TOPICS OF THE DAY.

OFFICIAL OPPOSITION TO ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM: THE POST-OFFICE.

IT is within the knowledge of every one who sends or receives aletter, that he is indebted for his cheapest convenience, and indeed the only convenience Government has ever bestowed upon him, to Mr. Row- LAND HILL ; whose invention, by which the Post-office was turned from an instrument of' heavy taxation accompanied by a stringent monopoly into a means of public utility even to the poorest, may rank among the first social improvements of the day. The man who pays any attention to passing events is aware that this dis- covery was carried into execution, and in a very short space of time, by the mere force of public opinion, operating without respect to party ; and indeed in despite of the hollow praise but real indifference of the Whig Government, the avowed objections of the Tory leaders, (many of whose followers were forced to support it,) and every art of influence and misrepresentation which the Post-office functionaries could put in practice. The same power that carried his plan carried Mr. ROWLAND Hum into office to see it fairly and faithfully executed, not merely in the change from a high to a low rate of postage, (which anybody could have done,) but in giving full effect to his invention; the very es- sence of which was, to consider the Post-office, not as a device for extorting money from the pockets of the people, but as a grand public engine for prompt, cheap, and rapid intercommunication. His assistance became the more necessary because it was obvious, that, after the determined opposition and the doleful prophecy of impossibilities by the Post-office authorities, every obstacle would be thrown in the way of working out the plan, and every means taken to deprive the public of its full benefit ;—whether by a series of petty obstacles harassing and inconvenient to individuals, or by doggedly persisting in old modes of carrying on the business, not adapted to the great changes that later years have witnessed in the means of locomotion, and still less to the change in correspondence which the Penny Postage has created; or lastly, by extravagant expenditure, and choking up the channels of profit, to entail a heavy loss upon the public, and make it appear that one of the sinister prophecies has been fulfilled. Although originally resisting the reform, the Whig Government, or at least their Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. BARING, would appear to have at last submitted with a good grace. The first engagement with Mr. HILL was for two years ; but, towards the conclusion of that term, Mr. BARING stated, in an official letter, "that he thought it would be of great advantage to continue Mr. HILL's services beyond the two years originally settled, but did not deem it expedient to make any engagement beyond one year." This was, ex necessitate, confirmed by Sir ROBERT PEEL'S Government on its accession to office ; but, whether from an old grudge in consequence of their defeat as an Opposition, or from sheer indifference, or from Post-office influence at the Trea- sury, a hostile animus to Mr. Him. and his plan was displayed. The Post-office people were permitted to thwart his views or spoil his suggestions. For example, Mr. HILL suggested that there should be a delivery in London every hour, instead of every alternate hour, or scarcely that : the Lord and Gentleman of the Post-office objected that this would puzzle the minds of the public ; and, to prevent such bewilderment, what do they do but make one additional delivery, and we believe at the least important hour of the day, with the obvious design of rendering the sugges- tion ridiculous if it were possible. In fine, the first opportunity was seized to get rid of Mr. HILL, notwithstanding the various unexamined improvements he had all along urged upon Mr. Gour..- BURN, his efforts to be permitted to carry his views into full ex- ecution, and an offer, with the true ardour of a discoverer, to serve without salary if he could only give effect to his views. This dis- missal gave rise at the time to many observations ; and several corre- spondents called upon us to take up the subject; but we replied, it was a case for Parliament. During the course of the present session, Mr. Herr has moved for papers on the subject ; and the current week has produced "Copies of any Correspondence which may have taken place relative to Mr. Rowland Hill's appointment to and removal from the situation recently filled by him in con- nexion with the Post-office—No. 119."

The first fact which suggests itself upon an examination of these papers is that of the suppressio veri. It is evident that much cor- respondence is kept back, which is necessary to a full understand- ing of the case ; and from a trifling circumstance it is clear that the Treasury people are aware of the power of the evidence they are suppressing. The first correspondence with Mr. GouLnuaN is dated in September 1841, the next in July 1842; leaving a gap of nearly ten months, during which letters are referred to as having passed between the parties. These letters are not given; but, in order to break the long gap as much as may be to the eye, a for- mal Treasury minute, dated in December, confirming Mr. HILL'S continuation for a year by Mr. BARING, and "authorizing the pay- ment of his salary," is stuffed in. Such are the petty arts and dirty frauds to which the officials of the day resort—and which seem to have infected every department, instead of the diplomatic being, as we thought, sui generis.

Putting aside the correspondence relative to Mr. HILL's ap- pointment under the Whig Government, and subordinate or formal documents, this return, such as it is, contains Mr. GouLurnm's let- ter announcing the termination of Mr. HiLL's appointment, with an elaborate answer by Mr. Him, referring to the original grounds of his appointment—to assist in " making the necessary alterations for the Penny Postage "; calling attention to various suggestions he has submitted to Mr. Gourtimix under letters of various dates ; recapitulating reasons why his superintendence is still needed to carry into effect the objects which Parliament and the public looked for from Postage Reform ; offering to leave the question of salary to be decided by Government at the termination of his la- bours, or to serve without any salary at all ; and enclosing a sche- dule of improvements still desirable. To this communication Mr. GOULDURN replied, civilly declining the proposal. Mr. HILL then appealed to Sir ROBERT PEEL, as First Lord of the Treasury : but the Premier, without inquiry, gave the matter the go-by, on a ground we shall notice presently. An exposition, by Mr. HILL, of Sir ROBERT'S mistake, closes the correspondence.

In considering the conduct of the Government in this mat- ter, Mr. HILL may be put out of the question. The feature of this case, and the point where we conceive the Government blameable, not merely in the fact but the principle involved in it, is the pe- culiarity of Mr. HILL'S position—the irresistible opinion of the public, the determination of Parliament, expressed against both the Ministers and the Opposition of the day, that his plan should be fully and fairly carried out. Mr. GOULBURN, indeed, thinks this accomplished— "So long as a Post-office shall continue," says he, "so long will opportunities present themselves of effecting important improvements, and the necessity arise of adapting the arrangements to the ever-changing circumstances of the times and country. But the retention of an independent officer for the pur- pose of conducting such improvements, would necessarily lead either to an entire supersession of those who are by their offices responsible for the manage- ment of the department, or to a conflict of authorities, highly prejudicial to the public interests."

That "so long as a Post-office," or any other office, "shall continue, so long will opportunities present themselves of effecting important improvements," may readily be admitted. Looking to the late Exchequer Bill forgeries with their enormous loss to the public, and to the smothered up Customhouse frauds involving losses still greater, it is probable that the people may not regard with the official horror of Mr. GOULBURN the "retention of an independent officer" who might check the scandalous neglect of "those who are by their offices responsible for the management of th department." But Mr. limes labours were not to be continued for any such purpose. He was appointed to his office to carry into effect a very striking improvement—putting the system of a national post in a totally new light, and involving extensive changes affecting the public convenience, and it may be said the public interest, to an unprecedented degree—it was, in fact, a Post-office revolution. Mr. HILL was not at the Treasury, nor does it appear that he wished to remain at the Treasury, to effect general improvements, but improvements essentially connected with his own plan. A Minis- ter should not only possess logic, but suppose it in others. Mr. GOULBURN indeed asserts that the principle [of the Penny Postage] is now thoroughly understood." If by this he means that the postage of prepaid letters only costs a penny, that principle was understood before Mr. HILL went to the Treasury, and even before Parliament enacted its establishment. But Mr. HILL affirms that the public benefits connected with his plan are not effected, and he calls for inquiry. This Mr. GOULBURN will nei- ther undertake nor grant ; this point Sir ROBERT PEEL evades ; this point we are not in a condition to affirm, and we make no doubt that the Post-office people will deny it. When, however, we recollect the gross ignorance both of the principles and details in their own department which these functionaries displayed be- fore the Committee of the House of Commons—when even in so simple a matter as the cost of a mail-journey to Edinburgh, they first of all lumped it at 51., then put it down at 4/. 8s. 7:1d., and at last could only make it 3/. 19s. 71d., we should pay little regard to any thing they said even upon their own accounts, much less upon a large future and untried plan, where their animus is no- torious.

Those who take an interest in the subject may refer to the Cor- respondence (Parliamentary Paper, No. 119) for the particulars of the improvements which Mr. HILL has pressed upon the at- tention of the Government. Some of them are of course minute, some matters of detail, and often dependent upon their cumula- tion and conjunction for effect. The following are the broadest and most generally convenient-

1. "An earlier delivery of London General Post letters ; an extension of the hours and enlargement of the means for posting late letters; and a much more Speedy circulation of the letters by the London District Post, to be effected by establishing more frequent collections and deliveries—making them hourly in London itself, &c. &c.

2. "An increase in the allowance of weight, say to two ounces for a penny, in all District Posts.

3. "The completion of the system of London day-mails. 4. " More frequent despatches between large towns, by means of the or- dinary mid-day railway trains. 5. " Conveniences for the transmission, at extra charge, of prints, maps, and other similar articles.

6. " The relaxation of the present restrictions as to weight.

7. " The establishment of a Parcel Post, at reduced rates, similar in some respects to the Bangby Post in the East Indies.

8. "Increased facilities to foreign nations for the transmission of letters through this country. 9. " A cheap system of Registration. 10. "Receipts (for a small fee) to be given, if required, on posting a letter."

In addition:to which, Mr. Him. proposes various economical alter- ations, producing increased efficiency and increased receipts. The gain from all the sources combined he estimates in his letter to Sir ROBERT PEEL by "hundreds of thousands of pounds." And he adds-

" Under these circumstances, I beg to reiterate the offer which I made to the Chancellor of the Exchequer in July last. I am perfectly ready, without salary, and without claim to future remuneration, to give my best aid, in such form as it may please her Majesty's Government to accept it, to carry my plan into full operation ; my only conditions being, that power and opportunity be afforded me to make my exertions effective. " In conclusion, permit me to state, that I am fully prepared with irresistible evidence to prove every part of this statement : and I respectfully await the honour of your commando to attend you at any time and any place, for the purpose of laying before you, in all such detail as your avocations will permit, the proofs upon which this statement is founded."

To the matter of this, and much more, Sir ROBERT PEEL gives no reply, Beyond saying that he agrees with Mr. GouLnuars- " I am bound to state to you, that I entirely concur in the opinion ex- pressed by Mr. Goulburn on the 11th August, that the continued employment

of an independent officer for the purposes for which it is urged by you, would necessarily lead to the entire supersession of those who are by their offices re- sponsible for the management of the Post-office department, or to a conflict of authority highly prejudicial to the public service.

" I entertain a due sense of the motives by which your conduct in respect to Post-office arrangements has been actuated, and of the zeal and fidelity with

which you have discharged the duties committed to you. I cannot doubt that there are still improvements in those arrangements to be effected; but I must presume that they can be effected through the intervention of the regularly- constituted and the responsible authority, namely the Postmaster-General, acting under the superintendence and control of the Board of Treasury."

As this was an excuse not strictly accurate, Mr. HILL thus re- joins, in his final letter-

., In closing this painful correspondence with the Treasury, permit me, Sir, to make one observation with the hope of removing from your mind the impression

that I sought to be reinstated in an office which must impede the public service by introducing a conflict of powers in the administration of the Post- office.

"I would beg respectfully to call to your recollection, that the Post-office is not only under the general control of the Treasury, but acts with regard to matters of importance under its immediate and specific directions ; and that my suggestions being addressed to the superior authority, could not create any col- lision between the Post-office and myself. When they were rejected by the Treasury, I have always submitted, as it was my duty to do, with implicit defer-

ence; when, on the other hand, they were adopted, they became of course the orders of the Board, to which the authorities of the Post-office were equally

bound to defer. This arrangement, which is, I submit, in exact conformity

with the long-established practice defining the subordinate functions of the Post-office, was the one directed by the terms of my appointment ; and ae

long as such an arrangement is faithfully observed or duly enforced, it would appear that no danger can exist of the evil arising to which reference is made." Had Mr. HILL not been restrained by his position and limited by his subject, he might have gone much further in exposing the more

than fallacy of the Premier. So far from Mr. HILI:s position (which Sir ROBERT does not seem to have troubled himself to un- derstand) being an anomaly, it is the business of the officers of the Treasury, of which he was then one, to be ever controlling the other departments. It is what they are paid for, and, from all we have ever been able to learn, about the only thing they have to do. It may be true that every department is independent within its own limits, just as a drill-sergeant is independent in teaching the awk- ward squad : but, as he must teach them by a prescribed method and within certain boundaries, so it is with the Government de- partments. The Army, the Navy, the Ordnance, cannot touch a sliver of the money Parliament has voted them, till they have been to the Treasury people ; if the revenue departments want to do any thing that they have not been in the habit of doing regularly, they must go to the Treasury ; does anybody demur to the decision of their Board, the appeal (Lord help him!) is to the Treasury; the Audit Office, dominant from its very nature over all other de- partments, is only dominant per regulation—does an obstacle exist or an improvement offer, they go to the Treasury ; nay, the Ex- chequer itself; whose essential nature it is to check all the other departments, and which is constituted to withstand, upon fitting oc- casion, the Treasury and all its "Lords," can only exercise its func- tions in defined forms which have been approved of by the Trea- sury. If Sir ROBERT PEEL answered Mr. HILL without inquiring into the accuracies of the case, "it is bad," as the Orientals say; but it is worse if he affected ignorance as a safer cloak to mis- statement.

From all we are able to see of the subject, Mr. GOULBURN is chargeable with a total neglect of his public duty, and of the public convenience, in reference to the Post-office. He succeeded in per- sonifying nothingness. He would neither do nor inquire himself, nor would he let it be done by others. Sir ROBERT PEEL is chargeable, as Prime Minister, with having refused to entertain an inquiry in which the public money and the public convenience were concerned, and with having, as First Lord of the Treasury, refused an investi- gation into matters mooted within his own department, which, as head of that department, it was his bounden business to have done. Both Sir ROBERT PEEL and Mr. GOULBURN, as well as all the Treasury tribe, seem to have entirely misconceived the circum- stances of the case and of Mr. limes position. He was not a spe- culator or adventurer asking for the trial of some unknown project

or panacea, but a man placed in office by the public voice to carry into full effect a great public discovery. The present Ministers did not even place him there; they found him there. The people carried ROWLAND HILL into office before they carrried Rona= PEEL.

The case of PEEL and the Post-office is bad in itself, but it is worse for what it suggests. However men differed about

the politics of the Premier, they generally agreed that he was a man of business ; that his will, at all events, was with administra- tive improvements ; and that, supposing him to possess the power, he would not be deterred by sloth or mere official prejudices from carrying out practical reforms in public departments. But this prestige is somewhat shaken by the prentice-like working of the In- come-tax, and, in the case before us, by the supreme indifference— the slothful reliance on subordinates—in a measure of departmental improvement directly bearing upon public advantage. It was re- marked by WINDHAM that PITT was chiefly excellent as a House of Commons man,—looking rather to the effects of his measures in statement than to their results in actual operation : and the course of Sir ROBERT PEEL in office may almost induce a similar conclu- sion; for the working of the Income-tax was any thing but skilful, and neither of his " prescriptions " have yet had any per- ceptible effect upon the health of his patient. But there is a fur- ther and larger conclusion : gross as was the ignorance displayed by the Post-office people of their own department before the Com- mittee of Parliament, and dogged as is their resistance to improve- ment, we must remember that they have been subjected to a series of very searching scrutinies, and that they come into contact with the major part of the public on every occasion. But if examination shows the probability of great improvements for the public interest here, what is likely to be the case in departments of which nothing is known but by astounding results ? Upwards of a quarter of a million of the public money has been lost in the Exchequer : yet who doubts but that, a week before the discovery, "the regu- larly-constituted authority," as Sir ROBERT has it, would have made oath to the perfection of the department ? Pecuniary frauds to a greater though to an unknown extent, and with the connivance of the functionaries, have taken place at the Customs, involving what is worse than a mere loss of money— the derangement of business, the underselling of the fair dealer by the smuggler colleagued with the authorities, the damage to his character, the loss of his custom, and perhaps the loss of bread : yet any of "the regularly-constituted authorities" at the Customhouse would, before the thing was found out, have been ready with an affidavit of "all right here ; " just as the Treasury or Post-office "regularly-constituted authorities" will pledge their salvation as to their department being "one entire and perfect chrysolite," now Mr. HILL is out of the way. But we believe that there is ample room for an extensive administrative reform, con- ducive alike to the public gain and the public convenience, in all the departments ; not by dismissing some poor clerks and compelling other poor devils to do their work in addition to their own, but by simplification of the business to be done, and by a thorough revision of the whole system of doing it. If the Liberals, when in power, had spent more of their time in attending to the business of government, so as to have mastered the minutim and details of the offices, here would have been a field for their ex- ertions. But this is idle !—had they attended to Practical Mea- sures, Sir ROBERT PEEL would have been in opposition, not they. Fa,s eat ab hoste doceri.