RAILWAYS AND THE POST OFFICE, CONTINUED.

We had written, in the previous chapter, all that relates to the Post Office, in the belief that the relations between that department and the railways had been, during recent years, of an amicable character. We regret however to find that, in this respect, we have been mistaken. The amicable relations exist, on the part of the Post Office, on the surface only, no deeper. The same antagonistic spirit flourishes, at all events in the minds of some of the officials, as resolutely as ever.

Our readers will perhaps remember that, on the 11th March, 1865, a Royal Commission was issued, nominating the Duke of Devonshire, the late Earl of Donoughmore, Lord Stanley, M.P., the Hon. E. F. Leverson Gower, M.P., the Right Hon. Robert Lowe, M.P., Sir Rowland Hill, Messrs. Roebuck, M.P., Dalglish, M.P., G. C. Glyn, M.P., Ayrton, M.P., Colonel Douglas Dalton, R.E., Mr. E. T. Hamilton, and Mr. J. R. McClean, C.E., to make various inquiries respecting railways.

On the 19th of December following, a new commission was issued in substitution of the previous one, Mr. Monsell, M.P., being added to the number of Commissioners. The Earl of Donoughmore died shortly after it was issued; and, in consequence of Lord Stanley having become Secretary of State for India, he did not act for more than a short time. The report, dated the 7th of May, 1867, is therefore not signed by His Lordship.

It will not be necessary to follow this report, or to refer to the general recommendations contained in it. Some are very good, and would no doubt be readily agreed to by most railway companies, if they were to take the shape of legislative enactment. Others are impracticable (such as that suggested for ensuring punctuality of trains), and like impracticable notions and ideas at all times, they “fret their little hour on the stage,” and then cease to be heard of afterwards.

The evidence taken is voluminous; some of it is of a very desultory character, several of the witnesses having seized the occasion to vent their own peculiar theories, and, sicut eorum mos est, to inculcate the adoption of their specific or nostrum as the infallible remedy. The appendices, notwithstanding the introduction of much matter that is irrelevant for all large and practical purposes, contain a great deal of useful information.

The great and main recommendation in the report is contained in the 74th clause; it is therefore given in extenso. “On the various grounds we have mentioned, we cannot concur in the expediency of the purchase of the railways by the State, and we are of opinion that it is inexpedient at present to subvert the policy which has hitherto been adopted, of leaving the construction and management of railways to the free enterprise of the people, under such conditions as Parliament may think fit to impose for the general welfare of the public.”

“As regards the purchase of Irish railways,” the Commissioners add, at clause 80, “having come to the determination that it is inexpedient that the railways should be purchased by the State, we consider there is not sufficient reason for excepting Ireland from this general conclusion; but, as it has been the established policy to assist Irish railways and other public works in Ireland, we recommend that when Parliament thinks fit to make advances to Irish railway companies, the money should be lent for a fixed period of considerable length, so as to enable the company to develop its resources before it is called on for repayment.”

The Commissioners add, that these advances or loans should never be made to Irish railway companies on condition that their rates and fares should be reduced, that being a matter, the decision upon which should rest exclusively with the executive of the company.

The two dissentients from the report were Mr. Monsell, M.P., and Sir Rowland Hill. Mr. Monsell being of opinion that the Irish railways should be purchased by the State, and to this extent agreeing with Sir Rowland Hill, whose opinion is that the railways of the whole kingdom should become, by purchase, the property of the nation.

Sir Rowland Hill gives various reasons in recommendation of this suggestion, and summarises in his report, written, as we learn by its first paragraph, “in a growing expectation of dissent,” his reasons with the following language:—

As Sir Rowland Hill was the only person of the fifteen Commissioners who subscribed to the doctrines advanced in the foregoing paragraph, it will be an unnecessary occupation of time to comment upon them.

The two chief witnesses upon whom Sir Rowland Hill relies are, his brother, Mr. Frederick Hill, an Assistant Secretary of the Post Office, and Mr. Edward J. Page, the Inspector-General of Mails. A considerable portion of Sir Rowland’s plan is quoted as forming part of the evidence of Mr. Hill, and we shall only say of that gentleman just at present, although we shall have much to say to him presently, that if he had even a tyro’s knowledge of the working of railways he would not have put forward the string of the assumed “benefits” which he asserts will be realised by his views being adopted.

To us, however, it appears very clearly, that if we lay aside all arguments, reasoning, plans, and suggestions but one, we will come to the real reason for Sir Rowland Hill recommending the purchase of railways by the State. It is that the Post Office may thereby acquire that complete control, and that complete mastery in respect of railways which the rights of property can alone give it over them. Mr. Page aids him by his evidence and assertions, in a manner that has compelled us to state in the opening paragraph of this chapter, that the friendly relations existing between the Post Office and the Railway, are, as regards the department, on the surface only. In its heart (if the Post Office have a heart) its feelings of rancour are just as uncompromising as ever they were.

But let us state, in the first instance, what are the opinions of the Royal Commissioners on the relations between the Post Office and the Railways. They are contained in the following extract from their report:—

It will thus be seen that ten of the Royal Commissioners—the members of the Commission who would not be likely to be influenced by what may be called a departmental view of the subject—whilst stating the case both for and against the railway companies, as well as for and against the Post Office, limit their recommendation to the passing of a general Act to define the points which have given rise to difficulties; to which, at page 59 of their report, they add that “in cases where the Postmaster-General fixes the time of starting or stopping, or requires an exclusive or limited train, the question of the proper remuneration for the service should still be left to arbitration.”

And the Commissioners, whilst very clearly denying the expediency of the Post Office becoming carriers of railway parcels, some of which “extend up to 112 lbs., and require therefore a different organisation for receipt, delivery, and forwarding,” confine themselves to recommending railways to “combine for devising some rapid and efficient system for the delivery of parcels.”

A correct view certainly. We are now desirous of offering some remarks upon the part of the recommendations of the Royal Commissioners which refers to a tariff being fixed by a general Act for the various classes of services required of railways by the Post Office. It would, we are convinced, be impossible to pass an Act of this class that would be of the slightest practical value, because the circumstances of every railway company, certainly of every district of country through which a railway passes, are of constant variance. We need not go farther for evidence of this fact, than in the successive annual reports of Postmasters-General. Until 1862 each of them contained statements of the railway, horse, and foot mileage employed by the Post Office, and each item was subdivided into maximum, average, and minimum, not only for the United Kingdom, but for each component part of it. As may be imagined, the difference between maximum price and minimum on railways, were not only very striking, but they are also equally striking for the two other means of locomotion, especially so for foot messengers; these last varied—no doubt still continue to vary—from a farthing a mile (not enough we should have thought to pay for sole, to say nothing of upper-shoe-leather) to sixpence a mile. To this let be added what any person who reads Post Office documents will see constantly quoted, that before the opening of the railway from Carlisle to Glasgow, the proprietors of the coach that carried the mail between these two places, paid £200 a year for the privilege. It was because there was then a violent, and as it turned out to be, destructive competition on the road, but at the time it lasted, the Post Office was paying as high as, if we recollect correctly, 1s. 3d. a double mile for mail coach conveyance in another part of the country.

The Commissioners recommend arbitration in case of difference, when the Post Office requires an exclusive or limited train, and it seems that the extension of the principle to all matters of negotiation, when the parties cannot agree, affords the best means of arriving at a just and equitable solution. Arbitration, however, with the railways has always been the bÊte noire of the department.

Mr. Frederick Hill, having informed the Commissioners that he anticipates (“anticipations” to which Sir Rowland Hill says, “I concur”) “greater securities against accidents, and also, against assaults and robberies on railways (query, in railway trains?), by the establishment of a uniform system of signals (!), and by clauses in the leases imposing penalties for unpunctuality and other irregularities (what?), and requiring that means should always be provided for enabling passengers to communicate readily with the guard,” winds up the list of “benefits” which the nation is to obtain from purchase as follows:—“Additional facilities for the conveyance of the mails, with a consequent increase in the number of posts, and in the celerity of communication, and the removal of the chief difficulty in the establishment of a parcels post.”

If the reader will please to refer ante to page 106, he will see the number of postal services there are daily only between London and other post towns. Their name is legion, and we are indebted for the information given upon this subject exclusively to Post Office documents. In Liverpool,[49] there are either six or seven collections a day for Manchester,[50] and a like, or very nearly a like number at Manchester for Liverpool and intermediate towns, so that, for postal purposes, Liverpool and Manchester are practically the same town. And so it is with the great net-work of towns in the north of England, as well as with towns in every other part of the country, north, south, east, or west. We confess to the weakness that if we are in a country town or village, we cannot pass the post office without having a look at the notice in the window, telling for what places and at what hours mails are made up and despatched, and from what places and at what hours mails arrive for delivery: we are therefore in the position of being able to state that despatches and deliveries are innumerable in the vicinity of railways; away from them, the collections and deliveries are at most twice a day, frequently not more than once.

“Celerity of communication.” If Mr. Hill will refer to page 58 of the Royal Commissioners’ Report, he will see that the average speed of the quickest trains in England (those by which the great mails are conveyed) is 36½ miles an hour; the average for similar trains in France is 31 miles, and in other states of Europe it varies from a minimum of 20 to a maximum of 30. The speed of our fastest trains is stated at page 109, et seq.

We must also request Mr. Hill to refer to the whole series of Postmaster-Generals’ Reports. Every one of them contains paragraphs under the heading “Accelerations,” but in the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth, there are no less than seven and a-half pages devoted exclusively to this one subject. In the Tenth Report (undated, but bearing internal evidence of its being intended for the year 1862), it is stated, “a statement of all the accelerations which have been effected within the last ten years, or even a list of all the places in the United Kingdom which have now an earlier arrival, or a later despatch of letters than were afforded to them in 1854, would show conclusively that the Post Office has, during that period, laboured strenuously and successfully to meet the demands of the public. But such statements would be confusing from the multiplicity of their details.” The Postmaster-General therefore confines himself to alluding “to the acceleration of the Scotch mails, which took place in 1859; to that of the Irish mails, which took place in 1860; and to that of the French mails which also took place in the year 1860.” These accelerations are so great, and bear so importantly upon the correspondence of the whole kingdom, not only inter se, but with the whole continent of Europe, that each is very completely and elaborately described. In the report for 1864, the Postmaster-General, in addition to mentioning several important accelerations, refers, in a triumphant tone, to the advantages which have been gained to the public by the adoption of railways for conveyance of mails in various districts both of Scotland and Ireland; and in the report for 1865, equal satisfaction is expressed, because most important accelerations were made in the speed of all the main postal trains throughout Ireland. This part of the report concludes as follows. “Contracts for the general use of all ordinary trains were entered into with the Great Southern and Western, the Dublin and Drogheda, and the Dublin and Belfast Railway Companies; and the contract with the Ulster Railway Company was extended. It was chiefly by means of these contracts that the improvements effected in the mail service in Ireland during 1865, were greater than they had been in any previous year for a considerable time past.”

The foregoing is the language used in the three latest annual reports of the department, the last of which was written about the time that Mr. Hill must have been submitting to the Royal Commissioners his reasons why the nation would benefit by the purchase of the railways. And here let us mention a belief which exists in the Office, that for several years previous to the present year, the Postmaster-General’s Reports have been drafted by Mr. Hill. This belief, however, cannot be correct, as it is not to be supposed that Mr. Hill would blow hot and cold, and write white and black at one and the same time.

“Celerity of communication” (to again quote Mr. Hill’s words), “can only take place by increased celerity of trains.” We believe that in the present state of our knowledge we have acquired on railways in this country, the maximum that can be accomplished consistent with safety; and we say in all seriousness, that if Mr. Hill be not content with it, and that the Postal Department insist upon higher speed, he ought, in order to be consistent, also to insist upon being placed on the fore-buffer of the engine, and thus to substitute himself for the director, about whom the late Sydney Smith wrote so pleasantly some years ago. If a Postmaster-General were also required to travel in mail trains, Mr. Darby Griffiths would, we should suppose, no longer experience (at all events in the House of Lords) the fatal difficulties which led to the rejection some four years back, of his Bill to revive for Members of the House of Commons the right of holding the office of Postmaster-General. Nay, it is very probable that the most serious opposition would be found in the House, upon which, on the previous occasion, he was so anxious to confer the privilege.

Before quoting in full the recommendations of Sir Rowland Hill, as regards railways and the Post Office, it is desirable to draw attention to the fact, somewhat remarkable, that the only persons upon whom Sir Rowland Hill relies for proving his case as regards the Post Office, are his Brother, Mr. Edward J. Page, and our esteemed friend Mr. Charles Hutton Gregory, C.E., who is “the arbitrator (should not the word be ‘referee’?) for the Post Office.” It certainly appears strange, that official testimony of a somewhat more independent character should not have been produced. Assuming that the Duke of Montrose had not acquired sufficient knowledge of the working of the system, there is Lord Stanley of Alderley. His Lordship was Post-master-General for six years, and only retired upon the present Government coming into office eighteen months ago. Mr. Tilley, the Chief Secretary, has been connected with the department for a great many years, so has Mr. Scudamore, admittedly the most distinguished man in the service. The evidence of several of the district surveyors would have been valuable; but not one of them was called to corroborate, or to add to the testimony of Messrs. Hill, Page, and Gregory, the spirit of which testimony is manifest, even in the Index of Evidence, as published in the Appendix.

Sir Rowland Hill proceeds thus:—

The recommendations of Sir Rowland Hill, as regards the Post Office and the railways, although drawn up with such elaborate and dogmatic precision, have not the slightest chance of ever being adopted; but as it is so unceasingly asserted and repeated, on Post Office authority, that railways are more costly to the department than the old road conveyances, and that it is a great hardship on the Post Office that it cannot get mails conveyed by ordinary trains, except at unreasonable rates, it is desirable to make an addition to what has been said in previous pages, on both these questions.

We must ask permission to go as far back as the year 1838. In that year, as we learn by a return laid before the Committee of the House of Commons which sat on Postal Reform, and which was presided over by the late Mr. Robert Wallis, M.P. for Glasgow, that the daily mileage of mail coaches in 1838 was 24,613, and the payments for this mileage were £84,103, being an average of 2¼d. per single mile. And we learn also, by an article that appeared in Fraser’s Magazine of September, 1862, written, as we understand, by Mr. M. D. Hill, Recorder of Birmingham, from information evidently supplied from official sources, that the weight of the letters carried throughout the kingdom in 1838, was 750 tons. We find likewise, by returns furnished to Mr. Wallis’s Committee, that letters formed 7 per cent. of the total weight of mails, consequently the weight of mails for the whole year 1838, was 10,500 tons. The latest dated Postmaster-General’s Report, which contains details of postal mileage is that of the 30th of April, 1863. It specifies that the mails travelled daily 49,782 miles by railway in 1862, at an average charge for the whole kingdom of 6¾d. per mile. In the same year “mails were conveyed by mail coaches, omnibuses, mail carts, &c., exclusive of conveyance of mail bags from one part of a town to another,” 33,371 miles each day, at an average cost of 2½d. a mile.

In 1866, the railway postal mileage, according to the evidence and statements furnished to the Royal Commissioners on Railways, was 60,000 miles a day, or, with deductions for greatly diminished mileage on Sundays, Good Friday, and Christmas Day, about 18,780,000 miles per annum. The total amounts paid to railway companies by the Post Office was £570,502, or about 7½d. per single mile. The total weight of mails carried by railways is certainly not less than 110,000 tons, so that, whilst the payments to railway companies in 1866 were about seven times as much as they were to mail coaches in 1838, the weight of mails carried is nearly ten and a-half times as great. But the rate of speed has been quadrupled in the course of a few years. In the olden time, increase of speed of even half a mile an hour, always added considerably to mileage cost, but by railways, the old ten miles an hour are converted into forty, with much diminished cost,—weight for weight carried.

And, again, as regards the constantly reiterated Post Office grievance, that it is impossible to despatch mails by ordinary trains, except at a higher rate than is charged for the conveyance of ordinary parcels of similar weights, and that the department is in consequence deprived of the opportunity of sending mails as frequently as they otherwise would despatch them. This however, as has already been shown, is a grievance, almost imaginary, inasmuch as successive Postmaster-General’s Reports show (see ante page 106) that contracts have been entered into with almost every railway company—beyond all doubt with all the leading companies—by which the right of sending mails by any train, whether passenger or goods, it may choose to select from, has been acquired by the Post Office. In fact, out of 12,000 miles of railway which the department sends mails over, it has, as we believe, this right or privilege over 11,000 of them. But all doubt on the matter can be removed by a return on the subject being laid before either House during the next session of Parliament.

But even supposing the Post Office had not the power it in reality possesses, of sending mail bags by whatever trains it pleases, let us consider for a moment upon what ground either of right or of equity, the department can claim the privilege of sending its mail bags at the same rates as the general public pays for its parcels, for the same distances. This question must be dealt with in two portions: transmission of mail bags with a Post Office mail guard, and transmission in charge of the guard of the railway. As regards the first. Why, in the first place, is the Post Office to have the privilege of sending a passenger in the shako and red coat of a mail guard, at a second-class fare, who is to have, free, the usual amount of luggage (not personal luggage, be it remembered) allowed to a passenger? This luggage, let it also be remembered, the mail guard is to have the right of taking along with himself into the compartment in which he is to travel, instead of its being deposited in the luggage van. There would, probably, not be any objection offered to this arrangement if the guard were to remain quietly and peaceably in the compartment with his luggage beside him, until the end of his journey. But this is not what is required or expected. As the train stops at each station, the guard is to get out of his compartment and then to hand certain portions of his mail bags to another servant of the Post Office who is on the platform waiting the arrival of the train. This person is to receive the bags handed to him by the mail guard, and this latter is to receive fresh mail bags, and then to return to his compartment. The same process is to be repeated on the platform of every station at which the train may stop, and during the running of the train between station and station, the mail bags are to be continuously sorted and arranged, so as to ensure correct delivery throughout the entire journey. It is not the space of one second class passenger, but that of eight or ten, that would be required. Yet it is persistently contended that the proper remuneration for this service, conveyance, business, or whatever may be its appropriate name, is to be the single fare of a second class passenger—and no doubt, if the mail guard could travel within the limits of a return ticket, his employers would consider that that is the amount he should pay for the double journey—not a farthing beyond it.

But if the services of the mail guard are to be dispensed with, and the duties just described are to be performed by a Company’s guard, the Post Office considers that the ordinary parcels rate from end to end is what should be paid—nothing for intermediate changes and shiftings, for the coming in of new mail bags and the going out of old ones. Yet the Post Office itself considers that all these parcels are entitled to special attention and consideration, for before a railway servant is entrusted with the charge of them he takes an oath or makes a declaration—the same, we believe, as is taken by Post Office mail guards; and in order that they may be considered Post Office servants pro hac vice, they receive, if we recollect rightly, a gratuity of a few shillings per annum. If this be not so, it does not, in reality, affect the man’s responsibility: it is the oath or declaration that binds, not the gratuity.

It is impossible for any reasonable, unblassed, or practical man of business to assert that the railway companies would not be entitled to a somewhat higher rate of remuneration than second class fare, if bags are in charge of a mail guard, or that the rate for one from end-to-end parcel, is the proper figure for mail bags placed in charge of a Company’s servant, to be worked by him as if he were a mail guard.

One more point on the subject of postal conveyance by railway. It shall be the last.

The Post Office discharges three functions in connection with letters and other postal documents. They are, collection, transmission, and delivery. The first and last are performed by Post Office servants; transmission, except for certain portions of foot rural transport, is invariably by contract. It is transmission alone that makes a letter of value as a means of intercommunication between persons residing, or situated, more or less distantly from one another. If, as traders, we purchased a ton of letter paper, its price would probably be about £62, or say 7d. a pound; and supposing it came some 80 to 100 miles, its cost would be increased by another twenty shillings, a sixty-second of the first cost of the article. Convert this pound, or this ton of paper into a ton of written letters, and, if we take each chargeable letter at a third of an ounce (the Post Office considers each to weigh a little more than a quarter of an ounce, but for the purposes of this calculation they are taken at the higher figure), a pound of letters, with a postage[51] stamp on each letter, becomes worth four shillings to the Post Office, instead of sevenpence as a pound of paper; and, by the same process, a ton becomes changed from £63 to £448.

The total cost of the Post Office service for 1865 was £2,941,086; the net revenue, £1,482,522, a little over 50 per cent.; consequently, a ton of letters, by no act of the Post Office, except by its monopoly, which recent criminal proceedings show that it is determined to interpret rigidly, is worth £225 net to it. According to the ideas of Messrs. Hill (2), Page, and Gregory, the railway should carry the ton of paper, converted into letters, at a high rate of speed, and with numerous conditions of a penal character, at the same scale of payment, or, if possible, at a lower, than the price which was charged for the original ton of paper sent by ordinary goods train, at slow speed, and without any special conditions attached to its conveyance.

The railway companies are willing to carry letters and other postal matter at a rate not bearing any proportion or ratio whatever to the profit which the monopoly gets the benefit of by their conveyance, but at a fair and equitable scale of remuneration, which scale shall be decided, in case of difference, by two impartial men (Mr. Gregory, do you come quite within that definition?), and if they disagree, by an umpire who, at all events, is expected to be impartial.

But, before we conclude, we must again ask on what grounds, other than the hollow ones of pretence, can the Post Office claim special exemptions, as regards payments, as well as special rights and privileges, without adequate remuneration for them? Neither the Post Office nor any other department of the State assisted railways during their inception, or during their construction; on the contrary, whenever they had the chance of raising their hands against or making exorbitant demands upon railways, they never failed to do so. Innumerable instances in proof could be cited, but one only must suffice “in this connection,” as our American cousins would say. When, in 1855, the Bill for the improved “passenger and postal communication between London and Dublin,” was in progress through the House of Commons, the late Mr. Wilson, then Secretary of the Treasury, gave notice of the introduction of clauses to exempt the Post Office from payment for this improved service. It was only on the strongly expressed determination of the promoters of the Bill, that if these clauses were persevered in, it would be withdrawn, that they were abandoned. Mr. Wilson excused himself—for he felt excuse was necessary—on the plea that he was forced to give notice of their proposed introduction, at the instance of the Post Office, and that he remonstrated, in vain, against them.

It is quite right, it is absolutely necessary in the interests of the community at large, that, inasmuch as railways are the public highways of the land, the right of postal transmission upon them shall be secured in the most complete, prompt, and absolute manner that law can enforce. There must be no doubt or hesitation upon this point; but that limit passed, the postal department is, notwithstanding that its officials are of “Her Majesty’s service,” nothing more than, as a whole, an extremely well-organised, efficient trading establishment, protected, as a monopoly, by many Acts of Parliament. The railways have never shown themselves otherwise than ready, it might rather be said anxious, to serve the Post Office; but in this land of trade and commerce, their managers look for proper remuneration for services rendered. No more is asked, and no more is expected. The law and practice have very wisely instituted a distinction between the manner in which ocean and railway mail contracts shall be entered into. Because the ocean highway is open to all, tenders for conveyance upon it are invited from all; on the other hand, with railways it has been very properly decided that they shall convey the mails, whether they like to do so or not; but the same law that has enacted this compulsion, has also prescribed the manner by which a just and reasonable remuneration shall, in case of difference, be obtained. Others than the lawfully-constituted monopolists of St. Martin’s-le-Grand would long since have been satisfied. Unhappily, however, Alecto, Tisiphone, and MegÆra[52] have lashed them into furor. Cannot the crÈme? de la crÈme of the gods, the uppermost crust of society in CÆlestia, invent or discover a Townsend’s Sarsaparilla to purify their bloods; a Soothing Syrup—a Dalby’s Carminative—a Balm of Gilead that can assuage their anguish? Or, if the gods fail, might not a dose or two of Holloway’s Ointment, taken internally, be tried? In former days, the Earl of Aldborough, then in the flesh, but now, alas, only of “glorious, pious,” and pillular memory, was wont to testify of it, as a wonderful remedy in the cure of ulcers.