Chapter 2
The experiment in Great Britain shows that a still greater reduction may be perfectly relied upon to give a rate of increase fully proportionable. The “Companion to the British Almanac,” for 1842, says, “The rate of postage in the London district, (which includes the limits of the old two penny post,) averaged 2-⅓_d._ per letter, before the late changes; at present it averages about 1-¼_d._, and the gross revenue already equals that of 1835. The gross receipts in 1838, the last complete year under the old system, were £118,000; the gross revenue for 1840, the first complete year under the new system, was $104,000.”
The parliamentary committee, in their report in 1838, state, as the result of all their inquiries, that the total number of chargeable letters passing through the post-office annually, was about 77,500,000; franks, 7,000,000; total of letters, 84,500,000. The average postage per letter was 7_d._ The gross receipts annually, for six years, ending with 1820, were £2,190,597. For six years, ending with 1837, they averaged £2,251,424. For the year 1847, the number of letters was 320,000,000, and the gross receipts nearly equal to the old system. Here a reduction of the price three-fourths, has increased the consumption fourfold. Some other cases of similar bearing, may be worth stating, taken chiefly from the parliamentary documents.
Before the reduction of the duty on newspapers in England, the price was 7_d._, and the number sold in a year was 35,576,056, costing the public £1,037,634. On the reduction of the duty, the price was reduced to 4-¾_d._, and the public immediately paid £1,058,779, for 53,496,207 papers.
Under the high duty on advertisements, when the price was 6_s._ each, the number was 1,010,000, costing £303,000. By the reduction of the duty, the price fell to 4_s._, and the number rose to 1,670,000, costing £334,000.
Formerly the fee of admission to the Armory of the Tower of London was 3_s._, at which rate there were in 1838, 9,508 visitors, who paid £1,426. In 1839, the fee was reduced to 1_s._, and there were 37,431 visitors, who paid £1,891. In 1840, the fee was reduced to 6_d._, and the number of visitors in nine months was 66,025, who paid £1,650. During the entire year ending January 31, 1841, there were 91,897 visitors, who paid £2,297.
The falling of the price of soap one-eighth, increased the consumption one-third; the falling of tea one-sixth, increased consumption one-half; the falling of silks one-fifth, doubled the consumption; of coffee one-fourth, trebled it, and of cotton goods one-half quadrupled it.
A multitude of similar facts could be collected in our own country, showing the uniform and powerful tendency of diminished cost to increased consumption. A gentleman who is interested in a certain panorama said that, in a certain case, the exhibiter wrote to him that the avails, at a quarter of a dollar per ticket, were not sufficient to pay expenses. “Put it down to twelve and a half cents,” was the reply. It was done, and immediately the receipts rose so as to give a net profit of one hundred dollars a week.
These facts prove that there is a settled law in economics, that in the case of any article of general use and necessity, a reduction in the price may be expected to produce at least a corresponding increase of consumption, and in many cases a very largely increased expenditure. So that the amount expended by the people at low prices will be fully equal to the amount expended for the same at high prices. The people of England expend now as much money for postage, as they did under the old system, but the advantage is, that they get a great deal more service for their money, and it gives a spring to business, trade, science, literature, philanthropy, social affection, and all plans of public utility.
II. _Nothing but Cheap Postage will suppress Private Mails._
It is true that, in this country, private mails are not of so long standing, nor so thoroughly systematized as they were in Great Britain before the adoption of cheap postage. But on the other hand, the state of things in this country affords much greater facilities for that business, and renders their suppression by force of law much more difficult and more odious than in Great Britain.
On this head, the report of the Parliamentary Committee contains a vast mass of information, which made a deep and conclusive impression, upon the statesmen of that country. They found and declared that, “with regard to large classes of the community, those classes principally to whom it is a matter of necessity to correspond on matters of business, and to whom also it is a matter of importance to save, or at least to reduce the expense of postage, the post-office, instead of being viewed as it ought to be, and as it would be under a wise administration of it, as an institution of ready and universal access, distributing equally to all, and with an open hand, the blessings of commerce upon civilization, is regarded by them as an establishment too expensive not to be made use of, and as one with the employment of which any endeavor to dispense by every means in their power.” And among “the commercial and trading classes, by dint of the superior activity, had in a considerable degree relieved themselves from the pressure of this tax, without the interference of the legislature, by devising other means for the cheap, safe and expeditious conveyance of letters.” Some specimens of these expedients, as developed by the evidence before the Parliamentary Committee, will be at once curious and instructive.
M. B. Peacock, Esq., solicitor to the post-office, detailed the methods which the department had used to suppress the illicit sending of letters. By law, one half of the penalty, in cases of prosecution, went to the informer, but of late, informations were given much less frequently, and he thought the diminution of informations was owing to the fact that, about five years before, there had been a call in parliament for a return of the names of informers. He said the post-office had done all in its power to put a stop to the illegal sending, _but without success_. And he was decidedly of opinion, that the prevention is beyond the power of the post-office, and could only be done by reducing the rates of postage.
Mr. G. R. Huddlestone, superintendent of the ship-letter office, gave an account of the illicit sending of letters from London to the outports to go by sea. He said they were customarily sent in bags from the coffee houses, and by the owners of vessels, in the same way as from the ship letter office, and no means had been devised which could put a stop to it. Of 122,000 letters sent from the port of Liverpool in a year, by the American packets, only 69,000 passed through the post-office. The number of letters received inwards, from all parts of the world, by private ships, was 960,000 yearly; the number sent outwards through the post-office, was but 265,000. In the year ending October 5, 1837, there were forty-nine arrivals of these packets, bringing 282,000 letters. The number of letters forwarded from London by post to Liverpool for these lines, was 11,000; the number received in London from these lines, was 51,000 a year.
Mr. Banning, postmaster at Liverpool, stated that, in return for 370,000 ship letters received at his office in a year, addressed to persons elsewhere than at Liverpool, only 78,000 letters passed through that office to be sent outwards. And yet the masters of vessels assured him that the number of letters they conveyed outwards was quite equal to the number brought inwards.
Mr. Maury, of Liverpool, said that on the first voyage of the Sirius steamship to America, only five letters were received at the post-office to go by her, while at least 10,000 were sent in a bag from the consignee of the ship.
Mr. Bates stated that the house of Baring & Co. commonly sent two hundred letters a week, in boxes, from London to Liverpool, to go to America—equal to 10,000 a year.
These things were done under the very eye of the authorities, and yet no means had been found to prevent it. What police can our government establish, strict enough to do what the British government publicly declared itself unable to do?
The correspondence, of the manufacturing towns, it appeared, was carried on almost entirely in private and illicit channels. In Walsall, it was testified that, of the letters to the neighboring towns, not one-fiftieth were sent by mail. Mr. Cobden said that not one-sixth of the letters between Manchester and London went through the post-office. Mr. Thomas Davidson, of Glasgow, stated the case of five commercial houses in that city, whose correspondence sent illegally was to that sent by post in the ratio of more than twenty to one; one house said sixty-seven to one.
In Birmingham, a system of illicit distribution of letters had been established through the common-carriers to all the neighboring towns, in a circuit of fifteen miles, and embracing a population of half a million. The price of delivering a letter in any of these places was 1_d._, and for this the letters were both collected and delivered. Women were employed to go round at certain hours and collect letters. They would collect them for 2_d_. per hundred, and make a living by it. The regular postage to those towns was 4_d_., besides the trouble of taking letters to the post-office. Hence there was both economy and convenience in the illicit arrangement. The practice had existed for thirty years, and when it was brought in all its details to the notice of parliament, no man seems to have dreamed that it was in the power of the government to suppress it by penal enactments.
An individual, whose name and residence are, for obvious reasons, suppressed, gave the committee a full description of these private posts. He said that, in the year 1836, he kept an account of his letters; that the number sent by the post-office was 2068, and those sent by other means were 5861. Of these, about 5000 were to places within twenty miles, all of which were sent for 1_d_. each. Some carriers made it their sole business to carry letters. Some of them travelled on foot; others went by the stage coach to the place, and then distributed their letters. He found the practice prevailing when he began his apprenticeship in 1807. The population of the district thus accommodated was from 300,000 to 500,000. The practice was notorious, and used by all persons engaged in business. The object of a great deal of the correspondence was to convey orders, notes of inquiry, and other information to and from the small manufacturers, to whom it would be a tax of twenty-five per cent. on their earnings, if the letters were sent through the post-office at 4_d_. The letters were commonly wrapped up in brown paper, or tied with a string, some directed and some not. Very few persons thought about the practice being illegal. He had never heard of an attempt by the post-office to institute legal proceedings. It would absorb the whole revenue of the post-office to carry on the prosecutions that would be required to stop it, and without any effect, as most of the carriers were worth nothing. To suppress it by law, would be very injurious to the trade of the place. The only way to supersede it is to reduce the postage to 1_d_. Were this done, the post-office would be preferred, for its greater certainty, even though the carriers would go for a halfpenny. The post-office would unquestionably receive more money by the change.
“E. F.”, a manufacturer, described what he called the _free-packet_ system. Those manufacturers who did much business with London, in forwarding parcels through the stage coaches, were allowed by the coach proprietors to send a “free-packet,” without any charge, except 4_d_. for booking; and this package contained not only the letters and patterns of the house itself, but of others, who thus evade the postage.
“G. H.” had been a carrier, from a town in Scotland to other towns. There were six carriers, and they all carried letters, generally averaging fifty a day, and realizing from 6_s_. to 7_s_. per day, although there were four mails a-day running from the town. The business was kept in a manner secret. Reducing the postage to 2_d_. would not stop the practice, because the carriers would still take the letters for 1_d_.; but a penny postage would bring all the letters into the post-office, and then the post-office would beat the smuggler.
Mr. John Reid, of London, formerly an extensive bookseller in Glasgow said his house used to send out twenty to twenty-five letters a day, and scarcely ever through the post. Of 20,000 times of infringing the post-office laws, he was never caught but once, and then the government failed in proof, and he had the matter exposed as a grievance in the house of commons. He had seen a carrier in Glasgow have more than 300 letters at a time, which he delivered for 1_d_. Nearly all the correspondence between Glasgow and Paisley, was by carriers. There were 200 carriers came to Glasgow daily. There was as regular a system of exchanging bags, as in the post-office. There was not much attempt at concealment; sometimes we got frightened, and sometimes we laughed at the postmasters. Of his own letters, about one in twenty of those sent, and one in twelve of those received, passed through the post-office. The only way to put an end to the smuggling of letters was to remove the inducement. He said he could send letters to every town in Scotland. He could do it in more ways than one. He declined to state in what ways he would do it, because the disclosure would knock up some convenient modes he had of ending his own letters, and those of others. He said he would never use the post-office in an illegal manner, as by writing on newspapers and the like, because that would be dishonestly availing himself of the post-office, without paying for it. But he considered _he had a right to send his letters as he pleased_. He did not feel it his duty to acquiesce in a bad law, but thought every good man should set himself against a bad law, in order to get it repealed. Some of the methods of evading postage, practised in Scotland, are amusing. One was through what he called “family boxes.” When a student from the country comes to Glasgow to attend the college, he usually receives a box, once or twice a week, from his family, who send him cheese, meal, butter, cakes, &c., which come cheaper from the farm-house than he can purchase them in town. Probably, also, his clean linen comes in this way. The moment it was known that any family had a son at the university, the neighbors made a post-office of that farm-house.
The committee, in their report, concur in the opinion expressed by almost all the officers of the department, that it was not by stronger powers to be conferred by the legislature, nor by rigor in the exercise of those powers, that illicit conveyance could be suppressed. The post-office must be enabled _to recommend itself to the public mind_. It must secure to itself a virtual monopoly, by the greater security, expedition, punctuality, _and cheapness_, with which it does its work, than can be reached by any private enterprise.
With this nearly all the witnesses also agree, although some of them thought it possible that a less extreme reduction of the rate of postage might have kept out the private mails, if it had taken place earlier, before these illicit enterprises had obtained so firm a footing.
Lord Ashburton, who was examined before the committee, said that had a uniform rate of 2_d_., or even 3_d_. been adopted heretofore, most persons would sooner pay it than look out for the means of evading it.
Mr. Cobden, of Manchester, said a 6_d_. rate between Manchester and London would increase but slightly the number of letters, since the sending of letters clandestinely has become a trade, which would not be easily broken down. The railroads which are now opening to all parts of the country will so increase the facilities for smuggling, as _to counteract any reduction_ of from twenty to fifty per cent. on the postage. No small reduction will induce the people to write more. A reduction to one half of the present rates would certainly be a relief to his trade, as far as it went, that is, to all such as now pay the full rate; but he thinks it would not induce the poorer classes to use the post-office. It would occasion a loss to the revenue of fifty per cent.
Mr. W. Brown, merchant of Liverpool, was sure a reduction to half the present rates would give satisfaction to the public, but would not meet the question, and would not prevent smuggling.
I. J. Brewin, of Cirencester, one of the Society of Friends, considered the effect of a two penny rate would be, that the post-office would get the long jobs, but not the short ones.
Lieutenant F. W. Ellis, auditor of district unions in Suffolk, under the poor law commissioners, said that 2_d_. would not have the effect of 1_d_. in bringing correspondence to the post-office, because by carriers, and in other ways, letters are now conveyed for 1_d_.
The evidence seems to have produced a universal and settled conviction, that as far as the contraband conveyance of letters was an evil, either financial or social, there was no remedy for it but an absolute reduction of the postage to 1_d_. There were large portions of the country in which the government could control the postage at a higher rate, 2_d_. or even 3_d_.; but in the densely populated districts, where the greatest amount of correspondence arises, and where are also the greatest facilities for evading postage, no rate higher than 1_d_. would secure the whole correspondence to the mails. They therefore left the penal enactments just as they were, because they might be of some convenience in some cases. Mr. Hill declared his opinion that it would be perfectly safe to throw the business open to competition, for that the command of capital, and other advantages enjoyed by the post-office, would enable it to carry letters more cheaply and punctually _than can be done_ by private individuals. And the result shows that he was right; for the contraband carriage of letters is put down. The Companion to the British Almanac, for 1842, says, “The illicit transmission of letters, and the evasions practised under the old system to avoid postage, _have entirely ceased_.”
All this experience, and all these sound conclusions, are doubtless applicable in the United States, with the additional considerations, of the great extent of country, the limited powers of the government, the entire absence of an organized police, and the fact that the federal government is to so great a degree regarded as a stranger in the States. Shall a surveillance, which the British government has abandoned as impracticable, be seriously undertaken at this day by the congress of the United States?
III. _The Postage Law of 1845._
The Postage Act, passed March 3, 1845, which went into operation on the 1st of July of that year, was called forth by a determination to destroy the private mails; and this object gave character to the act as a whole. The reports of the postmaster-general, and of the post-office committees in both houses of congress, show that the end which was specially aimed at was to overthrow these mails. The Report of the House Committee, presented May 15, 1844, says:
“Events are in progress of fatal tendency to the post-office department, and its decay has commenced. Unless arrested by vigorous legislation, it must soon cease to exist as a self-sustaining institution, and either be cast on the treasury for support, or suffered to decline from year to year, till the system has become impotent and useless. The last annual report of the postmaster-general shows that, notwithstanding the heavy retrenchments he had made, the expenditures of the department for the year ending June 30, 1843, exceeded its income by the sum of $78,788. The decline of its revenue during that year was $250,321; and the investigations made into the operations of the current year, indicate a further and an increasing decline, at the rate of about $300,000 a year.”
“This illicit business has been some time struggling through its incipient stages; for it was not until the year commencing the 1st July, 1840, that it appears to have made a serious impression upon the revenues of the department. It has now assumed a bold and determined front, and dropped its disguises; opened offices for the reception of letters, and advertised the terms on which they will be despatched out of the mail.”
“The revenue for the year ending June 30, 1840, was $4,539,265; for the last year it was $4,295,925; and indications show that for the present year it will not be more than $3,995,925.”
“The number of chargeable letters in circulation, exclusive of dead letters, during the year ending June 30, 1840, may be assumed at 27,535,554. The annual number now reported to be in circulation, is 24,267,552. Thus, 3,268,000 letters a year and $543,340 of annual revenue, are the spoils taken from the mails by cupidity.”
The Report of the Senate Committee has this remark:
“We have seen in the outset that something _must_ be done; that the revenues of the department are rapidly falling off, and a remedy must in some way be found for this alarming evil, or the very consequences so much dreaded by some from the reduction proposed, will inevitably ensue; namely, a great curtailment of the service, or a heavy charge upon the national treasury for its necessary expenses. It is believed that in consequence of the disfavor with which the present rates and other regulations of this department are viewed, and the open violations of the laws before adverted to, that not more than, if as much as one half the correspondence of the country passes through the mails; the greater part being carried by private hands, or forwarded by means of the recently established private expresses, who perform the same service, at much less cost to the writers and recipients of letters than the national post-office. It seems to the committee to be impossible to believe that there are but twenty-four or twenty-seven millions of letters per year, forwarded to distant friends and correspondents in the United States, by a population of twenty millions of souls; whilst, at the same time, there are _two hundred and four millions_ and upwards of letters passing annually through the mails of Great Britain and Ireland, with a population of only about twenty-seven millions.”