JOHN BRIGHT ON THE SUNDAY POST.

Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 37, 14 February 1885, Page 1 (Supplement)

JOHN BRIGHT ON THE SUNDAY POST.

The Birmingham Daily Post publishes the following interesting letter from Mr. Bright on the Sunday postal delirery, in reply to an invitation to attend a conference on the subject : — "One Ash, RoGhdale, 23rd Oct., 1884. — Dear Sir — I cannot attend your promised conferenco, or support the object for which it is to be held. To c 105.9 all our post offices on Sundays would, in my view, be not only an intolerable inconvenience but a great evil. To continue at least one delivery of letters in the day seems to me needful for the public service and not unduly interfering with the labour of the letter carriers. The post-office is our great means, not only of commercial, but of family communication, and it is with reference to the family that I am most strongly opposed to your views. There are scores of thousands of young men and women in this country who are away from their homes and parents engaged in cities and towns in the various occupations by which they live. To these Sunday is to a large extent a day of rest. It is the day on which the letter from the loving but absent father or mother is most frequently received, and it is the day on which the absent son or daughter has the greatest leisure to write to the home circle. If your plan were adopted, how many thousands of letters of wise and loving counsel from parents to absent children would be received in circumstances less favourable for good than if received and read and re-read during the quiet and leisure of the Sunday ? In cases of sickness or death, the closing of the post would often be a grievous inconvenience and a cause of great prolonged distress. I have known two instances of it in my own family, and what has happened in my case must have taken place in many others. I think the closing of the post in London on Sundays is a great inconvenience, and on the grounds to which I have referred as to its effectsonfamilycorrespondence, a great evil ; but if the London system were extended to the whole kingdom it woidd cause an amount of confusion that would bo intolerable. If I am not mistaken, the House of Commons did once pass a resolution in favour of your object, but was compelled to rescind it. I have no fear that you can succeed; if you obtain a momentary success, it must be followed by failure. The one round of the postman in the day is not a heavy burden, not heavier than that borne by great numbers in almost every class in life. It is a great public service, an honourable labour, and it must be compensated for as other services are. There is not a word in the Now Testament leaning to your views so far as they are influenced to religious considerations. The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. — I am, very respectfully yours, Join* Bright. Mr. T. H. Aston, 197, High-street, Birmingham."