1862.] on the Post-office, 461 



In the year 1837 Mr. Rowland Hill, then filling the position of 

 secretary to the Commissioners for managing the affairs of South Aus- 

 tralia, a person scarcely known beyond the circle of his family and 

 his friends, put forth a scheme of postal reform which, being named 

 after its most striking feature, was called Penny Postage. He pro- 

 posed the uniform rate of a penny for all letters under half an ounce, to 

 whatever part of the United Kingdom they might be carried. Hitherto, 

 if a letter consisted of two pieces of paper, however small, it was 

 charged double postage. Treble letters paid treble postage, quadruple 

 letters and all other multiples paid according to weight, but on a scale 

 still increasing in proportion to distance. Taking all matters into ac- 

 count he struck an average, whence it appeared that by his plan the public 

 might command for Id, as much postal service as could be had on the 

 then established rates for 9c?. The people at large, the manufacturing 

 and mercantile classes, the clergy — who witnessed every day the priva- 

 tions endured by the poor for want of a post-office witFiin their means 

 to use — all united in loud and earnest prayers to the Legislature to con- 

 fer upon them the boon which had been held up before their eyes. On 

 the other hand the heads of both the great parties in the State were 

 impressed with the fiscal dangers of the proposed experiment ; many 

 believing that the project involved not merely an extinguishment of all 

 revenue from letters, but, in addition, a ruinous subsidy to defray the 

 expenses of the service. Not that Mr. Hill had left his plan unsup- 

 ported by allegations of fact and by arguments, which in the event of 

 the facts being sustained in proof, showed that the attractive results 

 promised might be achieved without any ultimate diminution of the 

 net revenue to a more serious extent than from 1,500,000/., at which 

 it then stood, to 1,200,000/. For a long series of years prior to 

 1837 the state of the Post-office had been a favourite subject of 

 inquiry both by Royal Commissioners and Parliamentary commit- 

 tees, although the only very conspicuous product of these investi- 

 gations was a formidable pile of blue books. To Mr. Hill, however, 

 who had never entered a post-office in his life, these books were a 

 mine of knowledge enabling him to frame a set of queries, to some 

 of which he succeeded in procuring answers. But these were 

 neither abundant nor accurate. For instance, it was essential that he 

 should ascertain within certain limits the number of chargeable letters 

 passing through the British post-offices in each year. No satisfactory 

 information on this head was the Post-office able to afford. Upon the 

 best data within his reach he computed the annual number at about 88^ 

 millions ; but after some time, having to a certain extent been able to 

 correct his data, he revised his estimate, which he finally settled at 79-J^ 

 millions. The Post-office estimated the number at 42 or 43 millions, 

 then at 58 millions, next at 67 millions, and subsequently at 70 millions. 

 But the Committee of 1838, after a most laborious and searching scru- 

 tiny, conducted with untiring zeal and with a degree of ability which 

 cannot be too highly appreciated, arrived at the conclusion that the real 

 number was 77^ millions. Eventually it was admitted by the Post- 



