The Sun.
London, England, 1853-03-07 00:00:00

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[ PRICE SD.

- A BIT OF PARISIAN GOSSIP.

TRAVELLING IN ENGLAND IN THE SIXTEENTH CU.
TURT.— Before the revolution the ordinary days journey
of a flying coach was about fifty riles in summer; but in the
winter little more than thirty. The Chester coach the York
and the Exeter coach generally reached days during the fine season ; London in four
but at Christmas not till
the sixth day. The passengers, six in number, were all
seated in the carriage ; for accidents were so frequent
that it would have been' most perilous to mount the roof.
The. ordinary fare was about 24d. a mile in summer, and
somewhat more in winter.—Macaulay.

•
(Pram the Tines.)
We have this day to announce a stop which,
simple and unpretending as it may seem, is really
a greater move towards a complete unity of our in-
dependent Empire than the most splendid conquest
or the largest annexation. In reply to a deputa-
tion last Friday the Postmaster-General stated that,
as soon as the colonial assents could be obtained
and the proper arrangements made, it was intended
to reduce the postage of letters for every part of
the British dominions abroad to the uniform rate
of sixpence the half-ounce. The present average
Postage of colonial letters is not less than fourteen-
pence. What will be gained is the low rate, and
and the uniformity, which experience has shown to
be scarcely less appreciated than cheapness. Very
shortly, therefore, it will be in the power of any of
our readers to drop a letter into the box of the next
cottage or in the next street, to his friend on the
slopes of the Himalaya, or at Mount Alexander, or
at Vancouver's Island, or at Toronto, with the
certainty, as far as the whole power of Govern-
ment can secure it, of having an answer back
at the cost, for the postage of the two
letters, of one shilling. The answer from
across the Atlantic will probably be within a
month, that from Simla or Lahore within three
months, and that from the Antipodes within half
a year. A party of emigrants sailing this week
may hope to arrive at Geelong or Adelaide soon
after Midsummer, and about Michaelmas their
friends at home, supposing the arrangement com-
pleted, may hope to receive full accounts of their
voyage and safe arrival at the moderate cost of six-
pence. Let people talk as they please of the sun
never setting on our dominions, and of the British
flag waving over every sea and every shore, nothing
brings before our mind so forcibly the fact that we
are everywhere, and that every-where we represent
the spirit of progress, as this little type of universal
power—this letter given to the village postman in
March, with an answer from mid Asia in June.
ilienrrenis something grand and showy enough in the
s that appear from time Ao Aim° in our at.
tary and naval journals, giving the stations of our
ships and of our soldiers in every part of the world;
but the grandeur of the idea is qualified by many
painful considerations, for the whole is merely an
ill remedy for a still worse evil. But there is no
such alloy in the thought that any member of the
British Empire, comprehending an eighth of the
human species, will be able to communicate with
any other within a space of time and at a cost in-
credible to our forefathers, and even hitherto unat-
tainable. Considering how much there is that is
questionable in our dominion, in its means and in
its results, it is satisfactory to: find one means and
one result of undoubted advantage to the whole
human race, viz., that we draw mankind together,
and bring the whole world, so to speak, within
hearing distance.
The numerous interests of society and commerce
concerned in this measure have been so well repre-
sented in the deputation to Lord Canning, that
little more is to be done than simply recount them.
The merchant, with his budget of letters by every
colonial mail ; the colonial company, with its agents
and its labourers at work in Australia ' • our assur-
ance companies, with a correspondence all over the
world - our hundreds of thousands of emigrants,
who ave broken the dearest ties to seek indepen-
dence in the colonies, and whose souls still cleave
to those they have left at home ; the great mass of
the British public, deeply interested as they are in
our colonies and dependencies—such are the inte-
rests on whom the benefit is conferred, and the bare
examination of them will prove that it is not par-
tial benefit at the cost of the whole community. In
this respect the argument is the same as with regard
to our inland postage. It is not every man who can
write a letter—and many poor creatures scarcely
ever receive one—but there is not one of them with-
out an interest in the spread of information, in the
quickening of the whole system, and in the progress
of the nation. Just now the or
whole population
of these isles, more particularly the working classes,
are immensely benefitted by the prosperity of our
colonies, by their new sources of wealth, by the
stream of emigration that has set in to them, and
the consequently increased demand for labour at
home. The first claimant on our consideration is
the colonist himself, who, with much denial and
some risk, has followed fortune to the end of the
earth thereby giving up his own immediate share
in the great stock and enterprise--the joint inter-
est and mutual good will of these isles—and leaving
the competition less severe for those that remain.
From a hungry competitor he has become a wel-
come customer. He even sends over the means of
transporting to the colonies still more of our. over-
crowded labour. Surely those of our fellow coun-
trymen who have done this service to their country
—a service that many of us could hardly do our-
selves—deserve every return in our power, and the
best, indeed, almost the only return, we can give
is to diminish the distance and lessen the separa-
tion as much as possible. The distance we are
diminishing by steam, by the electric telegraph, and
'all the means in our power ; and the other evil of
absence, infrequent communication, we are now
about to lessen by cheapening the means. The two
classes best able to value that cheapness are mer-
chants, in whose expenses postage forms a consid-
erable item, and the poorer sort with friends, as
most of them have, in the colonies. To the la-
bourer receiving only 95. or 10s. a week a postage
of even ls: is a great drawback from the pleasure
of a letter, though it be from a child in Canada or
Australia and the news be agreeable. In fact,
his children, knowing his poverty, do not write as
often they would, and are apt to get out of the
way of writing altogether.
It is quite evident that so great a change requir-
ing the co-operation of many establishments and
the consent of many authorities could not be
effected at once, or even with as much rapidity as
our great postal revolution at home. Things can
only be put in train for the change, as they will be
done immediately. What, therefore, Lord Canning
stated to the deputation on Friday was pretty
much as follows :—Government will invite the
Legislatures of those colonies which have the con-
trol of their own postal affairs (among which are
Canada and Australia), to say whether they will
agree to a reduction of postage on the following
terms :—The rate upon all letters to be 6d. the
oz.—this rate to include all charges, i. e., inland
postage in the United Kingdom, sea transit,
and inland postage in the colony—prepayment to
be optional ; in the case of letters carried by
packets supported (as now) by the mother
country, the proceeds of postage to be divided in
the proportion of sd. to the mother country (Id.
for inland, and 4d. for sea carriage), and ld. to
the colony ; in the event of the Colonial Govern-
ment supporting the packet, this proportion to be
reversed-; in the case of ship letters, the rate to
be divided equally between the mother country
and the colony (3d. to each), as no expense of sea
transit will attach to either • the rate upon all news-
papers to be Id. The Government expect that
before an answer is received from the colonies in
question, the examination and revision of the
Packet Service Estimate, announced by Sir James
Graham in proposing the Navy Estimates on the
18th ult., will be concluded, and that should the
answer be favourable they will be ready to act upon
it. The colonies whose postal affairs are under con-
trol of the General Post-office, and with whom
therefore, no negotiation is necessary,
will not be
dealt with until the terms with the
with
colonies
are settled, nor will India be dealt
settlement is no longer doubtful •
iltill
that
intended that the arrangement with though it is
precisely the same. The more
public had made up their
postage, and some of the deputation expressed their
etosangialitaeshoafilti-buee
a PellnY rate of
disappointment freely on this h
against this objection that the
nt
h_orsoep so:
existing;
present It was urged
be a considerable reduction
that uniformity will b
on
•
present varying in place of the
and iniaeoensistent scale (which ranges
from Bd. from fieli
that there will t° nd to nearly 3s. from Ceylon);
charge will cover theecertainty, inasmuch as
ion,e.
ter ; that prob bly a stop,
Whole conveyance of the leaut
check, certainly a very r
beaput upon the evasion of postage, "lOW so prevalent and
. that
k ita will have
been taken which;ftcomparativelystep
easy
to carry reduction further ife is should appear de-
sirable. There is of course a vast difference
and be-
tween an inland and a colonial
Pennytopetahe °.lea'tter.
at all events we must feel
Such, we believe, was theclu:lor
can only express
uewrpaoyrt of the reply
given to the deputation, and
our hearty concurrence it seems, are
with it on one point
that affects ourselves. Newspapers,
to pay Id. At present they
d we
are unwilling are free
to be-
lieve that it is intended, unless when
sent by private slop,
1 ! while making so great a
the conveyance of letters, to impose
reduction upon
'newuicdharge upon that of newspapers,
do us, and we humbly think
an entirely
would It ccrt2,;isn'Y public also, a very great injury if one
ttlleg!PClicliinot continue to clear the post. With
this single
reserve we beg to congratulate the new
Government on its first great feat of "Adminis-
trative ability."