J. Henniker Heaton

“ We have conventional ideas, as we have conventional phrases; the untravelled man speaks of a sunrise on the Alps, or the roar of Niagara, or a battle in Manchuria, with the faintest notion of the awful phenomena indicated by his words. And so, in speaking of the 'British Empire,' we are apt to be content with commonplaces and generalities, having but a bare glimpse of the complexity and diversity of the multitudinous interests and activities, qualities, and forces, involved in that expression. ”

“ A talented Italian engineer is erecting apparatus for propelling a box containing letters in a few minutes from Rome to Naples. He promises to send letters from London to Manchester in five minutes, and to Paris in twenty minutes. At the same rate he will doubtless forward them to New York in less than four hours, and to India during the day. This invention, if successful, promises to be the climax of postal improvement, and will be hailed as a blessing by all but the monopolists who still charge 3s. a word for a cablegram to Australia. ”

“ The old type, the one-man Empire, was like the famous chess automaton, which beat and puzzled the players of that noble game, until one day a little man was dragged out of the machine, and the imposture was discovered. ”

“ Fifteen years ago, addressing the late Lord Salisbury, I ventured to say: 'Business men will appreciate the boon of being able to write to customers and agents at two-fifths of the rate which their foreign competitors have to pay. To Colonial trade, in my judgment, we must ultimately look for the subsistence of our home-working population, for every foreign market is being closed against us in turn by hostile tariffs.' How real and near the danger here indicated was at that moment the most fanatical Free Traders are now forced to perceive. ”

“ Personally, I am convinced that the solution of the great problem we have considered—how to enable the minds of men to commune together at will while their bodies are separated by vast oceans—is merely a question of time. ”

“ And so the Man in the Moon would probably conclude that he had before his eyes evidence of the working of a living organization on a vast scale. We know that if ever the great ships ceased to throb on, under sun and stars, it would mean the end of the mightiest Empire in the world's history. ”

“ Any interference with, or unnecessary restriction of, the means of communication, is foolish and dangerous. We all see this in the case of the colossal Slav Empire. But we do not so readily admit that we long blundered as seriously in maintaining heavy postal rates to the Colonies as we still blunder in levying high cable rates. ”

“ The Empire has thus become a single postal 'district,' with one flag and a uniform rate of postage, communication between the most distant points being rendered as 'easy as speech, as free as air.' The Colonists, especially the Australians, have from the first warmly supported the agitation. ”

“ But there are times when a man must speak of his work, and Imperial Penny Postage is an essential part of my subject.
In 1886 the following was the state of affairs: The cost of posting a letter from France, Germany, or Russia to India was 21⁄2d., while the charge from the United Kingdom to India was 5d. The Postmaster-General was supplied with a list of forty British Colonies to which the postage from France, Germany, or Russia was half the rate charged from England. We paid 4d. to South Africa and 6d. to Australia. ”

“ The most wonderful spectacle revealed by the microscope is the circulation of the blood, say in the web of a young frog's foot Through the network of arteries and veins flow never-ending processions of corpuscles, swimming in a colourless stream, one following another, two little ones amicably progressing side by side, the big, long ones turning endways to pass the narrowest channels. If the Man in the Moon really existed, and had sufficiently powerful binoculars, he would witness a similar phenomenon on the earth's oceans. ”

“ The aggregate of the mercantile marine protected by the navy is nearly 15,000,000 tons.
If we would understand the need of unrestricted Imperial communications, we find it vividly displayed in the returns of exports and imports. Here are some annual totals:
The British Empire embraces 11,400,000 square miles, inhabited by 410,000,000 human beings, and divided into sixty colonies and dependencies, beside many protectorates. ”

“ There had long been a steady increase of correspondence with the Colonies, even under the old rates. In 1880 the Britannia took a week's mails, 700 bags, to India and Australia. In 1890, 1,200 bags were put on board. In 1880 the weekly average for India was 250 bags; in 1890, 400. In those ten years the Australian receipts showed an increase of 50 per cent. The American service also showed a great increase, and a profit of £100,000 per annum. ”

“ Pitt utilized the coaches in 1784. In that year the postal revenue was £196,000, and in 1805 it had risen to £944,000. With the means of sure, regular transmission, correspondence rapidity developed. Above all, letters were safe. The guard's blunderbuss, so much laughed at nowadays, must have been a deadly weapon at close quarters; and when Jerry Cruncher stopped the Dover coach, he knew what would happen if he indulged in any suspicious movement. ”

“ In 1887 reductions were made in foreign postage; how far required may be judged from the fact that it was notified that letter postage to the Mediterranean would be 'at the rate of only ten shillings per ounce.'
1890. Uniform Colonial and Indian postage 21⁄2d. per 1⁄2 ounce.
1898. Imperial penny postage established.
Here are a few comparative rates:
The farther an Englishman is from home, the keener his interest in mailing matters. It follows that this interest is very noticeable in Australia, the part of the Empire most distant from the Motherland. ”

“ In 1822 for the first time the mail was conveyed from Dover to Calais by steamship.
In 1825 Captain Johnson obtained £10,000 for making the first voyage to India by steam in the Enterprise.
In 1888 the Royal William was said to have crossed the Atlantic in twenty-one days.
In 1888 the Sirius left Queenstown April 4, and reached New York April 21. The Royal Navy, as already stated, includes 561 armed vessels, manned by 129,000 trained sailors. Besides these there is available, in case of war, an auxiliary force of forty-six merchant cruisers, all ocean-going ships of high speed. ”

“ The Postmasters-General ordered that compensation for wounds received in their service should be awarded by scale. Amputation above the knee or elbow brought the sufferer, if he survived the rough surgery of those days, a pension of £8 a year; below the joint, a pension of 20 nobles. A man received £5 if he lost an eye, and £14 if he lost both eyes.
The packet-masters were allowed to carry passengers. At the close of the seventeenth century the fares from Harwich to Holland were raised from 12s. and 6s. for first and second class passengers to 20s. ”

“ But even the Dover road was so bad that King Charles I. and his Consort were four days travelling from the coast to London. (The first stage-coaches, which appeared early in the seventeenth century, could only accomplish two or three miles an hour.) In 1608 the King's messengers paid 21⁄2d. per mile for a horse, 'besides the guide's groats.'
Down to 1638 there was but one mail a week between London and Brussels, and this took from four to five days. Subsequently two mails a week were arranged, and the transit was effected in two days. ”

“ For, Sir, ye knowe well, that, except the hackney horses between Gravesend and Dovour, there is no such usual conveyance in post for men in this realme as in the accustomed places of France and other partes, ne men can keep horses in readiness without some way to here the charges ... ”

“ At the end of the eighteenth century, a mail-packet on the Falmouth station, reckoned fit to proceed to any part of the world, was of about 179 tons burthen, with a crew all told of twenty-eight persons, and six four-pounder guns. The victualling was at the rate of 10d. per man daily, and the annual charge for the packet was £2,112 6s. 8d.
To-day a mail-packet is of perhaps 10,000 tons, with a crew of 500 men, and covers some 400 miles in twenty-four hours. And turbine-steamships are expected to develop a speed of 1,000 miles in the same period. ”

“ Up to 1858 the subsidies were charged to the Admiralty. In that year the burden was transferred to the Post-Office, although it was notorious that the packets were not established primarily for postal purposes. ”

“ Loss to revenue by packet service, £325,000.
1855. (War.) The packets numbered 110, and the cost was £800,000 a year.
1889–1890. £665,375.
1905. £720,000.
It goes without saying that shipping subsidies have no necessary relation to the quantity of a nation's mails. The fact that a particular State has little correspondence with other States or colonies oversea is the very reason why it should lavish more and more money in subsidies, so as to create trade. ”

“ He would see long lines of great ships steaming on night and day from one port to another, then turning, and steaming back again to the point of departure. We know that the circulation of the blood is an essential condition of animal life ”

“ The following table, showing the mails before and after the grant of Imperial Penny Postage, is ample reward for lone years of toil One can almost hear the delighted lau^ter and see the radiant faces of those who received all this mass of correspondence; and one cannot forget the vast amount of honest work it represents for our toiling craftsmen. ”

“ A contract made for mail steamers to Malta, Corfu, and Alexandria.
1845. Mediterranean mail contract extended to Suez, Bombay, Ceylon, Calcutta, Hong Kong, and Shanghai.
1850. The Cunard contract renewed at £178,340, and certain contingent allowances in addition; weekly, instead of fortnightly, trips being required, and the ports made Boston and New York alternately. ”