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I have ascertained that in 1885-6 there was remitted from Australia to England through the Post Office in small Money Orders sent by no less than 100,000 poor persons a sum of 346,645/., that is, an average of nearly 37. 10s. Od. each; and, in addition to this, a further amount of nearly 500,000l. was remitted in small sums through the Colonial Banks. A large proportion of this money consists of savings sent home by emigrants to their struggling relatives. I have not taken into account the sum of 21,000/. contributed last year through the Agents General of Queensland, New South Wales, and Tasmania, by Australians, towards the cost of assisted passages for their friends and relatives in England. I know as a fact that more than five times this sum has been sent privately to bring out the remitter's relatives to Australia. (Since these calculations were made, the Board of Trade has embodied in its emigration returns for 1886 some remarkable figures regarding the same subject and obtained by somewhat similar means to those I employed. These show that, between 1848 and 1886, no less than 32,294,5901. was remitted by settlers in the United States and British North America to their friends in the United Kingdom, the annual average now reaching to more than a million and a quarter sterling; and that from Australia and other places there has been remitted since 1875 the sum of 688,7901. at a rate considerably exceeding 50,000l. a year.) For each letter 6. has to be paid, whereas I have shown that the letter can be carried at a handsome profit for a penny. It is my solemn and unaltered conviction that the continuance of this monstrous carrying tax of 500 per cent. on the self-denial, thrift, and affection of poor servant girls and farmers' boys, and the rest of the humble class of emigrants, would be nothing less than a national disgrace. (For con- venience of reference I herewith append an index to the series of letters of which this forms the conclusion.)

I have, &c. (Signed)

36, Eaton Square, London, 1st March 1887.

SIR,

J. HENNIKER HEATON.

THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL to MR. HENNIKER HETON, M.P.

General Post Office, London, March 17.

THE Postmaster-General desires me to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 1st instant, which, together with your previous letters on the subject of " penny postage," he has very carefully considered.

Imperial

At the outset I am to say that Mr. Raikes yields to no one in the desire to promote by every means the union and good feeling which bind England and her colonies together. and that he thinks a reasonable reduction in the cost of communication between the different parts of the Empire is a subject which is well worth the attentive examination not only of England but also of her colonies.

He hopes, therefore, that you will understand that any criticism of your opinions is directed rather to throw full light on the question than to disparage the idea of cheaper postage.

Your contention apparently is that (1) An Imperial ocean penny postage is wanted; (2) that it is practicable; (3) that it would be self-supporting.

As regards the general desire for such a post, it may be taken for granted that, as a rule, anything that is cheap is popular provided it is efficient, but it is the duty of those who, like the Postmaster-General, are in responsible positions to see that this important qualification is kept in view.

As regards practicability, it is necessary to consider treaty obligations and the question as it affects the colonies themselves.

Those parts of the British dominions which are included in the Postal Union constitute not one but several Union States-i.e., States which have separately given adhesion to the universal Postal Union.

Under the International Convention of 1878 the rate of postage between any two countries in the Union cannot be less than 25 centimes (about 24d. more or less according to currency).

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The colonies themselves are all alike interested in the homeward rates, which in most cases they retain, and many of them are interested in the outward rates, so far as the postage collected is divided between them and the British Post Office.

Your letters are silent on the subject of the reduction of postage from the colonies, but the Postmaster-General apprehends that this is hardly less important to the public than reduction to the colonies.

A penny post could not be made applicable to all parts of the British Empire, but even if it could the proposition that it would be on the whole self-supporting is one which requires very close examination; and Mr. Raikes regrets to say that a careful scrutiny of the ground upon which you base the theory leads him to an opposite

conclusion.

He cannot admit that letters can be compared with freight, or be treated in all respects like freight.

Parliament has recognised the fact that letters have to be conveyed under special and peculiar conditions, a point which is illustrated by the power vested by law in the Postmaster-General to pay gratuities per separate letter (and not according to bulk or weight) to the masters of vessels for ship mails intrusted to their care.

It is on this very power that you appear to rely in a great degree in arguing for the abolition of subsidies, but in fact it only applies to such vessels as may be leaving ports in the United Kingdom, and could not be used for mails going from Brindisi, Naples, or other foreign port to British possessions in the East. Hence, even if it were desirable to strain the power in question to the uttermost, it could only be made available so far as the East is concerned for the less rapid communication by the long sea route through the Straits of Gibraltar, while it would not help the Post Office in any case to obtain a regular service with fixed days and hours of departure in exact correspondence with the various land services utilized for the conveyance of mails.

Too much importance cannot be attached to regularity and speed in the delivery of letters, and the experience of the Post Office shows that the mercantile and other classes will not permit such considerations to be sacrificed.

This brings me to the important subject of subsidies, and to the methods by which you propose to cheapen the cost of conveyance.

Briefly, you propose either to sweep away all subsidies and use the statutory powers of the Postmaster-General to compel the masters of ships to carry nails cheaply, or, if subsidies still be necessary, to charge the expense or some of it to some department of the Government other than the Post Office, a transfer which certainly would not afford any relief to the taxpayer.

Mr. Raikes readily admite that, wherever competition in the carrying trade is sufficiently active to afford the facilities required, the Government should avail itself of that circumstance to enable it to dispense with postal subsidies; but in the absence of such activity it becomes an absolute necessity to grant subsidies in order to insure regularity and speed, and even, in some cases, the existence of any means of postal com- munication.

These cases can only be dealt with on their merits as they arise; and it is of no great importance, from the revenue point of view, whether, in the case of a subsidy being paid, the grounds on which it is paid are set forth as Imperial or postal, or whether the money comes out of one vote or another.

Under any circumstances it must come out of one purse, and be provided by the taxpayer, and it is for Parliament to decide how far that section of the letter-writing public which communicates with the Colonies should be relieved of the cost of their correspondence at the expense of those taxpayers who write no colonial letters.

The present plan has, at all events, the advantage of charging a certain sum to those persons who get the quid pro quo.

In regard to distance, Mr. Raikes cannot accept the view that long distance occasions little, if any, increase in the cost of the carriage of letters by sea.

It is evident that if regularity and speed are to be maintained--and this is what the Post Office really pays for-the element of distance is an important consideration to the owner of the steamer.

To satisfy the demands of the public in these respects the vessel must not only carry sufficient supplies of coal, but also be expressly constructed with that view.

To illustrate this I may mention that in a recent casc a demand of the Post Office for an increase of speed of not more than three-quarters of a knot an hour was declined on the ground that the steamship company concerned would have been compelled to build an entire new fleet to meet the requirement.

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