XXXVIII. 1839. reform. islands, the topic of POST-OFFICE REFORM at this period CHAP. awakened a large portion of public attention. Mr Rowland Hill was the principal author of the great change 18. which was ere long adopted by Government, and he Post-office found a zealous coadjutor in Parliament in Mr Wallace Mr Hiil's of Kelly, the member for Greenock. His plan consisted plan. in at once reducing the postage of all letters, which at that period were variously charged, for inland distance, from 2d. to 1s. 2d., to 1d. for every distance. The probable increase in the number of letters transmitted from this great reduction would, he contended, ere long compensate to the exchequer the consequences of the reduction of rates; and even if it should prove otherwise, the facilities given to mercantile communication, and the vast advantages of a great increase in friendly and domestic intercourse, were well worth purchasing at the cost of an inconsiderable diminution of revenue. It was truly said, that if Government were to lay a tax of sixpence on every person speaking to their children, the injustice of the tax would be so universally felt that it would not stand twenty-four hours; yet what difference is there when parents are prohibited from writing to their children, or children to their parents, unless they pay that tax in the shape of postage? That the postage of letters is too high, is decisively proved by the fact that, between the years 1815 and 1835, the Post-office revenue, instead of increasing, had remained stationary; whereas, from the mere augmentation of population, it should have increased £507,500. There was much force in these considerations; and such was the enthusiasm which they excited among the mercantile classes, and the pressure they exerted upon the legislature, that, after much opposition, the scheme Post-office was at length adopted by Government, by a bill introduced Reform, 2; into the Commons by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on xlviii, 1365, July 5, 1839, which became law on 17th August there- Ann. Reg. after. The majority for its adoption was no less than 288.' 102.1 A fourpenny rate was at first adopted for a few 1 Hill's Parl. Deb. xlix. 304; 1839, 287, XXXVIII. 1840. 19. the mea sure. CHAP. weeks; but the reduced rate of a penny for each halfounce came into operation on the 10th January 1840. Seventeen years have now elapsed since this great Results of change was adopted, and experience has amply tested its results. In one point of view they have been satisfactory, in another the reverse. By a return presented to the House of Commons in 1849, it appeared that the number of letters had quadrupled since the introduction of the new system in 1840.* So far there is every reason for congratulation; for so great an increase in internal communication could not have taken place without a vast addition to human happiness, and no small strengthening of domestic love, the strongest safeguard of human virtue. But if the effects of this change upon the revenue are considered, and the ultimate results to the general taxation of the empire, a very different conclusion must be formed. The net revenue from the Postoffice of the United Kingdom before the change was £1,648,000; and in 1850, after ten years' operation,† it was only £733,000-it having sunk the year after the * LETTERS PASSING THROUGH THE POST-OFFICE IN THE UNITED KINGDOM. -Parl. Returns, July 1850; and PORTER. p. 711. RETURNS AND CHARGES OF THE POST-OFFICE FOR THE UNITED KINGDOM. XXXVIII. 1840. introduction of the change to £410,000, since which CHAP. there has been a progressive advance. These figures appear in some degree to justify the expectations held. out as to the increase in the number of letters posted coming at length to compensate the reduction in the rates of postage; but they prove to be altogether illusory, and to lead to a directly opposite conclusion, when a fact, carefully concealed by the Liberals, but which has since been extracted from Lord John Russell, in a debate on the navy estimates, is taken into consideration. This is, that when the penny postage was introduced, the whole expense of the packet service, which formerly had been borne by the Post-office, amounting to £784,000 a-year, was thrown upon the navy. If this large sum were replaced as a charge on the Post-office, which it should be to make the comparison fair, it would more than absorb the whole present surplus revenue derived from that establishment; so that, literally speaking, it is not now self-supporting. The reason is, that the expense of the establishment, even without the packet service, has been so much increased by the change; before 1850 it had doubled, having risen from £670,000 to £1,320,000, while the gross receipts had declined from £2,500,000 to £2,165,000. The failure of the scheme, in a financial point of view, appears still more clearly when it is recollected that the foreign and colonial postage, especially to America and the colonies, is still charged at the old heavy rates, though, to keep up the illusion, it forms part of the British penny-postage returns; and that a considerable addition has since the change been made to this branch of revenue, by making the Post-office the vehicle, Progress of which it was not before, for the cheap conveyance of 714,715. books and parcels.1 1 Porter's the Nation, its failure The truth is, that the penny postage has broken down, 20. so far as raising any surplus received from this source is Causes of concerned, from a very obvious cause, and which, in recent as a source times, has occasioned the ruin of many other branches of of revenue. revenue, and is one main cause of the disappearance of CHAP. the sinking-fund, and constant financial embarrassment XXXVIII. in which the country has since been involved. This is, 1840. that the reduction, however expedient and proper to a certain extent, was carried much too far. It is the greatest possible mistake to assert, as is so often done by the cheapening party, that you can never lower duties too much, and that the only secure foundation for a large revenue is an evanescent taxation. Under such a system it will very soon disappear altogether. Had a 3d. or 2d. postage for all letters been introduced, it would have been hailed as a great boon by the nation, and would soon have yielded a surplus revenue, in the first case, of £1,500,000, in the last of £800,000 a-year; whereas, under the penny system, it in reality does not pay its own expense, if the packet-service expenses, the cost of which was formerly paid by the Post-office, are brought to its debit. The effects of this great mistake have been very serious, and are now, it is to be feared, irremediable. Coupled with the general failure of the revenue in other departments at this period from the monetary crisis, the great deficit of £1,500,000 a-year from the Post-office occasioned such a chasm in the revenue that a great effort to replace it became indispensable; and recourse was necessarily had to what Sir R. Peel had shortly before justly called "the dire scourge of direct taxation." This rash and excessive change in the Post-office is thus to be regarded as the parent of the income-tax, now imposed as a lasting burden on a small portion of the nation; and a part of the general system, since so extensively carried out, of taking the weight of direct taxation entirely off the shoulders of the dominant multitude, and laying it on a few hundred thousands of the community. Another matter seriously occupied the attention of the House of Commons and Parliament in this year, arising out of the perhaps imprudent exercise of that unknown and ill-defined power, the privilege of Parliament. The origin of the dispute was this: In the year 1836, Lord CHAP. XXXVIII. 1840. 21. case, and Chief-Justice Denman declared from the bench that the authority of the House of Commons could not justify the publication of a libel, while the house maintained that what was printed and published under the direction or Stockdale's by the authority of the house could not be questioned in the priviany court of law, not even the highest. A committee of lege of Parthe House of Commons, to whom the matter was referred, reported to this effect on 30th May 1837, and the house resolved in the same terms, declaring any attempt to question this a violation of the privileges of Parliament.* Meanwhile Messrs Hansard, the parliamentary printers and publishers, had published in the parliamentary proceedings certain reports on prisons, in one of which a book, published by Messrs J. and J. Stockdale, found in a prison, was severely animadverted upon. Upon this Stockdale prosecuted the Hansards for libel, who in their turn pleaded the authority and privilege of Parliament. Lord Denman overruled the defence.+ The Hansards declined to plead to the court as incompetent, and the result was that judgment went by default, 1 Parl. Deb. and the damages were assessed at £600 by the jury in li, 101, lii. the sheriff court.1 Stockdale pressed for instant execu- 303; Ann. tion, and the Sheriffs of London, Messrs William Evans 19-21. and John Wheelton, having in vain petitioned for delay, The resolutions of the House of Commons were as follows:"I. That the power of publishing such of its reports, proceedings, and votes as it shall deem necessary and conducive to the public interests is an essential incident to the constitutional freedom of Parliament, more especially of this house as the representative portion of it. "II. That by the law and privileges of Parliament this house has the sole and exclusive jurisdiction to determine upon the existence and extent of its privileges, and that the institution or prosecution of any action, suit, or other proceedings, for the purpose of bringing them into discussion or decision before any court elsewhere than a Parliament, is a high breach of such privilege, and renders all parties concerned therein amenable to its just displeasure, and to the punishment consequent thereon."-Resolutions of the House of Commons, May 30, 1837; Parl. Deb. xlv. 981, and xlix. 1101. Lord Denman said, "I entirely disagree from the law laid down by the learned counsel for the defendants. My direction to you, subject to a question hereafter, is, that the fact of the House of Commons having directed Messrs Hansard to publish all their parliamentary reports is no justification for them, or for any bookseller who publishes a parliamentary report containing a libel against any man.”—Ann. Reg. 1840, p. 17. 190, 202, Reg. 1840, |