The Sun.
London, England, 1839-04-25 00:00:00

POST-OFFICE REFORM.

Mr. M'Culloch is, we believe, the only person of any
authority who has pronounced an opinion adverse to
Mr. Hill's plan of Post-Office Reform. He slys f
At present t letter-carrier receives a number of letters,
the por.tage of which amounts to a certain sum, and he
must either b.r;ng back that sum, or a portion of it, and
undelivered letters making up the deficiency. But if be
have merely to deliver paid letters, it is difficult to see
what security can be had for the careful performance of
his duty. But supposinc, the letter-carriers to be as cau-
tious and attentive under the proposed system as at

present, still the safe delivery of the letters would not
be secured. Few persons will receive letters paying 61
•r Is. each for them, unless they really believe that they
arc the parties fur whom the letters are intended ; but
if they get them for nothing, they would be infinitely
less scrupulous, and the chances are, that under the pro-
posed system all, or mostly all, letters would be received
by the servants or others, to whom they might be of-
fered, and that very few indeed of those found to be
improperly addressed would be returned to the Post-
Offic,!."

Mr. Hill states that he had anticipated this argument
and thus answered it in the third edition of his
pamphlet : _

It has been urged as an objection to the required
payment in advance, that it would destroy the security
for the delivery of letters which is now derived from the
letter-carrier having to account for the receipt of post-
age—that an idle letter-carrier might destroy the letters
to save himself the trouble of making his round. In
reply to this objection I would remark, that the pre-
sent security, such as it is, applies only to part of die
correspondence—there is nothing to prevent the de-
struction of franked or paid letters. But it is said that
a letter-carrier is now obliged to make his round for the
delivery of the unpaid letters, and, therefore, that as it
would save but little trouble, there is slight temptation
to destroy the others. As regards an important part of the
correspondence, it appears, then, that under the present
arrangements, the only security afforded for the de-
livery of the letters is that the letter-carrier is obliged to
make his round. Now let us examine the security af-
forded by the proposed arrangements. At page 61* a
plan is suggested which will.enable any one, for a small
fee, to obtain a receipt for any letter put into the Post-
office. The fee is so trifling (only a halfpenny), and the
trouble would be so little, that there can be no doubt
that the plan would come into extensive operation.
Every letter-carrier would therefore know that, as re-
gards many of his letters, receipts had been taken,
and that if any of these letters were destroyed, inquiry
and detection would certainly follow ; he would there-
fore, as at present, be obliged to make his round.
But he would have no means of distinguishing the
receipted from the unreccipted letters ; there is no
difficulty in distinguishing the paid from the unpaid let-
ters ; therefore he would be careful to deliver all.

It follows, then, that the proposed arrangements are
superior to the present, as a security against idleness on
the part of the letter-carrier. It is needless to point
out their superiority against his dishonesty ; the collec-
tion of the postage is no security against the abstraction
of a money letter, if the contents exceed the postage.
On this part of the plan the Committee express the
following opinion :—Pre-payment has been objected to,
on the ground that it would diminish the security for
the delivery of letters. Mr. Hill appears to admit that
such might be the case, unless precautionary measures—
such as giving to the sender of a letter the option, on
payment of a small extra rate, of taking a receipt for the
letter (a plan for effecting which he describes in detail)
were adopted. With these precautions, which appear
desirable on other grounds, he shows that the security
for the delivery of letters would be augmented ; but
no evidence has been afforded that post-paid letters,
after having once reached a post-office, arc less secure
of being delivered than other letters.

A precedent for the compulsory pre-payment of
postage is found in the case of the letters of soldiers
and sailors, which are subject to a penny rate.—Re-
port, p. 37.

The admission alluded to arose out of my not suffi-
ciently considering wherefore post-paid letters are less
certain of reaching their destination than others. As
stated in the Report, " no evidence has been afforied
that post-paid letters, after having once reached a post-
office, are less secure of being delivered than other let-
ters." On the contrary, evidence was given by expe-
rienced men from the Post.office, to the effect that they
were equally secure, and this opinion was confirmed by
all the commercial witnesses who were examined, I be-
lieve without exception. The insecurity is on the way
to the Post-office, and it arises out of the present neces-
sity for entrusting messengers with money to pay post-
age. But with stamps this necessity would be
obviated,
and the insecurity removed.
Mr. M'Culloch is of opinion that people, if they had
no postage to pay, would receive and retain letters in-
tended for others. This appears to me to be taking a
much more unfavourable view of public morality than is
warranted by the facts of the case. In the first place,
under good regulations the Post-office would rarely af-
ford opportunities for so acting. In the next place,
there arc, I trust, few persons so lost to all sense of
propriety, and so heedless of detection, as to avail them-
selves of these rare opportunities when they did arise.
And lastly, the objection, if well founded, applies at pre-
sent, not only to franked letters, which Mr. M'Culloch
says are ‘. almost always addressed to persons of some
notoriety and consideration," but to a much larger class
of letters, which he omits to notice, namely—post-paid
letters, which go to people of every description, and to
soldiers' and sailors' letters, which arc, for the most part,
addressed to poor persons. And yet the evidence be-
fore the Postage Committee shows no feeling of inse-
curity, either on the part of the public or on that of the
Post-office, as to the delivery of such letters after they
have once found their way to the Post-office.
Mr. M'Culloch, speaking of the plan of stamps, says,
" provided it could be practically carried into effect, we
are inclined to think that its adoption would be a mate-
rial improvement." I see no serious, much less insu-
perable, difficulty to its being carried into effect. Mr.
M'Culloch says the delivery of letters would he ren-
dered insecure thereby. As 1 have shown, the fact may
be doubted, even if no remedy were provided ; but I
have proposed a specific remedy, to which no objection
has as yet been raised, and which, in the opinion of the
Postage Committee, would render the delivery even
more secure than it now is. Of this remedy Mr.
M'Culloch takes no notice whatever ; he was possibly
unaware of it ; but whether he was or not, as his ob-
jections are founded on a partial view of the subject,
they have no force as applied to the whole plan.
The letter-carriers are, or ought to be, men selected
on account of their trustworthiness. Such men, pro-
perly disciplined and well paid, may be relied upon in
almost all cases for a conscientious discharge of duty,
just as other men are safely depended upon in other con-
fidential positions. Though the plan of receipts were
not adopted, no letter-carrier could in a single instance
neglect to deliver the letters even of a small district,
without causing such a clamour as would certainly lead
to his detection, disgrace, and dismissal—a punishment
much more severe than the loss of any amount of postage
with which a man is ever trusted. But if other securi-
ties are found necessary, the receipts will afford them ;
with blank receipts it would be found impossible for
carelessness or fraud either on the part of the letter-car-
riers, or that of the public to remain long undetected.
* PLAN OF RECEIPTS FOR LETTERS.
The evidence given before the Commissioners of Re-
venue Inquiry shows the great desirability of semi?, plan
which would render it practicable and easy for the Post-
office to give, when required, receipts for letters sent to
the post.

In many instances such a plan would be the means of
tracing lust letters : oftentimes it would protect the
Post-office front needless applications and unfounded
complaints ; and it would oppose an effectual bar to the
fraudulent conduct of servants, who, under the present
arrangements, are known, in many instances, to have
destroyed letters, in order to pocket the postage.
I propose that every person desiring a receipt should,
on taking the letter to the receiving-house, present a
copy of the superscription, on which the receiver should
stamp a receipt, with the date, and his own address.
Preei,ely such a stamp as is placed on the letter would
suffice.

I propose that the charge for such receipt should be a
halfpenny, and that, as a means of collecting the same,
it should be required that the copy of the superscrip-
tion should be made on a printed form, to be provided
by the Post•office, and to be sold to the public at the
rate of a halfpenny each, by the receiver, either singly
or in books, as might be required—a certain profit on
their sale being allowed by the Post-office as a remune-
ration to the receiver.

These receipts would, I image, constitute good
legal
evidence of delivery ; and as they might be made to form
a cheap register of all letters despatched by post, many
persons would probably adopt the practice of taking
them for that reason alone.

As a large number of persons would probably avail
themselves of this arrangement, no small benefit might
thus accrue to the revenue.
I am informed that precisely such receipts as are here
described, except that a printed form is not employed,
are given gratuitously in the Presidency of Madras.
A recent Parliamentary return (1837, No. 497) of
alleged losses in the Post-office for the eight years end
ing with 1836, as respects England and Wales, shows
in a strong point of view the necessity for some such
arrangement as the above. The return consists of
eighty-one folio pages, closely printed in double columns,
and contains upwards of 10,000 entries. The total
amount of property is not stated in the return, but it
has been estimated by Mr. Wallace at 618,951/. The
variety of the claims is no less remarkable than their
extent : one missing letter is said to contain a bill of
exchange to the amount of 28,7501., while in another
the inclosure is " three dozen birds' eyes."

At the meeting of the Chamber of Commerce on
Thursday, Mr. M'Culloch's objection was thus noticed
by Mr. Cobden. Mr. McCulloch had taken for granted
the impossibility of finding men of moral probity and
conscientious charaeter to take the office of letter-car-
niers. He (Mr. Cobden) really thought this assumption