Her Majesty's Mails

We cannot enter far into the minutiæ of the Committee's deliberations. Mr. Hill endeavoured to show that economy in the management of the Post-Office had been neglected. The number of clerks and letter-carriers which had sufficed for the complex system that had been superseded, must more than suffice for the work of the Office under his simplified arrangements: yet no reduction had been made. Economy, he said, had been neglected in the way contracts had been let; in the manner railway companies were remunerated for carrying mails. He computed that the sum of 10,000l. a-year had been paid to these companies for space in the trains that had never been occupied. He also endeavoured to show that the salaries of nearly all the postmasters in the country needed revision; that the establishments of each should also be revised. The changes under the new system, taken together with the changes which railways had made, had had the effect of increasing the work of some offices, but greatly decreasing that of many more. He proposed that there should be a complete revision of work and wages; that postmasters should be paid on fixed salaries; and that all perquisites, with the exception of a poundage on the sale of postage-stamps, should be given up. Late-letter fees had, up to the year 1840, been received by the postmasters themselves. Under the Penny Postage Act, however, these fees went to the revenue, and compensation, at a certain fixed rate, was granted to the postmasters in lieu of them. Mr. Hill stated that the amount of compensation granted was generally too much, and was to be accounted for on the ground that the postmasters had, in all the cases, made their own returns.