The Sun.
London, England, 1866-01-24 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TlMM—Just twenty-six years ago—that is, on
the 10th of January, 1840—the new system of a
penny postage came into operation in this country.
It was a grand, and, for those days, an alarming
experiment, for the old Post-office yielded a .pretty
little revenue of £1,500,000 a year, and we had not
then become accustomed to annual millions coming
in without trouble. We could not afford the loss
which was certain to ensue at first, and which might
possibly not be recovered, but there were many con-
ditions favourable to the trial, and it was boldly
made. The Post-office, it must be understood, is an
institution perfectly unique in this kingdom. It is
the one single example of a Royal monopoly—the
one department of business which is carried on by
Government itself. It is a pure bit of centralisa-
tion in the midst of our self-government. It is as
essentially and directly a part of the Royal esta-
blishments as the Queen's own household. Every
letter-box, letter-pillar, lamp, or station belonging
to the Post Office displays the Royal Arms ; the
letter-bags are her Majesty's mails, the guards wear
the royal livery, and so do the very letter-carriers
who deliver the letters at our doors. The result is
that in this one instance, and through this one chan-
nel alone, our Government can act like the Govern-
ments of Continental States. When the Govern-
ment decided on undertaking a little commercial
business on behalf of the public, as in money-orders,
savings-banks, and small annuities, the Post Office
was employed—not only because the agency was
really suitable, but because there was no other at
command. So, when it was resolved that the ser-
vice of the Post Office should be remodelled, the
simple resolution was sufficient, for the requisite
machinery was entirely under control. For the rest,
the originator of the reform relied, and, as the event
proved, with perfect justice, on his own calculations
and foresight. What it cost to carry letters for a
penny apiece may be understood from the fact that
for the first five years of the new system the net
Irevenue or profit accruing from the Post Office ave-
raged only £500,000. But Sir Rowland Hill
reckoned confidently on such an increase of cor-
respondence as would gradually bring the receipts
up again, and the second five years did see the re-
venue almost doubled. Just now we have got a
Report of the Department for 1864, and here the
revenue is upwards of £4,000,000, while the profits
are about £1,160,000. From this it will be seen
that the service, though a growing gain to the pub-
lic, is never a loss to the Government, but, on the
contrary, a source of considerable income. The
improvements, however, have been peculiar and
confined to certain directions. Substantially the
Post Office service has never been cheapened to the
public since 1840. The Office will not carry the
weight for the same money. EVery letter still re-
quires its penny stamp at the least, and in some
respects the co-operation of the public in the work
of the Department has been exacted. The object
of the Office is to sell the greatest possible number
of stamps, or, in other words, to carry the greatest
possible number of letters, and so make the greatest
possible profit. In pursuing this subject it neces-
sarily gives the public the benefit of multiplied and
accelerated communications, and this, in fact, is
where we have gained, and are gaining every year.
The Post-office will not carry letters for us more
cheaply nor to a greater distance than it did six-
and-twenty years ago, but it will carry them with
greater expedition, and deliver them with greater
frequency, while it puts us to less trouble in posting
them. We are no longer obliged to walk a mile, or
even half a mile, to " the Post-office," for recep-
tacles in various forms are brought to our very
doors. We can write from London to the country,
and from many parts of the country to London,
two or three times a day instead of only once. We
can post letters up to a later hour, and thus, in a
variety of ways, we get more done for our money.
We do see in the Report now before us that a cer-
tain alteration in the progressive scale of duties was
" in contemplation " at the and of 1864, but with
this exception all the improvement in the service of
the Department has been in the collective convey-
awe and delivery of letters, the charge for the work
performed remaining the same. When, therefore,
the office renders its account of business executed
awl service done, it simply tells us how many
more letter-boxes have been opened, how many
more mails have been put on, how many more
deliveries have teen organised, and, as a natural
sequel, how many more letters have been car-
ried, stamps sold, and pounds realised. That is
the framework and substance of a moderk Post-
office report, but the details are interesting and
in some respects valuable. It concerns the office,
for instance, to know the number of inhabited
houses in the country, and the number of inhabi-
tants also, and the consequence is that we obtain
information on these points much more recent
thaii that of our last Census. At Christmas,
1864, the population of the United Kingdom was so
nearly 30,000,000 that probably those figures ex-
press almost the exact truth at this moment. The
numbers were 29,710,077, having been 29,569,364
in 1863 ; so that, if we allow for a proportionate
increase in 1865, we shall get as close to the round
sum as possible. The inhabited houses were 3,893,991,
having increased during the year by nearly 10,000 in
London, and 30,000 in the rest of the kingdom. The
total number of letters delivered to the inhabitants
of those houses in the year 1864 was 679,084,822,
and this, which is the culminating piece of Post
Office statistics, undoubtedly expresses a very won-
derful fact. In France, for instance, with-a larger
population,the to tal deliveries are under 300,000,000,
and even in America, with its free, educated, and
enterprising people, they are barely 470,000,000.
Yet, if we could analyse this mass of correspondence,
we should probably be surprised at the results. It
appears to us, from such glimpses of the facts as the
report affords, that the great multiplication of
letters is in what is termed the district service of
large towns, and, above all, in the metropolis ; for
whereas the letters delivered in the whole of Eng-
land and Wales, London excepted, were but
390,000,000, they were 170,000,000 in London
alone. It is in this immense capital, where, though
we are all inhabitants of one city, we are, neverthe-
less, all out of each other's reach, that letters are
made to do so much work for us. The Post Office is
every man's servant, carrying small messages at all
hours of the day. There are not nearly so many
letters written in all Scotland and Ireland together
as in the London district. Nothing like so many are
despatched to all the States of the Continent and
all our colonies. We believe this to be the grand
secret not only of the present but also of the future
prosperity of the Post Office. The practice of em-
ploying the post for small purposes of hourly com-
munication will probably creep into all our towns
in proportion as deliveries are multiplied. It pre-
vails more or less even now wherever there is more
than one delivery, for nothing is cheaper or more
convenient than to get an errand promptly done
for a penny. Orders for the day can be sent to
tradesmen, and a very considerable part of the work
of a household transacted throne-h this agency.
It is not the old-fashioned " correspondence' that
has increased with the penny postage ; in fact, we
should be disposed to doubt whether the ancient
fashion of letter-writing between friends--young
ladies excepted—has not rather declined than ex-
tended itself in this busy age. It is in the small
brief communications arising from our daily needs
that the Post Office has found its modern sphere of
action, and is likely, as we think, to expand it.
We suspect that much more would follow from the
multiplication of deliveries in populous towns than
from the extension of free deliveries to thinly-inha-
bited spots. These latter are increasing, and it is
fit they should, but a village just brought within
the pale of the post will not add much to its busi-
ness. We have looked, therefore, with some interest
to the statistics of " Day Mails"—that is, double or
multiplied deliveries in large towns—and here there
is some improvement, but not much. The towns
with two mails daily were 393 in 1863, and 397 in
1864. The towns with three mails rose from 73 to
78, those with four from seven to ten. Above these
figures there was no increase at all. There are only
three towns in the kingdom with five mails daily
from London, and only six with as many to London.
For the direct purpose of communication with the
metropolis this service is no doubt sufficient, but we
are much disposed to think that an extension of the
double or triple mail would yield its return in a
large increase of local business.
HERALD. —The annual speech of the Emperor of
the French at the opening of the session of the two
houses of the Legislature has been looked forward
to this year with more than usual anxiety. It was
known that certain unpleasant passages between
the Governments of France and the United States
on the question of Mexico had disturbed the serenity
of the French Foreign-office to such an extent that,
except at the cost of surrendering a brilliant con-
quest, it had become a matter of some difficulty to
maintain much longer on an amicable footing the
intercourse between the French Empire and the
Republican leviathan which now again overwhelms
half a continent. The attitude of the American
Government, it can no longer be denied, is one of
decided and uncompromising hostility to the Empe-
ror Maximilian and his rule. His introduction to
the country was the result of the triumph of the
French arms over the Republican Government
inaugurated under Juarez, in 1861. On the other
hand, as the Emperor was in a manner chosen by
universal suffrage, the wishes of France being
seconded by the voice of the Mexican nation, he
cannot be said to have been forced upon his subjects
against their will. His right to reign is not merely
based on this election ; he is de facto Sovereign of
Mexico; his enemies are few and weak, and unable
any longer to take the field against him. The
custom of recognising a de facto Government has ,

grown up in Europe into a fixed rule. It may be
said to take its place among the axioms of inter-
national law. The United States have been ever
foremost in recognising sucha Government wherever
or however it may be established in this hemisphere.
Their unwillingness to take cognisance of the exist-
ence of the Mexican Empire is a departure from
ordinary practice, which may be accounted for, but
can hardly be justified, by the peculiar circumstances
of the case. The Americans of late years have looked
upon Mexico in much the same light as on their own
outlying territories not yet settled into states. They
have regarded this country as a field for the exten-
sion of their dominion, as certain in the lapse of
time to fall into their hands. A strong Government
established there by a foreign power is an outrage,
because it seems to shut out this prospect of annexa-
tion. It is not difficult to understand the indigna-
tion which, in the midst of their own domestic troubles,
they have felt at the progress of the French conquest
in Mexico, the aversion which they express for the
orderly Government which is erected as a barrier to
their further extension southward. We need scarcely
explain it by their devotion to republican insti-
tutions, with which the mass of the Americans are
not just now so particularly enamoured, nor even
by their respect for the dictum of President
Munroe. The " Monroe doctrine," as it is
absurdly called, does not apply to the case of
Mexico at all. France has not gained for herself
a foot of ground in America. Mexico is still for the
Mexicans, and has only accepted a change for the
better in her rulers and her form of government.
In presence of the declared hostility of the
Government of the United States it has never
occurred to us, even for a moment, as possible that
Napoleon 111. could contemplate the abandonment
of his protégé, the Emperor Maximilian. To do this
would be such a sacrifice of the prestige of France
that it might be as much as his throne is worth to
attempt it. Whatever he might have intended be-
fore, the bluster of American statesmen, orators,
and generals, seemed to have made it a matter of
honour that he should not recede an inch from the
position which he had assumed. Yet because the
Mexican expedition, in which a little glory has been
gained at a great cost, has always been unpopular
with a large section of the French people, it had
been supposed by many in Paris that the annual
Speech would convey the announcement of the im-
mediate withdrawal of the French contingent from
Mexico. A parallel was drawn between the case
of Mexico and that of Rome. The Sovereigns in
either state had been established by French arms,
but a French army should not seek perpetually to
maintain them. Yet the error, if error it be, was,
in both cases, committed at the outset. In under-
taking the expeditions, whether to Rome or Mexico,
France deliberately incurred responsibilities from
which she cannot escape without dishonour. She
can neither allow Rome to be seized upon by the
Piedmontese, nor permit the Mexican Empire to
be swamped by the United States. The Emperor
has spoken, and while his Speech fully accords to
our anticipations it does not altogether disappoint
the hopes of those who had looked for an announce-
ment of the withdrawal of the army from Mexico.
His language, it is true, is less decided than
that of last year's Speech. In January, 1865,
he said, " Already our troops are on their way
back from Mexico." In January, 1866, he says—
" In accordance with the hope which I expressed
last year, our expedition approaches its com-
pletion. I am coming to an understanding with
the Emperor Maximilian to fix the time of the
recall of our troops so that their return may be
effected." The comparison of the two Speeches
is instructive. If, when the Emperor said " Our
troops are on their way home," he meant it to be
understood that they might be a very long time
coming, we know how to interpret the phrase about
" coming to an understanding to fix the time." It
leaves the two Emperors perfectly free to delay
or hasten the evacuation as they may find desirable.
The French Emperor adds that he does not wish to
compromise the French interests that he " went to
defend in that remote country." As the French
army there is maintained by the Government of
Mexico its absence is by no means a drain on the
resources of its Government. To abandon Mexico
would be to renounce all prospect of the repayment
of the Alexican loan raised in France, and would,
therefore, be seriously detrimental to French in-
terests, to say nothing of the probable consequences
of the step, the humiliation of France, and her sub-
mission to the arrogant pretensions of the United
States Government. • What sort of an understanding
the Emperor Napoleon will come to with the Em-
peror Maximilian, and how far we are justified in
expecting the immediate withdrawal of the French
force, may be judged from the tone of the diplo-
matic correspondence of which a summary appeared
in our columns on Monday. Mr. Johnson has pre-
sented to Congress the documents that have been ex-
changed on the subject of the " so-called empire of
Mexico." Writing to M. de Montholon on July
18th last, Mr. Seward declines to receive a communi-
cation from the Emperor Maximilian. On August
9th he refuses to recognise his agent, 1)on Louis
Arroyo, affirming that the United States Govern-
ment did not admit the existence of any Govern-
ment in Mexico except that of Juarez. On Novem-
ber 6 Mr. Seward addresses Mr. Bigelow at
Paris, desiring him to remonstrate seriously with
the French Government on the subject of the
operations of its army in Mexico, and stating
that he regarded " the attempt to establish
permanently a foreign and Imperial Government
in Mexico as disallowable and impracticable."
He claims credit for frankness, and his language
certainly could not have been much plainer. The
despatch was read to M. Drouyn de Lhuys, who
" felt obliged to say that he derived neither plea-
sure nor satisfaction from its contents." On Oct.
18th the French Minister offered to withdraw the
expeditionary army on the eondition that the United
States Government would recognise the Emperor
Maximilian. On December 6th Mr. Seward says
that this condition " seems to be impracticable ;"
and on December 16th announces decidedly that
the United States " will not recognise Maximilian
even if the French troops should be withdrawn from
Mexico." Each Government has taken up its posi-
tion, and will find it difficult to recede from it with-
olio dishonour. It is clear that France at least can-
not be cowed by the menaces of Mr. Seward into
an abject retirement and stultification of her policy.
It remains to be seen how far and in what manner
the Government of the United States is prepared to
second its brave wordsby braver deeds, and whether
it is prepared to bid defiance to a power which will
be even more formidable than the Confederacy in
its palmy days.