The Committee on Post-offices and Post-roads has endeavored to discharge that duty with care and fairness, and it has arrived unanimously at the conclusion that the time has come for reducing the present rates of telegraphing and making them uniform, and that to the extent of the plan contained in the first ten sections of the bill this may be done without injustice to existing companies, and especially without injustice to the principal existing company, which is known to have enjoyed, over a long period of time, an income enormously disproportioned to any investment of capital which it has made.

POSTAL TELEGRAPH.

Speech delivered in the Senate of the United States, January 14, 1884, the Senate having under consideration the bill (S. 227) to establish a system of postal telegraphs in the United States.

MR. PRESIDENT: In the history of governments it has sometimes happened that functions first exercised by rulers for the sole purpose of extending and maintaining their power have become converted into instruments for the benefit and service of the people. To subdue and keep in subjection the provinces of the Roman Empire Europe was covered with military roads, which were afterward used as avenues of commerce and friendly intercourse between the descendants of the conquerors and conquered. Lines of couriers established to bear along these roads messages of emperors and military commanders were gradually superseded by systems of postal communication, in whose benefits the subject was permitted to share. In the course of time, as trade and intercourse developed, the share of the governed in the benefits of these systems became more and more important and that of the rulers comparatively more insignificant. For a time the privilege of carrying on the postal service was granted to the court favorites or farmed out for purposes of revenue. But these monopolies have long since been abolished, and civilized governments have everywhere themselves undertaken the service. In performing it they mainly act as agents of society, for the promotion of its happiness and prosperity, and not for their own aggrandizement. Even the direct raising of revenue is no longer a prime object, but only an incident of the service. The limits of political boundaries which confine the other functions of government have been by mutual consent broken over by the postal system, and it is now operating as a mighty force to bind together in amity the nations of the world. Upon governments

considered as mere instruments for the preservation of the peace the effect of cheap and frequent postal communication has been to bring the people into closer relations, thus diminishing the chances of foreign and domestic troubles, and at the same time to make more easy the maintenance of their ordinary powers by stimulating and giving greater play to the productive forces from which the revenues to support these powers must be provided.

But who shall say what the effect has been upon the people themselves in their social and commercial relations? In anticipating the result of the introduction of the penny post in England Mr. O'Connell declared in Parliament that it would be impossible to exaggerate its benefits, and even if it would not pay the expenses of the post-office, he held that the Government ought to make the sacrifice for the purpose of facilitating communication. Viscount Sandon insisted that the post-office was not a proper source of revenue, but ought to be used for the purpose of stimulating other sources of Mr. Goulburn admitted that it would ultimately increase the wealth and prosperity of the country. Sir Robert Peel said that great social and commercial advantages would arise from the change independent of financial consid ́erations, and Mr. Wallace described it as one of the greatest boons that could be conferred on the human race. Ashburton, speaking of a high-rate postage, said:

revenue.

Lord

I think it is one of the worst taxes. We have, unfortunately, many taxes which have an injurious tendency, but I think few, if any, have so injurious a tendency as the tax upon the communication of letters. And again:

It is, in fact, taxing the conversation of people who live at a distance from each other.

You might as well tax words spoken upon the Royal Exchange as the communications of various persons living in Manchester, Liverpool, and London. You cannot do it without checking the disposition to communicate very essentially.

In describing the results of the reform, after its accomplishment, the following picture was drawn by Senator Sumner in debate in this body:

The smallest part of the result was in the revenue, except so far as this was advanced by the increased activity of the country, represented by the added millions of correspondence. Commerce and business were quickened infinitely, while the ties of social life were brightened and the heart was rejoiced. Here the testimony is complete. Tradesmen wrote to Rowland Hill, their benefactor, saying how their business had increased. Charles Knight, the eminent publisher, who did so much for the literature of the people, wrote that every branch of bookselling was stimulated, while the country seller was brought into daily communication with the London houses. The publisher of the polyglot Bible, in twenty-four languages, requiring a peculiar revision, declared that it could not have been printed but for penny postage. The Secretary of the Parker Society, composed of church dignitaries and intelligent laymen, which has done so much for ecclesiastical literature by reprinting the works of early English reformers, stated that without penny postage the society could not have come into existence. Secretaries of other societies, literary and benevolent, wrote how their machinery had been improved; conductors of educational establishments testified that people were everywhere learning to write for the first time, in order to enjoy the benefits of untaxed correspondence, and that night classes of adults for this purpose were springing up in all large towns.

A leading advocate for the repeal of the corn laws gave it as his opinion that this reform must have waited but for penny postage; that through this ally it reached its triumph two years earlier than it otherwise could have done. All this is easy to believe; for penny postage lends itself to all knowledge and to every reform. Others wrote with rapture of its operations. The accomplished naturalist Professor Henslow, of Oxford, rejoiced over "its importance to those who cultivate science," and pictured the satisfaction of the humble people about his country parsonage "at the facility they enjoy of now corresponding with relatives," together with what he calls the "vast domestic comfort which the penny postage added to homes like his own." Miss Martineau declared the social advantages that were assured in her neighborhood. Rowland Hill himself, showing how much it had done for the poor, said "the postman has now to make long rounds through humble districts where heretofore his knock was rarely heard." And from the outlying Shetland Islands a visitor reported: "The Zetlanders are delighted with cheap postage. The postmaster told me that the increase in the number of letters was astonishing." But, perhaps, the heartfelt exultation was never better expressed than by the accomplished traveler, Mr. Laing, when, after describing the Prussian system of education, and giving the palm to penny postage as "a much wiser and more effective educational measure," destined to be "the great historical distinction of the reign of Victoria," he proceeds to say that "every mother in the kingdom who has children earning their bread at a distance lays her

head upon her pillow at night with a feeling of gratitude for this blessing." (Laing's Notes of a Traveler, chap. vi.) Such was the unbought tribute from all quarters-alike the cottage of the lowly and the home of the professor, the counting-house of the merchant, and the activities of benevolence, business in its various forms, and the commanding efforts of the political reformer, all, all, confessing their debt to penny postage.

The increase of correspondence in Great Britain by the cheapening of postage was enormous. In 1840 (the first year) the number of letters more than doubled, and in 1856 the number of letters had grown to 778,393,803, and that of money orders to 6,178,982, as against 75,907,572 letters and 188,921 money orders in the last year of the old system. In 1882 the letters numbered 1,229,354,800 and the money orders 14,880,821. In addition to this, 10,902,318 registered letters, 135,329 postal cards, 140,789,100 newspapers, and 271,038,700 book packages and circulars were carried by the mail in the United Kingdom. The number of letters per capita is shown by the report of the British Postmaster-General to have increased from three in 1839 to seven in 1840, twenty-eight in 1872, and thirty-five in 1882.

While the increase of revenue was the result least considered when the reform was under consideration, yet the predictions of Mr. Cobden and of Rowland Hill in that regard were fully realized.

The net receipts of the British post-office had reached $6,000,000 in 1856 and in 1882 over $15,000,000. Yet it was of a reform which has produced such beneficent results that a noble lord, then Postmaster-General, said in anticipation:

Of all the wild and visionary schemes I have ever heard of it is the most extravagant.

In the United States the benefits derived from successive reductions of the postal rate have been not less astonishing. Prior to 1845 the rates for single letters were graded by distances as follows:

Not exceeding 30 miles, 6 cents.

Over 30 and not exceeding 80 miles, 10 cents.

Over 80 and not exceeding 150 miles, 123 cents.