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

But I like best this story of Rowland Hill in the evening of his days, after he had retired from the Post Office. It is pleasant to think of him still absorbed in the subject which had made his name a household word. His daughter, in her biography of him, tells us that whenever he met any foreign visitors, he was bound sooner or later to ask them about postal matters in their own country. He met Garibaldi at a banquet, and the inevitable question was put to him, but Sir Rowland could not work up any interest on the part of the Italian statesman in the matter. Sir Rowland complained to his brother of his disappointment in Garibaldi; he evidently thought him an over-rated man, especially in the matter of intelligence, and the brother replied, “When you go to heaven I foresee that you will stop at the gate to inquire of St. Peter how many deliveries they have a day, and how the expense of postal communication between heaven and the other place is defrayed.” It was of course this absorption in his subject which gave him the victory. Penny Postage was probably inevitable, even if there had been no Rowland Hill in this country. Railways alone made a change in the postal service necessary, but it is to the lasting credit of Sir Rowland that he obtained the reform years before it would otherwise have been achieved. He carried the reform by assault, and the nation might have waited long years before the vested interests in the old system had given way to the needs of the nation. “Loss to the revenue” was the argument chiefly directed against Sir Rowland Hill's scheme: it is the argument still used when further concessions are asked for by the public. The reply that the Post Office exists for the convenience of the public is not always appreciated by the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the time being. He looks to the Post Office to provide him annually with a substantial sum of money. Perhaps the complete vindication of Sir Rowland Hill lies in the fact that roughly speaking the whole of the annual surplus from the Post Office at the present day is derived from the writer of the penny inland letter.