This Week's Great Day

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, 3 December 1927, Page 9

This Week's Great Day

Memorable Events in the < historq of the Empire* _

By

Charles Conway

Dec. 3.—Birth of Sir Rowland Hill • (Copyrighted.)

ONE hundred and thirty-two-years

ago, on the 3rd December. 1795. Sir Rowland Hill, the originator of the cheap postal system, was born at Kidderminster, in the English county of Worcestershire.

Hs was educated at a school which had been established in Birmingham by his father, and of which he afterwards became the principal himself. It was at this school that he introduced an improved method of education, which was known as the Hazlewood system, and exercised a powerful influence on the educational reforms instituted in Britain in the first half of last century.

In 1833 bad health forced Hill to abandon the teaching profession, and he then co-operated with E. G. Wakefield in his famous attempt to colonise South Australia on ideally perfect principles. Two years later he commenced his campaign to reform the errors and abuses of the postal system, a work which placed him in the ranks of the great benefactors of mankind.

At that time the cost of postage varied according to distance and also according to the number of written pages sent, irrespective of weight, and two small pieces of thin paper would be charged twice as much as the heaviest letter written on a single sheet. The charges were collected by the letter carrier on delivery, and the principal hardship fell on poor people, who could i,ot afford to use the maps. The major-, ity of the upper classes of the community were able to have their letters carried free of charge owing to their connection or influence with members of Parliament, all of whom possessed the privilege of franking letters free, while business houses had numerous illicit ?neans of conveyance at their disposal to evade the heavy tax.

A LIITTLE boy made a .boat. When I say that, 1 mean that he made it all by himself, with a leaden keel, handkerchief sails (that could be pulled up and down with strings, don’t forget), figurehead of a parrot—or maybe it was a cockatoo; I never knew the difference. Problem was, would it sail? He took it to the bath, and like a gallant ship it rode the hand-made waves and behaved like a destroyer, let alone a schooner made by a boy. Next problem was, would it sail in the great big sea? (Sorry 1 forgot to tell you that the little boy lived in a seaside town. He would have to, or mv story could not be told.) Well, he did, and he took his boat down to the beach, where the gigantic rollers were coming in from the open sea. and he put it into the water. The tide was going out. You should have seen that lioat. Huge Pacific breakers they were, and that ship mounted them and conquered them and sailed clean over them like the splendid vessel it was. And it sailed out and out—and out. The little bov had to sand up to see it, and his heart swelled with pride to think that it could brave the biggest waves of the ocean. Out it went, further and further, until he had to stand on a rock to see it; and out and out. until he could just make it out by standing on tip-toe. Smaller and smaller it grew, and the smaller it grew the bigger the lump grew in the little boy’s throat. His boat disappeared. It was gone—lostout in the wide ocean ; his own work ; the boat he had made all by himself.

As you would have done. I suppose, he went home, tears in his eyes, and he told his mother. “Oh.” she said, “if the tide took it out. the tide may bring it back. Keep a lookout sonny, as you go to school in the mornings, and maybe vou will find your boat again.’’ Morning after morning he gazed over the sea or looked in the creeks or along the shingle but not a sign of his boat could he find. At last, one day—no. it happened at night, in the darkness, when all the shops

Hill compiled a vast collection of statistics which enabled him to show that the greater portion of the expense of the postal system laid in the collection and delivery of the letters and that the cost of conveyance differed so Jittle with distance that a uniform rate would be the fairest to everyone concerned. He rightly estimated that the deficiency in revenue which would result from a reduction in postal charges would be easily made up by the increased use of the mails.

In 1837 he published a pamphlet, in which he detailed the result of his investigations and his proposals for reform and made the suggestion of a uniform rate of one penny per half-ounce for any distance within the United Kingdom, the charges to be prepaid by means of an adhesive stamp. This pamphlet aroused an immediate and widespread interest, and in the followin'; year the Government were reluctantly compelled to appoint a Parliamentary Committee to investigate the matter, with the result that an Act was passed which brought the penny postage system in operation throughout the United Kingdom on the 10th January, 1840. Hill was given a Treasury appointment so that he might superintend the introduction of his reforms, and his great genius as an administrator was mainly responsible for the speed and efficiency with which the new system was established. Within two years he had the great satisfaction of seeing all his predictions fulfilled, for the number of letters delivered in Great Britain increased at one bound from seventy-five to two hundred and eight millions per year, and the postal revenue for IS4O showed an increase over 1839 of sixty-three per cent.

He was knighted in 1860 and at his death, which took place on the 27th August. 1879, at the age of 84, he was honoured with burial in Westminster Abbey.

were lit—he saw his boat. You know how sure you can be that a boat is yours if you have made it yourself? Well, he saw his boat. The very marks of his own jack-knife were still there, and the deck-rails, and the masts and everything. And his boat was in the middle of a shop window —for sale. He went into the shop. He said to the shopman: “That is my boat in vour window.” The shopman replied, “I don’t know anything about that. A boy sold me that boat, and I have paid good money for it. And if you want it you will have to pav for it. too.” “How much money would I need?” asked the boy. “Half-a-crown,” said the shopkeeper. “How much is that?” the boy enquired. '‘Two shillings and a sixpence,” said the surlv shopman. The bov thought hard, and did some mental arithmetic, and then said, “Please will you keen my boat for me until I can buy it?” The man said he would. Well, the little boy had about a smiling in his bank at home, but he set himself to making up the price of his boat. For bringing in the milk the first morning he got twopence, and for running errands for nis uncles and aunts he got twopence after twopence until he had a whole half-crown

Down he went to the shop, plumped his big half-crown on the counter and got his boat. I tell you. you never saw a prouder boy in all vour life than vou could have seen then. He looked at it, hugged it, held it tight and firm, and as he came out of the shop he said to it. “You were mine before, because I made you. I lost you then, but I've found you again. I’ve worked for you and saved for you. and now vour are mine far better than ever you were before.” And that, kiddies, is what I think the meaning of the word "Redemption” is—being bought back again, and that is what I think the Prodigal Son’s father must have felt when he got his boy back again.