Her Majesty's Mails Part 12

[130] _Life of Sir James Graham._ By Mr. T. MacCullagh Torrens, vol. ii.

[131] Postmaster-General's _First Report_, p. 35.

[132] So late as the year 1842, a letter posted at any London receiving-house after _two_ in the afternoon was not delivered at Islington until the next morning.--Postmaster-General's _Second Report_.

[133] See Address by the late Mr. Robert Stephenson on his election to the Presidency of the Inst.i.tution of Civil Engineers in 1855, given in the Appendix to the larger edition of Mr. Smiles' _Life of George Stephenson_, and also a reply to it from the Inspector-General of Mails.--Postmaster-General's _Second Report_, pp. 45-55.

[134] Appendix to Postmaster-General's _Second Report_, p. 51.

[135] _Fifth Report_, Appendix, pp. 43-8.

[136] During the progress of one of these negotiations the following memorandum, written by Mr. Bancroft, American Minister, is so characteristic of his people that we are tempted to amuse our readers with its reproduction entire.--Postmaster-General's _First Report_, Appendix, p. 83. "Approved as far as 'the rate for sea.' What follows is superfluous and objectionable. Make your rates (England) to your colonies and possessions, and foreign countries, what you please, high or low, one sea-rate or a dozen, or none at all; one inland rate or a dozen, or none at all. What your people pay we are willing to pay, but not more, and _vice versa_. Our security is, that we pay what your people pay from the same place for the same benefit, and _vice versa_."

[137] In America letters are certainly carried much greater distances, at the uniform charge of three cents, than with us for a penny; but it must be borne in mind that there are no official deliveries of letters in the United States.

[138] It is possible that this useful measure may be delayed. However it is, the Post-Office machinery is ready for this incidental application, and it is surely thrifty to make the most of available resources, though they may have been originally provided for very different purposes.

PART II.

DESCRIPTIVE ACCOUNT OF THE POST-OFFICE.

"It has often struck me that some pains should be taken to make the main features of the Post-Office system intelligible to the people."--_Speech of Mr. Rowland Hill at Liverpool_, 1847.

PREFATORY.

It is scarcely possible to over-estimate the importance of the postal regulations of this country. Every section of society, and, to some extent, every individual, partic.i.p.ates in the benefits--commercial, social, and moral--bestowed by our cheap Post-Office. It is not our purpose here to urge the value and utility of the Post-Office inst.i.tution--which most of our readers gratefully admit--but rather to furnish some general information relative to the organization and ordinary working of the Department, sensible that an intelligible account of the princ.i.p.al features in the system will increase the interest already felt in the Post-Office, as a mighty engine spreading the influences of commerce, education, and religion throughout the world. The Postmaster-General for 1854, in starting an annual report of the Post-Office, stated that "many misapprehensions and complaints arise from an imperfect knowledge of matters which might, without any inconvenience, be placed before the public;" and also, "that the publicity thus given will be an advantage to the Department itself, and will have a good effect upon the working of many of its branches."

Endeavouring to exclude all matter that is purely technical, and presenting the reader with no more statistical information than is necessary to a proper understanding of the subject, and only premising that this information--for the correctness of which we are alone responsible--has been carefully collated from a ma.s.s of official doc.u.ments not easily accessible, and others presented to the public from time to time, we will first describe--

CHAPTER I.

THE ORGANIZATION OF THE POST-OFFICE.

The Post-Office being a branch of the public service, inst.i.tuted by statute, is, of course, under the control of the Government of the country in every respect. The princ.i.p.al Acts of Parliament which now regulate the Post-Office are those of 1 Vict. c. 32-36, ent.i.tled "An Act to repeal the several laws relating to the Post-Office;" "An Act for the management of the Post-Office;" "An Act for consolidating the laws relative to offences against the Post-Office;" one to which we have previously referred, 2 Vict. c. 98, "An Act to provide for the conveyance of mails by railway;" 3 & 4 Vict. c. 96, "An Act for the regulation of the duties of Postage." Besides these more important Acts, there are others of later date relating to the Money-order Office, colonial posts, and, more recently, one relating to the Post-Office Savings' Banks.

According to the latest returns,[139] there are 11,316 post-offices in the United Kingdom, of which 808 are head-offices, and 10,508 sub-offices. To these must be added a great number of road letter-boxes, making a total of 14,776 public receptacles for letters, or more by 10,000 than the total number before penny postage. The total number of letters pa.s.sing through the Post-Office during the year 1863 was 642,000,000, or, in the proportion of letters to population, no less than 22 to each person in the three kingdoms. As contrasted with the last year of dear postage, the number of letters show an _eightfold_ increase. The distance over which the mails travel with this enormous amount of correspondence, in the United Kingdom alone, is nearly 160,000 miles per day. Of the mails conveyed by railway, a distance of 50,000 miles is accomplished every working-day; 72,000 miles per diem are traversed on foot; and the rest are carried by mail-coaches, mail-carts, and steamboats.

The gross revenue of the Post-Office for the year 1863 was, in round numbers, 3,800,000_l._, being more by nearly a quarter of a million sterling than the proceeds for the year 1862. Of this enormous total, England contributed upwards of 3,000,000_l._, the remainder having been raised from Ireland and Scotland. To this sum should be added a further item of 130,000_l._ for the impressed stamp on newspapers sent through the post, the charges for which are collected by the Commissioners of Inland Revenue. The actual expenditure of the Department, including the expenses of mail-packets (great part of which appertain to the Admiralty), amounted, in round numbers, to 3,000,000_l._ The amount of all the items belonging exclusively to Post-Office charges is, however, less than two and a quarter millions. The net revenue of the Post-Office for 1863 may, therefore, be stated at 1,790,000_l._; or, counting the whole of the packet expenses--which mode of reckoning, however, would lead to erroneous notions of the financial success of penny postage--to a clear revenue of 900,000_l._

At the end of 1862, the staff of officers employed in the British Post-Office numbered 25,380. Of this number 25,285 were engaged in the British Isles, 73 in foreign countries (as agents collecting the British share of foreign postage), and 22 in the colonies.[140] Of the _employes_ at home, between 3,000 and 4,000 are attached to the London Office alone, while the remainder, including more than 11,000 postmasters, belong to the establishments in the various towns and villages of the United Kingdom. The entire staff is under the immediate control of the Postmaster-General, a.s.sisted by the General Secretary of the Post-Office in London. The service of the three kingdoms, notwithstanding this direct control, is managed in the respective capitals, at each of which there is a chief office, with a secretarial and other departmental staffs.[141]

_The Postmaster-General_, the highest controlling authority at the Post-Office representing the Executive, is now always a peer of the realm, a member of the Privy Council, and generally, though not necessarily, a Cabinet Minister. Of course he changes with the Government. As we have seen in the origin of the office, he holds his appointment by patent granted under the Great Seal. The Postmaster-General has in his gift all the postmasterships in England and Wales where the salary is not less than 120_l._ per annum (all under that sum being in the gift of the Treasury Lords), and to those in Ireland and Scotland where the salary is 100_l._ and upwards. Besides this amount of patronage, now dispensed to officers already in the service, he has the power of nomination to all vacancies in the General Post-Offices of London, Edinburgh, and Dublin.[142] The following n.o.blemen have occupied the position of Postmaster-General during the last forty years, or since the joint Postmaster-Generalship was abolished in 1823,[143] viz. Earl of Chichester (1823), Lord Frederick Montague (1826), Duke of Manchester (1827), Duke of Richmond (1830), appointed Postmaster-General of Great Britain and Ireland the year after; Marquis of Conyngham (July, 1834), Lord Maryborough (December, 1834), Marquis of Conyngham again (May, 1835), Earl of Lichfield (June, 1835), Viscount Lowther (September, 1841), Earl St. Germains (June, 1846), Marquis of Clanricarde (July, 1846). Still more recently, we find the Earl of Hardwicke, Viscount Canning, Duke of Argyll (twice), Lord Colchester, the Earl of Elgin, and Lord Stanley of Alderley.

_The Secretary of the Post-Office_ holds the highest fixed appointment in the establishment, and may be regarded, therefore, as the responsible adviser of the Postmaster-General. The princ.i.p.al secretaries during the century have been Francis Freeling, Esq. (1797), created a baronet in 1828; Lieut.-Colonel William Leader Maberly (1836); Rowland Hill, Esq.

(1856), knighted in 1860; and, as at present, John Tilley, Esq.

(1864).[144]

The chief office in London is divided into six princ.i.p.al departments, each under the charge of a chief officer. These heads of departments are severally responsible to the Postmaster-General for the efficiency and discipline of their respective branches. Something like the same arrangement, though on a much smaller scale, is preserved in the less-important chief offices of Edinburgh and Dublin. The branches in question consist of--(1) The Secretary's Office; (2) The Solicitor's Office; (3) The Mail Office; (4) The Receiver and Accountant-General's Office; (5) The Money-order Office; and (6) The Circulation Office.

1. _The Secretary's Office_ exercises a general _surveillance_ over all the other departments of the Post-Office, including, of course, all provincial offices. It is the medium of communication with the Lords of the Treasury, and also with the public. All important matters originating in other branches, or in country offices, pa.s.s through this office to the Postmaster-General, returning through the same channel. In 1763, the secretaries of the Post-Office had one clerk and two supernumerary clerks a.s.signed to them. Now, the three secretaries are a.s.sisted in their duties by one chief clerk, one princ.i.p.al clerk for foreign and colonial business, sixteen senior clerks, and thirty-eight clerks in other two cla.s.ses. There is also a force of nineteen supplementary clerks, five official paper-keepers, and nineteen messengers.[145]

2. _The Solicitor's Office_, as its name implies, deals with the law business of the Post-Office. It gives employment to a solicitor, an a.s.sistant-solicitor, and four clerks.

3. _The Mail Office_ has to do with all matters connected with the transmission of mails, whether the conveyance be by railroad, water, or stage-coach. Attached to this office are the travelling post-offices of the country, which are under its exclusive management. The Mail Office arranges with the different railway companies for the conveyance of the mails, in the contracts for which are included provision for the employment of post-offices fitted up in railway-carriages; it also looks to the proper performance of each post-office contract embracing mail-conveyance. The staff of the Mail Office comprises an inspector-general of mails, a deputy inspector-general, two princ.i.p.al clerks, and twenty-one clerks in three cla.s.ses. The connexion between the Mail Office in London and its important adjuncts, the travelling post-offices, is kept up by a staff of five inspectors of mails (three employed in England, one in Scotland, and one in Ireland), a supervisor of mail-bag apparatus, and several subordinate officers. The travelling offices employ a force of 54 clerks in three cla.s.ses, and 139 sorters in four cla.s.ses.

4. _The Receiver and Accountant-General's Office_ takes account of the money of each department, remittances being received here from all the other branches and each provincial town in England. General accounts of revenue and expenditure are also kept, this office being charged with the examination of the postage and revenue accounts of each postmaster.

All salaries, pensions, and items of current expenditure are also paid through this office. In 1763, the duties of these offices, then distinct, were performed by a receiver, an accountant, and four clerks.

Now, the appointments comprise the receiver and accountant-general, a chief examiner, a chief cashier, a princ.i.p.al book-keeper, with forty-seven clerks in three cla.s.ses, and nine messengers.

5. _The Money-order Office_, occupying a separate building in Aldersgate Street, takes charge of the whole of the money-order business of the country, in addition to doing an enormous amount of work as a money-order office for the metropolis. Of course, everything relating to this particular branch of post-office business, and also some part of the savings' bank accounts, pa.s.s through this channel. Each provincial postmaster sends a daily account of his transactions to this office.

Attached to the Money-order Office, we find a controller, a chief clerk, an examiner, a book-keeper, 112 clerks in three cla.s.ses, and 27 messengers.

6. _The Circulation Office_ in London manages the ordinary post-office work of the metropolis. In it, or from it, all the letters, newspapers, and book-packets posted at, or arriving in, London, are sorted, despatched, and delivered. Not only so; but in this office nearly all the continental, and most part of the other foreign mails for the whole of the British Islands, are received, sorted, and despatched. Under ordinary circ.u.mstances, moreover, British letters for a great number of places are sent in transit through London, where it is requisite they should be rearranged and forwarded. This daily Herculean labour is performed by the clerks, sorters, and letter-carriers attached to the department. The ten district-offices in London, engaged with the same kind of work on a small scale, are subordinate to the Circulation Office at St. Martin's-le-Grand. The Registered Letter Branch, employing no less than fifty clerks, and the Returned Letter Branch, with the Office for Blind Letters, are parts of the Circulation Department. The _major_ branch of the Circulation Office comprises the controller, a vice-controller, 15 deputy-controllers, and 251 clerks in three cla.s.ses.

The _minor_ establishment, as it is called, employs no fewer than 2,398 persons. In this force are included 42 inspectors of letter-carriers in three cla.s.ses; the rest, being composed of sorters, stampers, letter-carriers, and messengers.

To these six princ.i.p.al departments may now be added that for the management of the new _Post-Office Savings' Banks_. Like the Money-order Office, it occupies a separate building, in St. Paul's Churchyard. The Savings' Bank Department keeps a personal account with every depositor.

It acknowledges the receipt of every single deposit, and upon the requisite notice being furnished to the office, it sends out warrants authorizing postmasters to pay withdrawals. Each year the savings'

bank-book of each depositor is sent here for examination, and at the same time the interest accruing is calculated and allowed. The correspondence with postmasters and the public on any subject connected with the banks in question is managed entirely by this department. The already-existing machinery of the Post-Office has been freely called into operation, and the business of the new banks has increased the work of almost all the other branches, especially those of the Receiver and Accountant-General's and the Money-order Offices. Through the former all the investments are received, and all remittances to postmasters for the repayment of deposits are made; while the surplus revenue goes from that office direct to that of the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt. Again, and as another instance of our meaning, the Money-order Office is required to undertake the examination of the general savings' bank account of each provincial postmaster. The staff of the Savings' Bank Office in London is not yet complete, nor will it be until the complete effect of the new on the old savings' bank system be seen.[146] At present, it comprises a controller, an a.s.sistant-controller, a princ.i.p.al clerk, ten first-cla.s.s clerks (four of upper and six of lower section), fifteen second-cla.s.s clerks, with a number of third-cla.s.s clerks, and six messengers.

The branches of minor importance and the miscellaneous officers of the London Establishment, consist of a _Medical Department_, comprising one medical officer, one a.s.sistant medical officer, and one messenger. There are, besides, distinct medical officers attached to each of the London districts. The amount required for this service for 1863-4, including medicine (given gratuitously to all officers who are not in receipt of 150_l._ salary), is 1,715_l._ _A House-keeper's Department_, including a housekeeper and sixteen female servants, requiring a yearly payment of 763_l._ Six engineers, ten constables, and six firemen are also constantly employed and paid by the Post-Office. When we add to this gigantic organization no less than 516 letter-receivers in London, who receive from 4_l._ to 90_l._ a-year for partial service, the reader will have a tolerably correct idea of the establishment required to compa.s.s the amount of London postal business in the twenty-fourth year of penny postage.[147]

_The Surveyor's Department_ is the connecting medium between the metropolitan offices and the post-offices in provincial towns. The postmasters of the latter are under the immediate supervision of the surveyor of the district in which the towns are situate, and it is to this superior officer that they are primarily responsible for the efficient working and discipline of their respective staff of officers. Among the many responsible duties of the surveyors, may be mentioned[148] those of visiting periodically each office in their district, to remedy, where they can, all defects in the working of the postal system; to remove, when possible, all just grounds of complaint on the part of the public; "to give to the correspondence of their district increased celerity, regularity, and security" when opportunity offers, and to arrange for contracts with these objects. The Act of Queen Anne provided for the appointment of one surveyor to the Post-Office, whose duties it should be to make proper surveys of post-roads. Little more than a hundred years ago, one of these functionaries was sufficient to compa.s.s the duty of surveyor in England.

There are now thirteen surveyors in the United Kingdom,[149] nine of whom are located in England, two in Ireland, and two in Scotland. These princ.i.p.al officers are a.s.sisted in their duties by thirty-two "surveyors' clerks," arranged in two cla.s.ses, and thirteen stationary clerks. To this staff must also be added thirty-three "clerks in charge," in two cla.s.ses, who are under the direction of the surveyors, and whose princ.i.p.al duty consists in supplying temporarily the position of postmaster, in case of vacancies occurring through deaths, removals, &c.

There are, in all, 542 head provincial establishments in England and Wales, 141 in Ireland, and 115 in Scotland. They vary exceedingly, no two being exactly alike, but are settled in each town pretty much in proportion to the demands of the place, its size, trade, &c. Sometimes, however, the _position_ of a town--the centre of a district, for instance--gives it more importance in an official sense than it would otherwise acquire from other and ordinary circ.u.mstances. The number of sub-offices attached to each town also varies greatly, according to the position of the head-office.[150] Next to the three chief offices, the largest establishments are those of Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow, Birmingham, and Bristol. Among the most important offices of the second cla.s.s, we may enumerate Aberdeen, Bath, Belfast, Cork, Exeter, Leeds, Hull, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Norwich, Sheffield, Southampton, and York.[151]

With respect to the rest, cla.s.sification would be difficult; the postmasters receiving salaries ranging from 20_l._ to 400_l._ per annum, and varying from those where the whole of the duty of the office is performed by the postmaster himself, to others where he is a.s.sisted by a large staff of clerks and other auxiliaries.[152]

Each head-postmaster is directly responsible for the full efficiency and proper management of his office. Under the approval of the district surveyor, the sanction of the Postmaster-General, and the favourable report of the Civil Service Commissioners, the postmaster is allowed to appoint nearly the whole of his own officers, he being responsible to the authorities for their proper discipline and good conduct. Formerly, and up to as late as eight years ago, each postmaster rendered an account of his transactions to the chief office quarterly. He now furnishes weekly general accounts, and daily accounts of money-order business, besides keeping his book open to the inspection of the superior officers of the Post-Office.[153]

FOOTNOTES:

[139] Postmaster-General's _Reports_, 1863, 1864, and _Revenue Estimates_ for 1864-5, from which the whole of our statistics are derived.

[140] The colonial post-offices proper are not under the rule of the English Postmaster-General. All appointments to these offices are made by the Colonial Secretary, if the salary is over 200_l._; if under that sum, by the Governors of the different colonies.