POSTMASTER-GENERAL OF GREAT BRITAIN

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 365, 16 April 1910, Page 9

POSTMASTER-GENERAL OF GREAT BRITAIN

A CHAT WITH MR. HEXXIKER lIEATOX, M.P.

The name of John Henniker Heaton will go dawn to posterity as that of the man who carried the Imperial l'ennv Postage Scheme, the Anglo-American Penny Postage, the introducer of Telegraph Money-Orders in England, and the Parcel Post to France (says M.A.P.). Away from the footlights of Westminster he is author, journalist, newspaper proprietor, owner ot large tracts of land in Australia, chess-player, and collector of old and rare books. Mr. Henniker Heaton attributes 'his success to the absolute belief in the cause he has always advocated. Honors do not appeal to him—in fact, he has refused the K.C.M.G. four times. Mr. Henniker Heaton is one of those men upon whom time and a strenuous activity have had but little effect. Though born in Rochester in 1848, and educated at the Kent House Grammar and King's College, London, the years of his early manhood were spent in Australia. He did not return to this country permanently until 1885, and the same year he was elected member of Parliament for Canterbury. This constituency lie has held without a break to the present day.

HOW HE BECAME A SPECIALIST. "You want to know how I became associated with postal • affairs?" Mr. Henniker said.

"Well, -when I first entered Parliament I found tliat I was just one little cogwheel in a mighty machine, as my friend, Mr. T. P. O'Connor describes it. I could not hope to be a Gladstone, so 1 decided to specialise on one subject and play on one string: cheap and perfect Communication by post and telegraph with all parts of the world. "When I was a young man in Australia, the postal system was literally crying out for reform. Many times up in the cattle stations I have written letters for stock-riders, and each letter, remember, in those days cost sixpence to go to England. This prohibitive charge was a serious item, and it meant fewer letters passing between dear ones in Australia and 'the old folks at home.' A TRAGIC LITTLE STORY. "In this connection I may tell yom a tragic little story. A young fellow—a 'new chum,' as he was called —after suffering great privations through want of employment, at last got a situation at a pound a week. His first idea was to relieve the mind of his aged mother in England, and promise her a remittance at the end of the month, but the sixpenny postage stood in the way of his pending her a letter at once. At last a bright idea struck him. After searching round until he found an old newspaper, he wrote of his good fortune on the inner margins, and anywhere else where there was space. This he posted for a penny, but the devil tnust have entered into the soul of the postmaster, for the newspaper was one of those chosen at random for examination. The boy was traced to the station ,on which he had found employment, brought before a magistrate, and sentenced to six weeks' imprisonment for defrauding the postal authorities.

" PREACHER-IX-ORDINARY TO THE P. 0."

"It was in Australia, where 1 saw and learnt so much, that the idea came to me that, if ever I had the chance, 1 ■would throw my heart and soul into postal and telegraph reform work. That chance came on my election to Parliament, and the result is that for more .than twenty-five years I have occupied ±he unenviable position of preacher-in-,ordinary to the Post Office. .» I am told, too, that the mere mention of my name in the precincts of St. Mar-tin's-le-Grand. used to produce an explosion of anger similar to the rage of .jGeorge 111. when his son, the Prince of Wales, in revenge for some paternal ipunishment, shouted 'Wilkes for ever!' his Majesty's door at Windsor." For the work Mr. Henniker Heaton had set himself to do he naturally required some training. First of all he visited every representative post office jin the world, and learnt by heart every postal guide. His next step was to in the Times a list of some sixty reforms then urgently needed, and he has had the satisfaction since of seeing nearly all of tnem carried out. These form the subject of a special work, "The Ideal Post Office."

.. His work does not by any means cease, though, with the reforms that are already brought about, and he intends going on and on until penny postage is universal, and there is a penny-a-word rate for cablegrams throughout the British Empire. RIDICULOUS CABLE RATES. "It is utterly ridiculous," Mr. Henniker Heaton said, ''when we consider that it costs twopence-halfpenny to send a .letter from Dover to Calais, and yet from London to Xew Zealand the postage is only a penny. "Something has already been done towards the reduction of cable rates; but to the monopolists, those who have 'cornered' the beneficent genius of electricity, and persuaded the people that it can only be generated in Old Broad Street, I say, as Hamlet said to the J players, 'O, reform it altogether!' I "This, unfortunately, cannot be done! until the world's cables are forcibly, if | necessary, wrung from the hands of the J monopolists, or the 'lords of silence,' as I I call those who hold them at present." « Mr. Henniker Heaton is of opinion | that when the services are once in the I hands of the State, they should be conducted at rates sufficient to pay working expenses, but no profit should be made and all surplus moneys should be applied to the provision of additional ,cables. "It takes three months," he said, "for a Londoner to write and receive a reply from an Australian, and as the most valuable asset of humanity is time, the importance of substituting instantaneous electrical communication for the lons, laborious, and antiquated methods of intercourse is supreme. "This will never be a really great Empire until we in England can speak ,to the people of Xew Zealand as cheaply as we can to-dny speak to the people of Ireland. j POPULAR POSTCARDS.

"Postcards have shown us that short tand often interchanges are well liked— j urobntlv better than lone and seldom. The problem with wires is the short and instantaneous message to compete with letters over the =low post, for popularity. Time njid distance tell against letters, the tejejrrapli laughs at both, but is staggered, bv forbidding rates. So much, for what I hone to do before- I can consider my mission accomplished. Ton cannot separate mv life's work from my life, so thi® must be m*' excuse for making postal and telegraph reform such a large part of this storv." Besides the serious side, the work, as Mr. Henni/ker Heaton 'explained, has now and again flashes of humor and <»ven path <">s. The names neople give him are sometimes amusing. Besides -\ v - \

.being referred to as the "PostmasterGeneral of Greater Britain," he is known as the "Apostle of Penny Postage," and, again, as the mail who is spending his life sticking the Empire together by means of a postage-stamp. At the Carlton Club they say he spends his Saturdays to Mondays in Japan! This is because, with a passion for the sea inborn in him, Mr. Henniker Heaton loses no opportunity of getting a day or two's holiday on the ocean. Ilis sudden disappearances from Pall Mall, and equally sudden reappearances, without explanation or apparent reason, have become a bv-word, and to hear that he is in Japan generally means that he will be back again in a dav or two. A SLIGHT MISTAKE. There is a joke in connection with Mr. Henniker Heaton's friendship with Mr. Marconi which might bear repetition. When he was made a Freeman of the City of London Mr. Marconi accompanied him, and when the latter's turn came, and he received the Freedom of Rome, he insisted that Mr. Henniker Heaton should return the compliment by going with him to Rome. Some little time before this Sir Benjamin Stone had photographed them together on the terrace of the House of Commons in the costumes of their respective Courts. Mr. Marconi sent a copy of this to an Italian newspaper, and this latter published it on the day Mr. Marconi received the Freedom of Rome over the inscription, "Mr. Marconi and King Edward the Seventh."

An experience, born of sarcasm surely, happened before the days of the halfpenny open letter rate. Alive to the advantages of an object lesson, Mr. Henniker Heaton persuaded the then Postmaster-General to accompany him one day to the London docks. Here he pointed out to him five cases, containing altogether a hundred thousand advertisement circulars which were going over to Antwerp to be posted back to England. lie reason for this strange proceeding was that in Antwerp thev could be posted in open envelopes and delivered in this country for a halfpenny, whereas, if posted here, they would have cost a penny. MR. CHAMBERLAIN'S EULOGY. One of Mr. Henniker Heaton's mosttreasured possessions, and he only received it during his last election campaign, is a letter from Mr. Chamberlain wishing him success. Lord Desborough has. chosen the following extract from it as an inscription for Mi. Henniker Heaton's tombstone:—

"It has been given to few men to promote reforms independently, and to see them adopted in their own lifetime with universal approval." They are beautiful words truly, and <ts valuable to Mr. Henniker Heaton ai> the Freedom of the Cities of London ami Canterbury. There is an amusing anecdote in connection with the Parliamentary ches»" match which Mr. Henniker Heaton goi up between Great Britain and America in 1007. It was played by cable, and at one stage of the game everything pointed to the defeat of the Yankees. Realising this, thev wired:

"You're too good for us; we'll play you at poker!"

The game, however, ended in a draw, and the offer to play poker has not yet been accepted. Mr. Walter, of the Times, jthvk valuable trophv, but it remains in the House of Commons, for neither America nor England can claim championship in the 'glorious gamr of chess."