THE POSTAL REVENUE OF THE UNITED KINGDOM.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 8, Issue 405, 23 August 1866, Page 3

THE POSTAL REVENUE OF THE UNITED KINGDOM.

(From tbs (London) Times. A certain branch of the public income is silently but steadily growing at such a rate that in a few years it may be expected to produce a revenue equal to that from the Income Tax at 4d in the pound. It will do this, too, without the slightest pressure upon the contributors, for it does not represent a tax. If, therefore, the Chancellor of the Exchequer should be disposed to remove the Income Tax gradually, or to abolish it, say, in 1875, he will find a substitute ready made to his hands, and the nation will gain at nobody’s cost. For this gratifying discovery, we are indebted to the new report of the Postmaster-General, just printed. The statement we have given is made by Lord Stanley of Alderley in as many words; indeed, it is forced upon him by the inexorable logic of facts. He knows that his department is regarded in some quarters with a certain jealousy, and that it occasionally falls under adverse remark. There are economists who argue that the Post Office ought not to be made a siurce of revenue at all, aud that the public should pay for the service rendered only just so much as that service costs. Now, so long as the surplus profit accruing to the revenue was but half a million or so, the economical question was not, in the Postmaster-General’s opinion, worth entertaining, but of late this surplus has grown with such rapidity and may be expected to grow so rapidly in future, that the argument can no longer be evaded. A fourpenny income tax, as Mr Gladstone has told us, means no less than £5,600,000 a year/ aud if all this profit is made is made out of lettercarrying, people will undoubtedly begin to discuss the subject, aud investigate the principles on which the business is conducted. So Lord Stanley of Alderley anticipates his antagonists, closes at once with the question, acknowledges the productiveness, both actual and potential, of his department, but boldly maintains “ that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to devise any mode of raising a public income less burdensome or more equitable iu its operation than that which exacts no payment without giving a service in return, and which is not open to the ap pellation of a tax.” There may be some exception taken to this statement of the case. If the*Post Office charges a penny for carrying a letter, when the expense of carrying it could be defrayed for a half-penny, the unnecessary charge might possibly be “ open to the appellation of a tax.” If, again, the service actually performed by the department could, except for the profit made upon it, be performed more expeditiously or completely, it would certainly be competent to any one to object to the profit realised on such terms. Still, though the assumptions of the report must be so far corrected, the position itself might very well be maintained. All taxes are objectionable, and the best tax is that open to the fewest objections. If the Postmaster-Geaeral is right in predicting that a few years will suffice to make the produce of the Post Office equal to the produce of the Income Tax, he is perfectly justified in claiming our admiration for of revenue at once so prolific and so imperceptible. It must now be observed that this golden shower has descended upon the Post Office almost in spite of itself. The PostmasterGeneral disclaims for himself and his predecessors any “special” or over-ruling desire to create a revenue from the department. He avers that the interests of the public have always been considered with due solicitude, and that the Post Office has never hesitated to extend its accommodation whenever the advantages to be obtained appeared commensurate with the expense to be incurred. The service was administered with prudence, but it was never starved. Ou another point, too, some explanations are offered. It has been often alleged that the servants in the employ of the Post Office were unreasonably worked or inadequately paid, but the report states not only that the force of the department during the last ten years has been “ largely increased,” but that “ its emoluments have undergone considerable improvement.” In short, “ all parts of Pott Office expenditure have been augmented,” and yet, notwithstanding this liberality, the whole cost of the service, though actually increased, ' has steadily declined in its relation to the whole revenue —the proportion, which was 81 per cent, in 1856, being only 66 per cent, in 1865.

From these statistics Lord Stanley of Alderley desires us to infer that the profits of the Post Office represent, not inordinate charges or niggardly management, but the natural growth of a well-conducted business

in a prosperous country, and there is no doubt the claim is substantially sound. The revenue of the Post Office has simply gfown with the correspondence of the country, and that correspondence has been multiplied be yond imagination through the facilities which the Post Office has provided for it. The real business of the office is letter-carrying. It is not in its fancy branches that the great profit is made, but in the main work of collecting and distributing letters. If the reader, too, should happen to bea*r in his recollection some remarks which we offered on this subject at the beginning of the year, he will soon understand how and where the extraordinary increase of correspondence has arisen. It has arisen in what may be termed “ local ” business—that is to say, in the extension of district posts. Letters are now posted not merely to correspondents several miles off, but to persons in the next street, or another quarter of the town. Half the business of every day life is conducted through the Post Office. A stamped envelope is made to do the duty of an errand-boy or a messenger. It saves many a visit and many a walk. The commonest orders for the commonest matters are now conveyed through this channel, and the result is an incredible multiplication of letters. We entirely agree, too, with the Postmaster-General in the belief that the extension of the system will still be prodigious. Wherever the Office plants a letterbox or a letter-pillar, there the correspondence at once begins to grow. Wherever the deliveries are multiplied, letters are multiplied immediately, and when the district postal system has been developed in our provincial towns the revenue of the Post Office will, we have not the slightest doubt, attain and exceed the dimensions anticipated in the report. It is now about .£1,500,000. It is growing at the rate of £300,000 a-year, and will probably grow at twice that rate before long. Already Mr Gladstone could state that the heavy charges incurred for the enlargements in London bad been in great part overtaken by the growth of income, and we see no reason for doubting that the Post Office may actually supplaut the Income Tax in a comparatively short time. It will be observed that the progress of the department consists not in performing the same service for less money, but in performing better service for the same money. Here and there, as, indeed, the present report shows, the tariff has been lightened a little, but in the main the charge remains unaltered. It is in the acceleration of the work that the improvement is made, and in the numberless extensions of accommodation which this acceleration implies. So man}' more letters are written simply because it is so much easier than formerly to despatch them and receive replies. With this increase of letters comes the increased profits of the department, until at last the “penny postage,” which even in itself and for its own merits was thought one of the greatest reforms ever introduced into administration, is exhibited to us not only as an instrument of the incredible public convenience, but as an unexpected and unfathomable source of public revenue.