PENNY POSTAGE

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 154, 28 December 1936, Page 3

PENNY POSTAGE

FIRST USE IN LONDON

OVER TWO CENTURIES AGO

REFORMS OF HILL

lln consequence of the considerable j surplus of revenue over expenditure in the Commonwealth Postal Department, vigorous demands are being made by a section of the business community for reductions in postal, telegraph, and telephone rates, and. a return to penny postage was introduced in Great Britain mainly as the result of the agitation carried on by Sir Rowland Hill, says a writer in the Melbourne "Age." The exact date is January 10, 1840. But this agitation was not for the purpose of reducing the postal expenditure of business firms, but for the purpose of abolishing the high rates of postage which almost debarred the working classes from the use of the post office. Postage rates were so high that wage earners seldom wrote or received letters, and a comparatively large proportion of the correspondence of the country did not go through the post office, but was carried by carters, drivers of stage coaches, and other outside agencies, despite the fact that it was a legal offence to interfere with monopoly vested in the post office. Up to the date of the introduction of Sir Rowland Hill's postal reforms in 1840, postal rates were based on milage and the zone system. This system had been introduced in the reign of Charles II by Thomas Wither-' ings, the first postal reformer. "His firm aim was to make the posts selfsupporting, which he foresaw could be done by making them efficient, and by no other means," writes Sir Evelyn Murray, Secretary of the Post Office from 1914 to 1934. "With a view to attracting the patronage of the public, he instituted for the first time a fixed scale of postage rates, graduated by distance, which he calculated would cover the costs of sufficient relays of post horses. He established a central post office in the City of London, from which the main posts to the principal towns of the kingdom started. GREATER SPEED. "In connection with the main posts were branch posts, either on foot or horse-back, according to distance, to the smaller towns. The main , posts were to travel day and night, and were to work to a definite time-table. The improvement in speed was enormous; Edinburgh and Plymouth were reached in three or four d^ays; while previously the post had taken almost as many weeks." The postal rates fixed by Thomas Witherings. were as follows:— Under 80 miles... 2d SO to 140 mi1e5.,....-...'... 4d Over 140 miles Gd To Scotland ..„ Sd To Ireland ........ 9d An additional 2d was charged on letters which had to be sent by branch posts. There was no local post within London itself, and a letter from one part of the city to another had to be carried by private messenger. But in 1680 a London merchant named William Dockwra, established at his own expense, a penny post for the delivery of letters and packets, within the city. He had several hundred receiving offices, at which messengers called hourly, and conveyed the letters and packets to one of the seven sorting offices he had established in different parts of the city.' As many as twelve deliveries were made daily in central London, and four to eight in the outer districts. The postage rate of a penny applied to parcels up to lib in weight, as well as to letters. One- delivery daily was made in districts 10 to 15 miles out of London, for an extra penny. As a check on the messengers who collected letters and parcels, Dockwra introduced post marks bearing the hour when each wasreceived.' For some time this penny post was worked at a loss, but when it began to show profits, the authorities interfered, and it was taken over "by the Postmaster-General, but its administration was separated from that of the general post. "Both in conception and details of. his organisation, Dockr wra was far in advance of his time." writes Sir Evelyn Murray in his book "The Post Office." "It is a remarkable achievement to have provided London 250 years ago with a postal service which •in some features compares favourably with that of the present day." . : LASTED OVER A CENTURY. This London penny post continued in existence for 120 years; but in 1801 the rate was raised to twopence, owing to the need for raising more revenue during the Napoleonic Wars: The limits of the two-penny post were restricted to the general post deliveries; for letters which crossed these narrow boundaries the rate was threepence. Postage rates in* Great. Britain reached their zenith in 1812 under the milage system. The charge on a letter consisting of a, single sheet was. 4d for 15 miles. 6d for 30 mile's, and 7d for 50 miles. A letter sent from London to Liverpool, Plymouth .or York ■ cost lid, whereas a century earlier the cost was only 3d. The charge was made on every sheet a letter contained. A letter of two sheets was charged double, and three, sheets 'cost three times the original, rate. Envelopes were not then in use. and it was a simple matter for post officers' to tell how many sheets a letter contained. Any enclosure was. charged as a sheet. Stamps had not been; introduced and the postage was collected from the. recipients of letters. There were many instances in which poor people were unable to pay the postage on letters sent to them by absent relatives, and therefore the letters were.not delivered. In some instances postmasters paid the charge out of their pockets,- and allowed a poor recipient to pay off the amount in instalments. Ingenious methods of using the post office and evading payment of postage were practised. A husband on a journey would send a letter to his wife, .and' from marks on the outside of the letter she would be able to tell, according to a prearranged code, what town he, had reached, and whether, he was in good health. After having inspected the outside of the letter she would decline to pay the postage, and hand it back to the postman. PRIVILEGE ABUSED. Members of the peerage and members of the House of Commons had the privilege of franking their correspondence, and this privilege was grossly abused. Franked letters had to be endorsed with the signature of a person who had the right of free postage. They signed blank sheets by the score, and gave them away to relatives and friends. They gave them away to servants, who in turn sold them. In order to check abuses it was enacted in 1764 that the whole address of each franked letter; as well as the signature of the sender, should be in the handwriting of a person who had the right to frank his correspondence* and twenty years later it was provided that a franked letter should bear in full the date on which it was written, and should be posted on that date. In 1839, the year before penny postage was instituted, the franked letters and newspapers carried by the. British Post Office numbered about 6,000,000. I'" The chief argument-in. favour'of Sir

I Rowland Hill's proposal for a- flat rate iof postage throughout the country, was the fact that the carriage of a letter over a distance of hundreds of miles when railway development began was only a small fractional part of the postage charged. He proved from, official figures that the carriage of a letter from London to Edinburgh was a thirty-sixth part of a penny, whereas the postage on a letter ' of a single sheet was Is 4£d. The cost of carriage would be further reduced when the number of letters increased as the result of a substantial reduction in postage rates. The real factors in high rates were: (1) "Taxing" the letters (i.e., ascertaining the amount o" postage on each letter);. (2) the complicated system of accounts, wherebypostmasters were debited with the postage on letters sent to them, arid credited with the amounts collected from recipients; (3) the collection of postage on delivery. For inland postage, there were no fewer than 40 rates in operation according to milage and other factors. MET WITH RIDICULE. Rowland Hill pointed out that a fiat rate of postage would not only abolisii the cost of taxing letters, but that the pre-payment of postage by means of adhesive stamps would abolish most of the complicated bookkeeping, and the cost of collecting the postage. His proposals were ridiculed in official quarters, but the weight of public opinion behind them, with the support of the newspapers, compelled the Government to give way, and to appoint a committee of inquiry. Eight months later (July 17, 1839) the committee carried by the casting vote of the chairman a recommendation in favour of a flat rate of postage at twopence per half-ounce letter. The Government did nothing to give effect to this recommendation, but the agitation for cheap postage continued, and after 150 members of Parliament, who were supporters of the Government, waited on the Prime Minister as ■ a deputation, penny postage was included in the Budget, and was carried in the House of Commons on July 12, 1839, by 215 votes to 313. In the House of Lords it. was carried without division. v ' The Government offered Rowland Hill an appointment in the Treasury at a salary of £500 a year, for two years, to enable • him to institute his reforms in the Post Office. As h3 already held a permanent position at £500 a year outside the Civil Service, which he would have had to resign according to the terms of the appointment offered him, he declined it, but offered to institute his reforms without salary. The Government raised its offer to £1500 a year, and Hill accepted it. As an official of the Treasury he had no direct authority over thel Post Office, and from that Department, especially from the higher officials, he encountered pronounced hostility. They put obstacles in the way of his reforms, and did their best to wreck his plans. They multiplied expenditure in order to make the reforms * financial failure. LEFT TO THE OFFICIALS. At the end of three years Hill's appointment terminated, and the Government did not renew it. His reforms were left in the hands of officials who from the first had bitterly opposed them. Public sympathy ■< with him in the scurvy treatment he had received from the Government was expressed in the presentation of a testimonial amounting to £13,360. When a Liberal Government was returned to power Hill was given the post of one of the secretaries of the Postmaster-General, the other secretary being ; Colonel Maberly. who had. been the strongest opponent of reforms. Seven years later Hill -.."as appointed sole secretary, and after giving • effect to other reforms in the postal-services, he retired in 1864 on a pension of his full salary of £2000 a year, and a Parliamentary grant of £20,000. ■ . ■ . The introduction •of penny postage and other reforms advocated by Rowland Hill ushered in a great expansion of postal services. He changed the Post Office from a taxing medium to a vast public utility. But it is an error to' contend, as is often done by advocates of penny postage, that the introduction of this low flat rate in Great Britain in 1840 immediately justified itself in an increase in postal revenue caused *by an enormous increase in correspondence. There was an enormous increase in correspondence—in two years the number of chargeable letters passing through the Post Office increased from 72,000,000 a year to 208,000,000. But it was a long time before the postal revenue recovered from the • effects of the .abolition of high rates of postage. USED FOR REVENUE. '•During the Napoleonic wars,; postage rates were repeatedly raised to provide funds for an impoverished Exchequer," ■ writes Sir Evelyn Murray, "and by 1840, when the Rowland "Hill reforms took effect, the Post Office revenue had reached £2,390,000, of which £1,633,000 was-profit.1 It is calculated that at this time taetayerage postage on a single sheet! was {about 83.d,- so that the reduction to a .uniform penny rate necessarily involved-the Exchequer in a large sacrifice. ■ It 'has become almost an accepted: tradition, among the advocates of cheap postage that a penny post was an immediate boon to the Exchequer, as'it was'to the public. But in fact that was far from the. case. The' loss of revenue was estimated at £300,000 in the Srst year, but was actually about £1,100,000, and in spite of the growth .of correspondence" which the. low rate yielded it was not until 1874 that the postal net revenue regained the level of 1839." ■■ Penny postage continued in Great Britain for seventy-eight years. In 1918 the Government reluctantly decided to increase the ordinary, letterrate to ljd, owing to the of raising more revenue to-meet the enormous increase in the Budget caused by.the Great War.. In 1920 the rate was raised; to 2d, .and' in 1922 it was.lo.wered to ljd, at which if now stands. The' official estimate of the British Postal Bepartment is that a return to penny postage would, involve an annual loss'of about £5,500,000 in revenue, and that only a small portion of this sum would be recovered by increased correspondence through th' Post Office.