CHAPTER V

AT THE TREASURY

To any one disposed to belief in omens it would seem that the beginning of Rowland Hill's connection with the Treasury augured ill for its continuance. Even the letter which invited him to office went near to miss reaching its destination.

He had left town for a brief rest after the strenuous work of the close upon three years' struggle for postal reform, leaving strict orders at the South Australian Office that if any communication from the Government intended for him arrived there it should be forwarded without delay. The document did arrive, but was laid aside to await the wanderer's return because it bore in the left-hand corner what seemed to be the signature of a then well-known man connected with Australian affairs who, at the meetings of the Association, was much given to bestow on its members much unsought advice and worthless criticism; and was therefore, by unanimous consent, voted an insufferable bore. However, when a messenger came from the Treasury to ask why no notice had been taken of a letter from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the alarmed clerk on duty hastened to send on the belated dispatch, wrapped up as a brown paper parcel, by railway, as being, to his mind, the most expeditious, apparently because most novel mode of conveyance. But parcels by rail made slower progress in those days than in these; and when at last this one reached its destination its date was hardly of the newest.

The first interview with the Chancellor of the Exchequer was scarcely satisfactory, but through no fault of Mr Baring, who was but the mouthpiece of the Cabinet. The Government, as we have seen, offered a temporary (two years') engagement to a man already provided with steady employment, and therefore in a fairly good financial position, as things were then accounted; required him to devote his whole time to the public service; and to this temporary engagement proposed to attach the salary of a head clerk. This, too, to a man who, with the help of thousands of supporters of every class, had just inaugurated an epoch-making reform destined to confer lasting benefit on his own country and on the entire civilised world; who was on the wrong side of forty; and who had a wife and young children to support. The offer—however intended—could only be described as shabby; and the fact that during the interview the amount of emolument was twice increased suggested a hard-bargain-driving transaction rather than a discussion between friendly negotiators. We have also seen that in 1837 Rowland Hill, through his friend Mr Villiers, offered to make a present to the Government of his plan—willing, because he was convinced of its soundness and workability, to let them have the full credit of its introduction, but stipulating that if the gift were refused he should refer his proposals to the Press, and to the country—a gift the Government had not the courage to accept. It is therefore clear that monetary greed found no place in my father's temperament, but only the dread which every prudent husband and father must feel when confronted with the prospect, in two years' time and at the age of forty-six, of recommencing the arduous battle of life.

He told Mr Baring that while he was willing to give his services gratuitously, or to postpone the question of remuneration till the new system should have had adequate trial, it would be impossible for him to enter on such an undertaking were he placed on a footing inferior to that of the Secretary to the Post Office—a necessary stipulation if the reformer was to have full power to carry his plan into operation. He was well aware that the post officials viewed it and him with unfriendly eyes; and his anxiety was not diminished by the knowledge that his reform would be developed under another roof than that of the Treasury, and by the very men who had pronounced the measure revolutionary, preposterous, wild, visionary, absurd, clumsy, and impracticable. His opponents had prophesied that the plan would fail; and as Matthew Davenport Hill, when writing of this subject, wittily and wisely said: “I hold in great awe prophets who may have the means of assisting in the fulfilment of their own predictions.” It was therefore imperative that Rowland Hill's position should be a well-defined one, and he himself be placed on an equality with the principal executive officer among those with whose habits and prejudices he was bound to interfere. The labour would be heavy, and the conditions were unusual. He must try to turn enemies still smarting under the bitterness of defeat into allies willing as well as able to help on the reform they detested; and to persuade them not to place obstacles in its way. The innovations to be made would be numerous, because, while reduction of postage and modes of prepayment formed the principal features of the plan, they were far from being the only features. The projected increase of facilities for transmitting letters, etc., would cause an immense amount of extra work; and as in this matter he would have to contend with the Post Office almost single-handed, nothing would be easier than for its head officials to raise plausible objections by the score to every proposal made. Nor could the public, who had now secured cheap postage and an easier mode of paying for it—to superficial eyes the only part of the plan worth fighting for—be henceforth relied upon to give the reformer that support which was necessary to carry out other important details; the less so as the reformer would be debarred from appealing for outside help or sympathy, because, when once the official doorways are passed, a man's independence is lost, and his lips are perforce sealed.

The interview was brought to a close by Rowland Hill telling Mr Baring that before returning a definite answer he must consult his friends; and that as his eldest brother was away on circuit at Leicester, and he proposed to start at once for that town to seek fraternal advice, three days must elapse before the matter could be settled.

He found his brother lying on a couch in a state of exhaustion after a very hard day's work, and Rowland proposed to delay discussion of the question till the following day. But Matthew would not hear of this; and, getting more and more moved as the younger man proceeded with his tale, presently sprang upright, and, oblivious of fatigue, threw himself with ardour into the subject of the offered appointment. After a while, Matthew proposed to write a letter on his own account to Rowland, which the latter should hand to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. This was done the next day, the younger brother writing to the elder's dictation; and the letter is given at full length in my father's “Life” and in my brother's “The Post Office of Fifty Years Ago.” In Matthew's own clear and eloquent language—for he was as admirable a writer as he was a speaker—are expressed the views enunciated above, which Rowland had already laid before Mr Baring at the interview just described.

Before the Chancellor of the Exchequer and my father met again the former wrote him a letter explanatory of the course of conduct to be adopted on his engagement at the Treasury, stating, among other things, that free access to the Post Office, and every facility of enquiry as to the arrangements made would be given, but that all “your communications will be to the Treasury, from which any directions to the Post Office will be issued; and you will not exercise any direct authority, or give any immediate orders to the officers of the Post Office.” The explanation was said to be given “to prevent future misunderstanding”; and this was doubtless the euphonious mode of expressing apprehension of a state of things which, in view of the well-known hostility of St Martin's-le-Grand, the writer felt was likely to arise; and again mention was made of the condition that “the employment is considered as temporary, and not to give a _claim_ to continued employment in office at the termination of those two years.”[126]

The prospect was scarcely satisfactory; nevertheless, my father hoped that by the end of his term of engagement, and by unceasing effort on his part, he might find himself “in a recognised position, in direct communication with persons of high authority, and entrusted with powers which, however weak and limited in the outset, seemed, if discreetly used, not unlikely in due time to acquire strength and durability. I was far from supposing that the attainment of my post was the attainment of my object. The obstacles, numerous and formidable, which had been indicated in my brother's letter had all, I felt, a real existence; while others were sure to appear of which, as yet, I knew little or nothing. Still, I felt no way daunted, but, relying at once on the efficiency of my plan, I felt confident of succeeding in the end.”[127]

The goal at which Rowland Hill aimed was, as he told Mr Baring at this second interview, the permanent headship—as distinguished from the political headship—of the Post Office, then filled by Colonel Maberly:[128] the only position in which the reformer could really acquire that authority which was essential to the development of his plan. But the Fates were stronger even than one strong-willed man; and Colonel Maberly held the post for fifteen years longer. Thus, when the helm came at last into Rowland Hill's hands, he was long past middle life; and his years of almost unrestricted influence were destined to be but few.

Further encouragement to accept the present position was given by Mr Baring's friendly, sympathetic attitude; and it should here be recorded that the longer Rowland Hill served under his chief the more cordial grew the relations between them. Ample proof of this confidence was seen in the Chancellor of the Exchequer's increased readiness to adopt suggestions from the new official, and to leave to him the decision on not a few questions of importance.

On the first day of my father's appointment he accompanied Mr Baring to the Post Office, that being the first time the reformer had set foot within its portals. He was much interested in the different processes at work, such as date-stamping, “taxing”—the latter destined soon, happily, to be abolished—sorting, etc. But the building, which had been erected at great expense only ten years previously, struck him as too small for the business carried on in it; badly planned, badly ventilated, and deficient in sanitary arrangements—a monument to the fatuity alike of architect and builder. This discovery led him to think of practicable alterations in the existing edifice and of devolution in the shape of erection of district offices; and by Mr Baring's wish he drew up a paper giving his views in detail, and including with his proposals that necessary accompaniment of amalgamation into one force of the two corps of letter-carriers, the general and the “twopenny post” men, which has already been alluded to. But this greatly needed measure was, perforce, deferred till after Colonel Maberly's retirement.

In order the better to get through as much of his projected work as he could accomplish in the twice twelvemonths before him, my father rose daily at six, and after an early breakfast set off for the Treasury, where at first his appearance at an hour when many officials were probably only beginning to rise caused considerable astonishment, and where he stayed as long as he could. If even under these circumstances the progress made seemed slow and unsatisfactory to the man longing to behold his scheme adopted in its entirety, how much worse would not the reform have fared had he kept strictly to the hours prescribed by official custom!

A few weeks after his acceptance of office, and at Mr Baring's suggestion, he visited Paris to inspect the postal system there. He found it in many respects well ahead of our own. In France the old system never weighed so heavily upon the people as did our own old system upon us. The charges were about two-thirds of our own for corresponding distances, but the number of a letter's enclosures was not taken into consideration, the postage varying according to weight. Though Paris was much smaller than London, its post offices were more numerous than ours, being 246 against our 237. There was a sort of book post, a parcel post for valuables of small dimensions at a commission paid of 5 per cent.—the Post Office, in case of loss, indemnifying the loser to the extent of the value of the article; and a money order system so far in advance of our own that the French people sent more than double as much money through the post as we