Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-10-06 00:00:00

THE POST-OFFICE INQUISITION.

Under the head of Confession and Avoidance, the Times
of yesterday publishes the following communication from
Mr. Rowland. Hill, on the subject of the recent inquisi-
torial circular issued from the Liverpool Post-office :

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.

Sir,---With reference to an article which appears in The
Times of this morning, in which you promulgate a report that
questions of an inquisitorial character have been addressed to
the officers in the Post-office at Liverpool by order of the Post-
master-General or myself, I have to state that this report
is wholly devoid of truth. The facts of the case are simply
these : As there was reason to apprehend that certai:4
clerks in the Liverpool office (very few in number) had
become deeply involved In loan transactioas, and were
consequently in a position in which it would be unsafe
to intrust them with the public money, an investi-
gation was ordered_; and the postmaster of Liverpool, (a most
zealous and efficient officer,) in conducting that investigaticn,
deemed it recessary to put to the persons concerned certain
questions, viz., those referred to in your article. But this
step he took without the authority or even the cognizance of
the Postmaster-General or of myself, and solely on his own
responsibility. So soon, however, as the fact was known at
the chief office, the Postmaster was called upon for an ex-
planation.
In the same article you declare that " a year ago the sub-
ordinate officers in this department were driven into rebellion
in London itself by the petty annoyances of the authorities."
This statement, like the preceding one, is destitute of
foundation.
The misconduct, which was confined to comparatively a few
men, never approached anything bordering on rebellion, and
was not the result of annoyances, petty or otherwise, by the
authorities.

Had the British public believed that the facts were as you
state, they ought not, and I feel sure would not, have allowed
a whole session of Parliament to pass without an investigation
by a Parliamentary committee---a course which it is even now
not too late to adopt. Requesting the insertion of this letter in
The Times of to-morrow, I am, sir, your obedient servant,
General Post-office, Oct. 4. ROWLAND HILL.

To this letter the Times appends the following note,
which fully explains the heading we have referred to:—

Really, Mr, Rowland Hill has mistaken his profession ; he
should have been a special pleader. A more glaring case of
confession and avoidance, of denial in which nothing is denied,
can hardly be imagined than this letter. Unfortunately for Mr.
Rowland Hill, this method of denial is, we might say, " older
than the hills," and will mislead no one. Mr. Rowland Hill
denies the facts, and then proceeds to state them exactly as we
ourselves put them. In the same way he glides over the mutiny,
or rebellion, or whatever it was that arose among the subordinates
of the General Post-office in the metropolis last year, as "miscon-
duct confined to a comparatively few men." But Mr. Rowland
Hill's crowning effort is kept to the last. " Let there be a
parliamentary inquiry." Well 1 parliamentary inquiries, end-
ing, as they generally do, in nothing, may be the final object
of Mr. Rowland Hill's desires,---he may glory in that Paradise
of perpetual question and answer in which the bureaucratic
mind delights to puff itself up until it is embodied in a
blue-book so big that even Mr. Rowland Hill will refuse
to carry it by post ; but a parliamentary inquiry is not
our seventh Heaven. We prefer to drag such inquisitorial
proceedings as those which have disgraced the post-office in
Liverpool, and therefore the head office in London, before the
bar of public opinion, and to brand them at once as un-
English and intolerable. This is the shorter course, and we
may venture to think that we shall not have a repetition of
these Liverpool absurdities. If we do, there will be plenty of
time next session for a parliamentary inquiry into this and any
other proceedings on the part of the Post-office which may be
Prejudicial to the
,public interest. In the meantime, and
possiblywe as a prelimmary to that inquiry, we should be glad to
from Mr. Rowland Hill whether the "explanation" of
that
---wheThase
Liver-
pool" zealous and efficient officer" the "Postmaster of
pprovera
considered satisfactory by the Postmaster-General,
the conduct
the authorities in London approveddisa or
conduct of their subordinate.