The post office and its story an interesting account of the activities of a great government department

The theory of those opposed to the Postmaster-General undertaking directly the business, was that the money used by the country postmasters in the business was not the public revenue, but money which they had received as agents for the Clerks of the Roads in their newspaper business. The scheme came into operation on 1st October 1792, and the limit of a Money Order was fixed at £5, 5s., and the commission charged was at first 6d. in the £1, of which the payee contributed half. The commission was reduced in 1793 to 4d. for Orders to and from London, while it remained at 6d. between country towns. Subsequently the commission rose to 8d. in the £1 for all Orders, in addition to stamp duty. Over and above the commission on the Orders and the stamp duty the persons making use of them were obliged to pay the high postage of double letters, as the packet would contain both a letter and a Money Order. This was felt to be such a burden that in 1837 the Orders were printed at the top of a large sheet of paper on which a letter might be written, and the whole might pass for a single postage. The capital embarked originally in the Money Order business by the Clerks of the Roads was £1000, and it does not seem to have been, even with the countenance of the Post Office, a paying concern, for in 1798 the Clerks of the Roads abandoned it, their loss on the six years' trading being £298. Three of the clerks, however, continued the business as a private speculation, and the anomaly of the arrangement came in for a great deal of adverse criticism. At last, in 1829, a Commission reported that they entirely disapproved of such a concern being carried on by private persons for their own profit, and they recommended “that its management should be directly controlled by proper officers of the Department, and that the produce be appropriated to the Revenue.” It was nine years, however, after the Commission reported before the Postmaster-General was able to act on the suggestion, and to compensate the officers whose vested interests in the business had to be considered.