[FLEMING] POST OFFICE REFORMS IN THE VICTORIAN ERA 79 
It was shown conclusively that-the telegraph service, as managed 
by the companies, maintained excessive charges, was dilatory and other- 
wise unsatisfactory in its operation, left many towns and districts 
wholly unprovided for and placed special difficulties in the way of the 
newspaper press, which had, in the interests of the public, so strong a 
claim to special facilities. The Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce 
unanimously insisted upon a great reduction in charges, and suggest- 
ed a uniform six penny rate, and their proposal was endorsed by 
other Chambers of Commerce throughout the United Kingdom. 
Parliament was memorialised, and laborious parliamentary in- 
quiries were instituted; until at length it was decided to proceed with 
a scheme of Government Postal Telegraphs attached to the Post Of- 
fice. In 1868, an act was passed, to enable the Postmaster-General 
to acquire and work all the electric telegraph lines then existing, or 
thereafter to be established, and two years later, the Postal Telegraph 
Service came into operation. 
Under State ownership great benefits have resulted. The exor- 
bitant charges on messages, previously exacted by the companies, were 
at once greatly reduced, and the lines have been extended to towns 
and even small villages, which, until the transfer, had no telegraph 
service. Moreover, the charges were no longer according to mileage, 
but were reduced to a uniform rate of one half-penny a word, and for 
that small charge, a telegram may be sent from any Post Office to 
any other within the limits of the United Kingdom. The Government 
administration has proved in the highest degree satisfactory, and the 
business has increased enormously. 
THE THIRD REFORM. 
Imperial penny postage is a natural expansion of the first reform, 
from the British Islands to the British Empire. Its most ardent ad- 
vocate was Mr. Henniker Heaton, member for Canterbury. Early in 
1887, he addressed a series of closely reasoned letters to the Postmes- 
ter-General, proposing that the ordinary postal rate for the carriage 
of a letter between any two parts of the British Empire should Le 
one penny. He contended that such a service would on the whole 
he self-supporting, while it would be a practical means of establishing 
and maintaining close and cordial relations between the Mother Coun- 
try and her distant children. Mr. Heaton submitted a statement con- 
taining his various arguments to the Colonial Conference of 1887, and 
again and again appealed to Parliament to consider the proposal in 
view of his contention that it would powerfully tend to solidify the 
Empire. 
