Post Office Reform: Its Importance and Practicability

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Charles Knight and Company, 1837 - Civil service - 104 pages
In this pamphlet Hill sets out his ideas for the penny post.
 

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Page 14 - ... be made proportionate to the whole expense incurred in the receipt, transit and delivery of the letter, and in the collection of its postage, it must be made uniformly the same from every post-town to every other post-town in the United Kingdom, unless it could be shown how we are to collect so small a sum as the thirty-sixth part of a penny.
Page 14 - Edinburgh, would be twopence plus one thirty-sixth part of a penny. Now, as the letters taken from London to Edinburgh are undoubtedly carried much more than an average distance, it follows, that when the charge for the receipt and delivery of the letter is determined, an additional charge of one thirty-sixth part of a penny would amply repay the expense of transit. If, therefore...
Page 14 - ... sympathies ; a man of philosophical ingenuity, who could devise a remedial scheme ; and a man of business, who could fortify such a scheme with an impregnable accuracy, to achieve such a reform. The man was among us, and the thing is done.
Page 5 - ... of the many cheap and excellent non-political publications of the present day, the Post Office assumes the new and important character of a powerful engine of civilization ; capable of performing a distinguished part in the great work of National education, but rendered feeble and inefficient by erroneous financial arrangements.
Page 5 - ... usually practised by those whose interests are involved in their success. But the law constitutes the Post Office a monopoly. Its conductors are, therefore, uninfluenced by the ordinary motives to enterprize and good management ; and however injudiciously the institution may be conducted, however inadequate it may be to the growing wants of the nation, the people must submit to the inconvenience; they cannot set up a Post Office for themselves.
Page 68 - China trade, has fallen by about one-sixth, has increased in consumption by almost a half. The consumption of silk goods, which, subsequently to the year 1823, have fallen in price by about onefifth, has more than doubled. The consumption of coffee, the price of which, subsequently to 1823, has fallen about one-fourth, has more than tripled. And the consumption of cotton goods, the price of which, during the last twenty years, has fallen by nearly onehalf, has in the same time been fourfolded.
Page 5 - The loss to the revenue is, however, far from being the most serious of the injuries inflicted on society by the high rates of postage. When it is considered how much the religious, moral, and intellectual progress of the people would be accelerated by the unobstructed circulation of letters, and of the many cheap and excellent non-political publications of the present day, the Post Office assumes the new and Important character of a powerful engine of civilization; capable of performing a distinguished...
Page 41 - ... letter written at St. Albans after the close of the Post Office on Friday night, would not be delivered at Gravesend, a distance of little more than forty miles, earlier than Tuesday morning. The extent to which personal intercourse takes place between London and the district within a circuit often miles, that is to say, between the places of business and the homes of thousands of professional men and tradesmen, is shown by the continued current of stage-coaches and other carriages along every...
Page 15 - Again, the expenses of receipt and delivery are not much affected by the weight of each letter, within moderate limits ; and, as it would take a ninefold weight...
Page 40 - Office has for many years been a model of excellence. It would here be out of place to enter into a general investigation of the defective system of the Post Office, I may, however, be allowed to mention a few facts. About 6000 of the letters which arrive in London by the morning mails, on their way to other towns, lie all day at the Post Office for want of a morning dispatch, although there are excellent morning coaches from London to every part of the kingdom. [Eighteenth Report of the Commissioners...

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