George Birkbeck Norman Hill

“ Uniformity of postage, without reference to distance, is recommended by its simplicity, by its fairness, and by the facilities it gives for the introduction of other improvements into the department. Combined with a low rate of charge, it forms the conspicuous and chief benefit, which the monopoly of the carriage of letters enables the Government to confer upon the whole body of its subjects, by almost annihilating distance, and placing it within the power of every individual to communicate freely with all parts of the empire. ”

“ I am sure your Lordship will believe me incapable of dealing lightly with that connection with the Post Office on which I set so great and just a value. To devise and bring into operation, so far as it has been effected, my system of Penny Postage, has been the cherished object of the best years of my life, interest in its progress, whether I am an instrument or not in promoting it, will ever retain the firmest hold on my mind, and would suffice to keep me in any course, but one which I feel to be inconsistent alike with my private and my public duty. ”

“ Sir Rowland Hill stood up, and remained standing, till his Lordship requested both to be seated.
He had not the fault of most enthusiasts, who look in others for a zeal as ardent as that which animates themselves. He found it somewhat hard, indeed, to understand how any one could be indifferent to the statistics of Penny Postage, and help watching the rise in the number of letters and the postal revenue with as much interest as Englishmen, on a wet day, watch the rise in the weather-glass. ”

“ Sir Rowland Hill, the Secretary to the Post Office, I regret to say, has been labouring under a severe illness, and an intimation has been made to him on medical authority that it is absolutely requisite, in order to the public retaining his invaluable services, that he should have leave of absence for no less a period than six months. I think, therefore, it will be impossible for the department to state its case on a subject of this kind in the absence of one who, I may say, has been the life and soul of all the Post Office arrangements in this country for the last twenty years. ”

“ Inestimable as is the benefit conferred by the action of the fourth estate, taken as a whole, it is nevertheless unquestionable that this estate, like those more formally recognised, is at times swayed more or less by considerations not relating altogether to the highest public interest. Naturally conscious of its own high merits, it is a little apt to forget that its good work proceeds, for the most part, from the same motive that impels other caterers to the general welfare and convenience, and to suppose that it has claims which itself would be prompt to deny to other crafts. ”

“ Only let the accusation be monstrous enough, the asseveration sufficiently bold, and the invention of circumstances tolerably plausible, there is still a large fraction of the public to whom disproof is for a time impossible of reception; the mist of error so entirely blinding that the most glaring correctives passed unnoticed—nay, unseen; while there is another class, perhaps almost equally large, which hides its better knowledge, overawed by general prejudice; so that while denunciation is clamorous and confident, defence is but slow, feeble, and timorous. ”

“ Here, then, closes my narrative of postal reforms. It must not be supposed, however, that no work will remain for a future historian; for not only is the course of postal improvement, like that of any other great department of human affairs, absolutely without limit, but various important changes may be regarded as distinctly in prospect, however uncertain may be the time of their accomplishment. ”

“ Sound economy, I need not say, requires that salaries should be regulated by fixed principles; and as early as January 31st of this year I had suggested to the Postmaster-General that it would be well for the Treasury to appoint commissioners who should establish scales of salaries equally applicable to all the revenue departments, so as at once to remove mutual jealousy and to prevent unreasonable claims in one department from arising out of unreasonable concession in another. ”

“ So difficult is it to recall concession, however mischievous and absurd. In the end, however, a compromise was adopted which, while it greatly relieved the department, proved satisfactory to the newspaper publishers. I abstain from further narration of mere obstructions, not for want of matter, but because enough has been done to show the difficulties, annoyances, and delays ever crossing the path of my improvements; the like of which must, I fear, be expected by all whose zeal for reform leads them to intrude amidst men of routine. ”

“ As I feared, the plan of competitive examination worked unsatisfactorily, the criteria not being the best, and the responsibility being so divided that no one is in effect answerable for an appointment made under it. The consequence of its adoption has been in many instances the rejection of men who gave promise of great usefulness, and the admission of others whose usefulness has proved very small. If no way had been open to the public service but through competitive examination, as now conducted, I cannot say what might have been my own chance of admission ”

“ The abandonment of the Post Office monopoly has much to recommend it, but yet is not a one-sided question. On the one hand, it implies the removal of an offence from our statute book, and the probable rise of a wholesome competition wherever the service is performed with less than the greatest efficiency and cheapness; a competition which, more perhaps than any other external circumstance, would tend to compel the department to have due regard to simple merit in its officers, and economic efficiency in all its arrangements. ”

“ Amongst those who have laboured to effect great improvements, how many have felt their success limited to the fact that by their efforts seed was sown which in another age would germinate and bear fruit! How many have by their innovations exposed themselves to obloquy, ridicule, perhaps even to the scorn and abhorrence of at least their own generation; and, alas! how few have lived to see their predictions more than verified, their success amply acknowledged, and their deeds formally and gracefully rewarded! ”

“ For the introduction of penny postage alone—a measure which, in itself, and in all its ramifications, has conferred such vast benefits on all classes of the community, and with which the name of Sir Rowland Hill will ever be identified—he deserves the gratitude of his country—indeed of the civilized world, which, no doubt, will not be niggardly expressed. ”

“ I told the Postmaster-General that, as the scales I had to propose would disappoint existing expectations and probably increase an insubordinate spirit already showing itself amongst the men, the work could not be safely attempted under divided responsibility, unless there were a harmony of action of which I saw not the least hope. I added that, much as I desired to take part in carrying out my plan, I was so deeply impressed with the dangers to which I had referred, that I thought it would be better to leave the executive entirely with Colonel Maberly than to continue on the present footing. ”

“ So long as there is no opportunity of advancing the public benefit, and so long as the absence of all power relieves me in justice from all responsibility, it is my earnest wish to retire from labours so heavy as [13] those in which I have now for many years been engaged;—to avoid conflicts which, though I have not shrunk from them when necessary, have always been repugnant to my feelings and remote from my habits of life;—and, if possible, to recruit that health which both these causes have seriously impaired. ”

“ It was to be feared, therefore, that London would be more struck with a slight increase of Sunday employment [115] in its own office than with any decrease, however great, in all the other offices of the kingdom; and that if London should sound the alarm on a subject where Englishmen feel rather than think, an angry excitement would spread throughout the country; an evil so formidable as to require that every precaution should be taken against it. Above all, it was desirable that no partial rumour should precede the complete enunciation of the plan ”

“ The Marquis of Clanricarde had the satisfaction of remembering that under him and through him, in some degree, Sir Rowland Hill had entered the Post Office; and bore testimony to the extraordinary zeal for the public service, the judgment, the discretion, the temper, and unvarying urbanity with which he met all the difficulties that he had to encounter. Of course those who had been accustomed to the old system viewed the innovation proposed with great alarm and suspicion. ”

“ The public convenience had been in many ways promoted, and various arrangements for its further extension were in steady progress; the revenue, already large, gave every promise of continued increase; the numerous improvements in relation to the health, comfort, and remuneration of the staff, and above all the rule of promotion by absolute merit—modified only by seniority in cases where merit was equal—now recognised as in full force, had gradually diffused such a spirit throughout the department as seemed to have secured vigorous and harmonious action. ”

“ I discovered instances in which the serious expense of railway conveyance was incurred, when, speed being unimportant, a cheaper mode served equally well. It is obviously of no use to a place that its letters should arrive in the middle of the night, every purpose being answered if they come in time to be included in the earliest practicable delivery. Consideration of this led me to propose, in such cases, the substitution of mail-carts. In one such case this year the effect was an annual saving of about £800, and in one in the following year more than £2000. ”

“ During the time that he had the honour to be connected with the Post Office he always found that Mr. Hill laboured zealously and efficiently, and always to his satisfaction. When objections to his plans were raised, Mr. Hill always received them in a fair and temperate manner, and never complained of being overruled when fair grounds for so doing had been shown. Upon the whole, this country had never rewarded by a grant of money any public servant who more richly deserved it. Mr. Hill’s name would live in every country, for every country had derived benefit from his labours. ”

“ Wonderful feelings swept through me—the ancient cloisters, the Abbey with its thousand memories, the dead man borne before us, we following after him who had known him and revered him, the sight of his two aged brothers waiting in front to fall in with the other mourners,—the priest in his white surplice. I remember how here it burst upon me how noble and how glorious is the thought that man has made to himself of his own immortality. ”

“ Let people talk as they please of the sun never setting on our dominions, and of the British flag waving over every sea and every shore, nothing brings before our mind so forcibly the fact that we are everywhere, and that everywhere we represent the spirit of progress, as this little type of universal power—this letter given to the village postman in March, with an answer from mid-Asia in June. ”

“ The Post Office is thus kept in a position quite unintelligible to the public, who cannot understand why existing trains, obviously capable of employment for postal service, are not used wherever convenience requires; the real obstacle being that the amount of correspondence in question, though sufficient to justify the expense of conveyance at a moderate rate—a rate, however, fully remunerative to the company—is often quite insufficient to meet the heavy cost of a regular mail train. ”

“ He was broken down in health—broken down, not so much by the great work that he had done, as by the hindrances that, time after time, had been wantonly and cruelly piled up against him in the discharge of his duty. “Men will one day think of the force they squander in every generation, and the fatal damage they encounter by this neglect.” [248] “He stands,” wrote Mr. Gladstone a few months before he left the Post Office, “pre-eminent and alone among all the members of the Civil Service as a benefactor to the nation.” ”

“ It has been repeatedly urged in Parliament and in the public press that the office of Postmaster-General should cease to be political and become permanent; and, as already intimated, I cannot but consider such change highly desirable; seeing that a permanent head of the Department would have ample time and motive to make himself thoroughly acquainted with the business of the office, and would naturally be led to select his subordinates with more direct reference to their probable efficiency ”

“ I have already referred to hostility in the office as the chief source of the great trouble which had befallen the department in general, and me in particular. If there had not been a mutinous spirit amongst the men, attacks from without, however annoying, could not have produced that grievous anxiety which arose from the knowledge of treason within. This, I may remark, was the third distinct cabal formed with a view to drive me from office. ”

“ Success would have led to a great extension of the recommendation; our joint conviction being that all the duties of postmasters and their subordinates, together with much other business of the department, might be most economically and effectually performed under a system of contracts. At the same time the obstacle to the change was then, as now, far from inconsiderable; the manifest effect being to diminish, in proportion to its extent, the amount of that patronage on which every Administration counts as a means of influence. ”