POST-OFFICE REFORM IN PRUSSIA.

IT may at first appear strange that the English should be inte- rested not only in a London Post-office appointment, but in the appointment of a Postmaster-General at Berlin. We suspect, however, that the reader will find it to be so by the time- he has arrived at the end of the following communication. It is from a writer on the spot, who may be fully trusted on the score of honesty, intelligence, and sound information.

" The appointment of the successor to the deceased Postmaster-General at Berlin, Baron Nagler, is looked forward to with considerable anxiety in Prussia, and, indeed, in all Germany. The success of the experiment tried in England, and the various disclosures, making it apparent that a thorough reform in the British Post-office administration would have caused the new system to be still more successful than it is, have naturally not been lost upon our neighbours. The people flatters itself everywhere with the hope of a cheap and improved mode of conveying intelligence. The Governments find encouragement to comply with the popular wish in the prospect of an increase of revenue. It required all the obstinacy of a crea- • for Of a system that was thirty years ago considered unequalled on the Continent, to keep from Prussia all the benefit that cheap postage would have conferred upon the country for many years back. Perhaps it was excusable that a functionary who had laboriously collected all the requi- . site materials for the present extended post-conveyance for passengers, letters, and parcels, should he loth to sacrifice two branches of the depart- .,nsent to a gigantic development of the third. At present, the army of Post- date officials is insufficient for the demand on their exertions. A change

that would treble or quadruple the delivery of letters would leave neither time nor hands for parcels, which then would be abandoned to private exertion—to the great advantage of the public. The conveyance of passen- gers at Government expense, in the face of multiplying railroads and steam- boats, is too palpable an absurdity to be defended, and would be much better accomplished by free competitors; who, as in England, might also contract to carry the mail. The Post-office reform wanted in Germany would thus leave no stone untouched of the fabric on which the deceased Minister rested his fame. The present is a favourable opportunity for im- proving so important a branch of the administration as the Post-office is; and it is no less favourable for advances on the part of Foreign Powers. The complaint which an English Minister might well make at Berlin,.

would embrace many details besides letters. The rate of postage of letters in Prussia is very high. Money remittances are heavily charged; and the Government offers in return no security for loss arising from the negligence or the misconduct of officials. More rapid modes of conveying intelli- gence are everywhere practicable, but are not urged by the Postmaster- General on his subordinates. Where such exist they are not even used.

The rapid steamers on the Rhine, that take but seven hours to reach Co- logne from Mayence, carry no mail-bag. The mail crawls over the same distance along the river's bank in twenty-four hours. An express leaving Frankfort at twelve o'clock can be at Cologne by seven. But here again the Post-office does not demand a train of the railroad companies

from Cologne to the sea, travelling by night. Were the mail thus for- warded, letters written on a Monday forenoon at Frankfort might be de- livered in London on the Tuesday; a matter of no small importance in the conveyance of the Indian mail.

" Again, the tremendous postage charged upon foreign newspapers amounts to, what is perhaps wished and obtained, a complete prohibition.

Even Galignanis Messenger, with its trifling Parisian stamp, and almost postage-free in France, can scarcely make head against the German charges. English newspapers are practically exclude&

" It is so much the fashion for foreign embassies to out all travelling Englishmen of mean rank, and to vote their complaints and demands for assistance an intolerable bore, that a further remonstrance respecting the

bodily treatment experienced at the hands of the Post officials by her Ma- jesty's lieges may scarcely be deemed weighty enough to find attention at Down-

ing Street or at Berlin. Still, the Prussian post may be presumed accessible to the 'idea' that it would not be a bad thing to encourage the increase of tra- vellers who are vulgar enough to use the public vehicles of the countries

they visit, and that some attention to their health and comfort would act as a recommendation. One great abuse at present is, the insisting upon the delivery of passengers, like goods, at the Post-office. In the most rainy

season, when the thermometer is at 12° or when the Rhenish sun, taking

advantage of the absence of water-carts and want of ventilation in towns, has raised it to 90° in the shade, the passenger, be he corpulent or wasted to a skeleton, gouty, rheumatic, consumptive, lame, or blind, must drive up to the General Post-office; where the door of the diligence is unlocked, and he must find his way, the best he can, through mud, dust, dung, wind, rain, or snow, as it may be, to the house or the hotel which he passed perhaps a quarter of an hour before. The time the postilion lost in getting round his horn and blowing his prescribed tune might have served to save some plethoric or asthmatic passenger from half suffocation, or to prolong the life of one suffering from consumption some months or perhaps years."

The importance of ready communication, in person or by letter, with all foreign countries, would never be more emphatically recognized than at a time when England has taken the initiative in setting trade fully free—has thrown her bread upon the waters We have, indeed, no doubt that mutual intelligence, whether commercial or political, will eventually force its way throughout Europe ; but it is imperatively needful for mercantile prosperity that it should flow as soon and as freely as possible, without the restraints of antiquated obstruction. It is no less necessary for the maintenance and development of those influences, in all countries, which produce good order. The government of a state always lies in the hands of that section or party which possesses the greatest amount of available worldly and political knowledge : when a still greater amount of such knowledge is acquired by some other section of the people, that other section seizes the staff of power : the transfer is gently effected, when the superseded party is fully cognizant of the fact that its title and tenure have de- parted ; violently, when the superseded party contests the trans- fer; but in either case the change is revolution. The progress of

the nation is concerned in the acquisition of social and political knowledge; the safety and efficiency of the governing section is i

concerned in keeping the start in the race, and especially in se- curing such free play to the natural workings of change as shall prevent sudden and violent revulsions. England—all Europe—is deeply concerned in keeping open the channels of trade ; all Europe, but Prussia most especially, in smoothing the channel for that opinion which cannot be dammed out.