PENNY POSTAGE '

Evening Post, Volume CXIV, Issue 90, 13 October 1932, Page 12

PENNY POSTAGE '

HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF

INCREASE IN BUSINESS

The announcement made by the Post-master-General, the Hon. A. Hamilton, that the change in the letter postal rate from twopence to a penny had resulted in an appreciable increase in business and was considered to have fully justified itself, is only, what might have been expected. History has repeated itself several times in this respect; in fact, ever since penny postage was inaugurated nearly a nundred years ago.

It will be in January, 1940,- that the centenary of penny postage and of the adhesive postage stamp will be cerebrated. Such things the present gene-ration-takes for granted, but when the idea of penny postage was first suggested in 1837 it was received with scorn by the authorities. Rowland Hill, who had studied, the whole question with the statistical thoroughness of the Early Victorian publicist, opened his campaign in 1837 with a pamphlet called "Post Office Reform: Its Importance and. Practicability," With ruthless arithmetic he exposed the whole fallacy of the official system of charges, which varied not only with the distance the letter was to travel but with the number of sheets it contained, and necessitated a whole start at the General Post Office to examine each letter under a strong light and ascertain the approximate fee—besides wasting the'time of innumerable postmen in collecting all these fees separately at the doors of the recipients' houses. Hill's plan of reform was of a dazzling simplicity—charge the same fee for every letter (up to a certain weight) and for any distance within the kingdom; and let the fee foe paid in advance by sticking on the envelope a stamp like" those already in use foi1 legal documents. The fee suggested— unheard-of audacity—was one penny. This was far too simple, and naturally the authorities were up in arms at once., Lord Lichfield, the PostmasterGeneral, came down to the House of Lords to say that "of all the wild and visionary schemes which I have ever heard of, it is the most extravagant," He took six months to think it over, and th 3n got up once more to say that in the event of a successful adoption of the plan "the walls of the Post Office would burst—the whole area would not be large enough to receive the clerks and the letters."

But in the teeth of opposition Rowland Hill continued his campaign, arguing forcibly that, though thoro must of course be a loss of revenue at the outset, the increase of correspondence must in the long run more than maKe it good. Other enlightened men came to his support, advancing the plea that the Post Office ought not to be a profit-making corporation at all, and that even at a heavy loss a cheap postage was a necessary social reform. They carried their point, though not without the decent delay of commissions and committees with which political respectability in England likes to soften the impact of any great change. The N- first point, the uniform rate, was conceded as an experiment in November, 1837—and nearly wrecked the whole scheme, for the rate was only reduced to fourpenee, and at that level the number of letters written showed little increase, while the receipts fell alarmingly.. Happily, the Treasury for once took its courage in both hands, and on 10th January, 1840, lowered the rate to a penny in accordance with Hill's original proposal. In sis months the enormous increase of correspondence showed that they had done wisely. ■