmaster-Generals as so many "testimonials to character," reminding him—so he scurvily added—of nothing so much as "the testimonials given by dyspeptic noblemen in favour of the Revalenta Arabica or Holloway's Pills and Ointment."[196] Of course, much trouble and many losses must, from time to time and at all times, have been caused by the carelessness or dishonesty of some of many thousand officials of the Post-Office, though the cases are far from few, and the authorities, in which it has been shown, to the satisfaction even of the complainant, that the fault at first attributed to the Post-Office rested really in other quarters. Some examples are afforded. The publisher of one of the London papers complained of the repeated loss in the Post-Office of copies of his journal, addressed to persons abroad. An investigation showed that the abstraction was made by the publisher's clerk, his object apparently being to appropriate the stamps required to defray the foreign postage. In another case, a general complaint having arisen as to the loss of newspapers sent to the chief office in St. Martin's-le-Grand, the investigation led to the discovery of a regular mart held near the office, which was supplied with newspapers by the private messengers employed to convey them to the post. Again: A man was detected once in robbing a newsvendor's cart by volunteering, on its arrival at the entrance of the General Post-Office, to assist the driver in posting the newspapers. Instead of doing so, however, he walked through the hall with those intrusted to him, and, upon his being stopped, three quires of a weekly paper were found in his possession.

To these cases of newspapers let us add a few concerning letters, the substance of which are adduced in subsequent reports. Thus, a letter containing a cheque for 12l. and sent to a London firm, was said not to have reached its destination; the Post-Office was blamed for not delivering it; inspectors were set to work, and after a diligent search, it was traced from the premises of the person to whom it was addressed to those of a papier-machÉ manufacturer, where it doubtless had been pulped into tea-trays or writing-cases. Again: A bank agent sends his son to the post with a letter, which on his journey he opens. Spying a figured cheque, he abstracts it, and posts the letter without it, and it is afterwards found ornamenting his copy-book! Another bank agent sends his youthful son to the post-office to receive for him his letters, one of which, containing some very valuable inclosures, he leaves in his pocket, and immediately afterwards leaves town for school, carrying with him the precious missive—worth some 1,500l.—where it consorts with his marbles, Everton toffy, and cold Bologna sausage, till the vacation, the lad all the time being in blissful unconsciousness of the stir paterfamilias was making about it. Another person complained that several of his letters were not forthcoming. This case was a mystery. At length it struck one of the shrewd officials—who grow shrewd through dint of unravelling the most curious cases—that the letter-box at the person's door ought to be carefully examined. This was done, and the box was found exceedingly defective. Fifteen letters were jammed between the box and the door, where some of them had quietly reposed for the space of nine years.[197] The secretary of a charitable institution in London gave directions for posting a large number of "election papers," and supposed that his directions had been duly acted upon. Shortly, however, he received complaints of the non-receipt of many of the papers, and in other cases of delay. He at once lodged a strong complaint at the Post-Office; but, on examination, circumstances soon came to light which cast suspicion on the person employed to post the notices, although this man had been many years in the service of the society, and was supposed to be of strict integrity. Ultimately, the man confessed that he embezzled the postage (3l. 15s. 6d.), and had endeavoured to deliver the election papers himself. Once more: A short time since a registered letter was said to have been posted at Newcastle, addressed to a banker in Edinburgh, who, not receiving it according to his expectation, sent a telegraphic message to learn why it had not been forwarded. The banker supposed that the letter had been lost or purloined in the Post-Office; but it was at last found to have been duly delivered to the bank porter in order to post it, but he had locked it up in his desk and forgotten it.

2. The knowledge of the following misconception may also help to save the public and the Post-Office a great amount of trouble. "It is often assumed," says the Postmaster-General, "that a mail-conveyance passing by, or through a place, ought, as a matter of course, to deposit," there and then, "the letters directed thereto; the practice being, on the contrary, that until the mail arrives at the head post-office of the district, the letters in question are not separated from the other letters of the district. A slight consideration of the nature and objects of the postal service will show that such separation cannot be effected in any other way, unless, indeed, the mail-conveyance, even supposing it to be but a mail-cart, were converted into a travelling post-office, and furnished with clerks of unlimited local knowledge (which is plainly impossible), or unless every town and village in the kingdom, having any correspondence with the place in question, were to make up a bag for that place; in which case its mail would contain nearly as many bags as letters."

3. "It happens from time to time that, owing to the stream of postal communications having been diverted from the old mail-road to a line of railway, or from other causes of like nature, it becomes desirable to reduce the post-office of a town from the condition of a principal office to that of a sub-office. This step not unfrequently gives rise to complaints, the inhabitants being under the impression that they will not in future be so well served. This is a misconception. The change is not made when it will subject the correspondence to delay; nor does it cause any withdrawal of accommodation in respect to money-orders. It is, in fact, only a departmental arrangement, which consists in carrying on the sorting of the letters for the new sub-office at some intermediate office, instead of sending the letters in direct bags."

4. "Another misconception, which occasionally causes trouble and disappointment, consists in assuming that a discretionary power can be intrusted to subordinate officers to remit penalties or overcharges under special circumstances. Cases will occur in which strict observance of a general rule may inflict more or less injustice upon individuals, and where a dispensing power immediately at hand might furnish a remedy. In an establishment as large and as widely spread as the Post-Office, however, there will always be many subordinate officers, some of them carrying on their duties beyond the easy reach of any supervising authority, who are not fit depositaries of such a power, affecting, as it would to a great degree, the public revenue. It therefore becomes necessary to lay down definite and precise rules, from which no departure can be allowed, except under sanction of the Postmaster-General; and in the few instances in which these rules press hardly, appeal must be made to the General Post-Office. It must be added, that in many instances even such appeal is necessarily fruitless, the Postmaster-General being bound to a particular course by positive law."

5. "In regard to the expense of railway conveyance, the public naturally supposes, that as such conveyance is cheapest for ordinary purposes, and as the charges made for the carriage of mails are subject to arbitration, that it must be cheapest for postal purposes also; and, indeed, so cheap, as to warrant the free use of the railways, either as substitutes for other conveyance, or for the multiplication of mails. The fact, however, is very different. Except in certain instances, where companies have entered into arrangements, securing to the Post-Office the use of their trains on moderate, though still highly remunerative terms, railway conveyance, with all its acknowledged advantages, has proved much more expensive than that which it has superseded." We have already spoken at length of railways in relation to the Post-Office, and will not here add any further remark.

6. The English Postmaster-General is frequently supposed to have some control over colonial post-offices, and even those of foreign countries. Except at Gibraltar and Malta, however, he is quite powerless out of the United Kingdom.

7. Frequent applications are made, it seems, for extra foreign and colonial mails, yet those existing are only kept up at a ruinous loss. Of the eight great lines of packet communication, only one pays its expenses and yields a profit. If the letters sent abroad were charged with the whole cost of the packets, the foreign agencies, and other incidental expenses, not only would all the sea-postage be swallowed up, but the mails would entail a loss of nearly four hundred thousand pounds a year. "We want," said a leading weekly commercial paper lately, "increased facilities for communication with our West Indian Colonies;" yet every letter now forwarded to those colonial possessions of ours costs one shilling over and above the postage charged! On each letter conveyed between this country and the Cape there is a dead loss of sixpence; to the West Coast of Africa, one shilling and sixpence. Everybody has heard of the New Galway line of packets for America, now suspended for the second time: every letter carried by these packets under their first contract was charged one, and cost the country six shillings; under the second attempt, each letter is said to have cost even more than six shillings! With the change of system and change of management, described briefly in speaking of the packet service, there can be no question that this state of things will not be allowed to continue. The principle of requiring the colonies themselves to pay a moiety of the cost of their service is a step in the right direction, and is, certainly, only just:[198] the colonies will not be taxed for the mother-country, as in one memorable instance in history, nor, as at present, will the mother-country be taxed unfairly for the colonies: there will then be equal interest in keeping down the expenditure, and in establishing rates of postage high enough to be remunerative.

8. The English Post-Office will compare favourably with that of any nation in the world. In no country are post-office privileges procured cheaper than with us. Like any other institution capable of endless growth, and which must grow and expand with the progressive influences of the times, it clearly is not perfect in every arrangement; but in answer to complaints of the hard, unyielding, and stringent rules which are said to bind the English Post-Office, it may not be out of place to institute a few comparisons, asking that some reference should be made to contemporary history. In England, coin was suffered for many years to pass in ordinary letters, to the temptation and seduction of many of the officers, and the practice grew from a thoughtless economy, in spite of all the appeals that were made to the contrary. At present coin is not allowed to pass through the post-office, except in registered letters: in France it has long been, and is now, a penal offence to transmit coin in letters.[199] At the time Sir Rowland Hill was urging his penny-postage scheme on the attention of the British Legislature, another European State (Piedmont, 1837) had the most stringent and severe regulations maintained in its Post-Office. The law punished any one posting a book or a newspaper opposed to the principles of the monarchy with from two to five years' hard labour; any one who might receive of such newspapers or books through the post without having delivered it into the hands of the authorities with two years' imprisonment; a reward of one hundred crowns was offered to any one giving information. These arbitrary and iniquitous laws are equalled and even surpassed, in European codes of still later date—witness Russia and, until quite recently, Austria.

9. The opinion is frequently expressed in conversation, and we have often met with such expressions of opinion in our daily and weekly press, to the effect that the Post-Office ought to give more accommodation to the public in many ways, and so disburse some, if not all, of its enormous profits. These profits are said to be absurdly large; that fifty per cent. is ten times the interest of money lent on decent security, and five times as much as would satisfy sanguine private speculators. This subject of Post-Office profits is made, de facto, the principal argument against what is called the Post-Office monopoly.

We have already, in other parts of this book, offered an opinion on steps which might be taken in the way of affording extra facilities to the public. A cheaper sea service and a halfpenny post for our towns are two of the most important and most practicable measures. Granted that our packet service ought to be kept up as at present, we have an invincible argument for universal free deliveries at home. When asked[200] if he thought it necessary that our Colonies should have greater postal facilities than they could pay for, Mr. Hamilton, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, answered that "a colony might reasonably complain if it was deprived of advantages of postal communication, simply because that postal communication might not be remunerative." Again, on the question of Post-Office revenue,[201] "I think the first charge upon that revenue is to supply reasonably all portions of Her Majesty's dominions with postal communication," which consideration, it seems to us, will apply equally at home and abroad. Still more important seems the plan of a halfpenny post for local letters, that is, for letters posted and delivered in the same town. Before the days of penny postage, we had penny posts in all the principal towns of the country. A halfpenny post, if only applied to our largest towns, where it would be certain to be remunerative,[202] would have the effect of materially lessening the weight of the argument that our present rate of charges is anomalous and unfair. But this would be by no means the most important result. Such posts would necessitate more frequent deliveries in provincial towns—the postmen to be paid accordingly as fully, and not as now, only partially, employed. On the other hand, it is quite clear that the Post-Office net revenue is a fair and honourable item on the credit side of the Government accounts, with which the public, except through their representatives in Parliament, have nothing whatever to do. The penny postage scheme was carried through Parliament in the confident expectation resolutely urged by the intrepid founder of that scheme, that all the benefits promised under it would result to the country, without any great relinquishment of Post-Office revenue, and that only for a term of years. Gradually, year by year, with enormous gain to the public convenience in innumerable ways, the revenue derivable from this branch of the service has risen beyond the highest standard of the past. Any relinquishment of the profits—which, by the way, staves off other taxes—depends on Parliament, and not on the Post-Office.[203]

10. Perhaps of all the prevalent misconceptions to which the public have been, and still are, liable, none is so unfounded as that the servants of the Post-Office are, as a body, ill-used and ill-paid. Without question, individual cases of hardship and inequality exist; but that there is anything inherently wrong in the system, or that that system is administered with harshness or partiality, or that there is in this Department more than the usual modicum of cases in which the legislation for the many presses heavily on the few, no one who will make himself acquainted with the subject in all its bearings can believe for a moment. Statements to a contrary effect have often appeared in the public newspapers; instead, however, of representing the feelings of the officers, they have much more frequently goaded them into discontent, no doubt, at times, against their better feeling and judgment. Two or three years ago, the Postmaster-General, in referring to these statements, dwelt upon the weight of responsibility resting with that part of the public press who, unthinkingly, and on an ex parte view of their case, indulged the martial sentiments of the men with encouragement to the utter abandonment of discipline and control. We incline to the belief that the time will come when, in the provinces for instance, more liberal allowances will be made to the lower grades of Post-Office officials; when the graphic description already given by the postman poet would, if uttered, be regarded as a libel on his class of officers. On the other hand, with regard to the same class of men in the metropolitan office, the more the question is calmly considered, the less reason is there for sympathy with the popular view. In 1860, the Times gave a dismal account of the sufferings of the London letter-carriers, whose cause it espoused more warmly than wisely. "Hard-worked and ill-paid," said the leading journal, "these men are all discontented and sullen; they are indifferent to the proper performance of their duties, and hold the threat of dismissal in utter disdain, feeling sure, as they say, that even stone-breaking on the road-side would not be harder labour and scarcely less remunerative." A short time after, the other side of the picture relating to these would-be stone-breakers was given, not by an anonymous writer in the Times, but by a Cabinet Minister. The report of the late Lord Elgin stated that "there need not be the least difficulty in procuring, at the present wages, honest, intelligent, and industrious young men, perfectly qualified for the office of letter-carrier: and, I may add, that in cases of dismissal—happily a rare occurrence, considering the number of men employed—the most strenuous efforts are made to obtain readmission to the service." Regarding the question in a practical common-sense light, there could be no manner of doubt as to which statement should carry most weight. Other organs of the press, however, either thought differently, or dispensed with the preliminary investigation which the Post-Office courts rather than discourages, and which inquiry it would only have been fair to make. Only last year an important commercial paper commented sympathisingly on "the loud and deep complainings of the London letter-carrier, of the grinding oppression to which they are subjected, and their ineffectual struggles to obtain redress;" and this opinion was echoed round by many smaller lights.

What, however, are the facts? The rate of wages of the lowest class of letter-carriers in London ranges from 18s. to 25s. a week. Each man (who must necessarily begin under 21 years of age) commences at the former sum, and steadily advances at the rate of a shilling more each year, till he attains the maximum of 25s. This is for the lowest class, be it remembered: but besides the chances of rising into a higher class of carrier, he has the prospect, realized by many in the course of two or three years, of being promoted to the higher grade of sorter. If, as some have been, he be appointed to the corps of travelling sorters, he will nearly double his income at a bound. But not to dwell on chances of promotion, the letter-carrier, in addition to his wages, is allowed to receive Christmas-boxes; and many thus receive, as the public must know well, most substantial additions to their income. He is supplied with two suits of clothes, one for summer, and the other for winter wear. If ill, he has medical attendance and medicine gratis. When unfitted for work, he may retire upon a pension for which he has not now to pay a farthing; and during service, if he insure his life for the benefit of his family, the Post-Office will assist him to pay his premiums, by allowing him 20 per cent. on all his payments. Every year he is allowed a fortnight's holiday, without any deduction from his pay; many spare hours each day he may devote to other pursuits, for if, when at work at the office, his hours of duty exceed eight hours daily, he is at full liberty to ask for investigation and redress. In short, a London letter-carrier is in as good a position, relatively, as many skilled artisans, without, as regards his pay, being subject to any of the contingencies of weather, trade, and misfortune, which make the wages of other workmen occasionally so precarious, and without having had to go through any expensive apprenticeship or preparation for his calling, as in the case of most of the numerous handicrafts of life.[204]

Finally, it cannot truly be said that the Post-Office institution is not moving with the age, but is as it used to be, intrenched in the traditions of the past. Different from other departments, with their undeviatingly narrow routine, the Post-Office is managed with that enlightened policy which openly invites suggestion and criticism; nay, it goes further, and offers rewards to persons, either in its employ or otherwise, who may devise any plan for accelerating its business. Post-Office work is of such a nature that the Post-Office establishment admits of constant improvement as well as constant expansion. The authorities publicly intimate that they will be glad to receive clear and correct information respecting any faulty arrangements, promising that such information shall have the best attention of the practical officers of the department. At the same time, they take the opportunity to urge upon John Bull the practice of patience, reminding him of what he is often inclined to forget, that changes in machinery so extensive and delicate must be made carefully, and only after the most mature thought and fullest investigation. "The Post-Office," says Mr. Mathew D. Hill, the respected Recorder of Birmingham,[205] "no longer assumes to be perfect, and its conductors have renounced their claims to infallibility. Suggested improvements, if they can sustain the indispensable test of rigid scrutiny, are welcomed, and not, as of old, frowned away. The Department acts under the conviction that to thrive it must keep ahead of all rivals; that it must discard the confidence heretofore placed in legal prohibitions, and seek its continuance of prosperity only by deserving it."

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