Her Majesty's Mails

Though all these improvements were being carried out, and in many respects the Post-Office was showing signs of progression, the authorities still clung with a most unreasonable tenacity to the accustomed rates of postage, and of necessity to all the evils which followed in the train of an erroneous fiscal principle. Contrary to all experience in any other department, the Government obstinately refused to listen for a moment to any plan for the reduction of postage rates, or, what is still more remarkable, even to the alleviation of burdens caused directly by the official arrangements of the period. For example, Colonel Maberly had no sooner learnt the business of his office, than he saw very clearly an anomaly which pressed heavily in some cases, and was felt in all. He at once made a proposition to the Treasury that letters should be charged in all cases according to the exact distance between the places where a letter was posted and where delivered, and not according to the distance through which the Post-Office, for purposes of its own, might choose to send such letters. It may serve to show the extent to which this strange and anomalous practice was carried, if we state that the estimated reduction in the postal revenue, had Colonel Maberly's suggestion been acted upon, was given at no less than 80,000l. annually! The Lords of the Treasury promptly refused the concession.