§ MR. RICH,who had given notice of his intention to move a Resolution condemning the order of the Postmaster General which made the prepayment of all inland letters compulsory said, he was happy to know that the Government had withdrawn their obnoxious order with regard to the inland letters; therefore on that point he had not a word to say. But the attention of the public had been much roused on this question, and it was found there were some fixed principles as to the conduct of a Post Office, from which that establishment had departed most widely. They had forgotten that the convenience of the Post Office was quite secondary to the interests of the public; in fact, that the Post Office was made for the public, not the public for the Post Office. A still weightier forgetfulness was of the reverence due to the sanctity of the seal of every letter that passed through the Post; no letter should be opened unless in case of sheer necessity—a necessity not growing out of the rules of the establishment, but from circumstances entirely external to it. The order with regard to home letters, which so grossly sinned against this principle, had been rescinded, but the Colonies still suffered under the same infliction. The public was not so much interested in what affected the colonial and foreign as in what touched its home letters; but the Government should not inflict on the Colonies an injury to which we would not submit ourselves. Foreign and colonial letters were often written at the last moment, and if by accident a stamp were omitted or displaced, then a fortnight, or even a month, was frequently lost. He hoped the Government would take the regulations affecting these letters into consideration. It had reverted to the old successful and practical system of enforcing double payment for unstamped letters at home, why not adopt the same rule for letters to the Colonies? The responsibility for these 1477 matters rested entirely with the Government; alterations of the postage could only be made by the formal authority of the Treasury; it was not fair to throw the blame on Mr. Rowland Hill. The House attached the responsibility to the heads and not to the subordinates. He, therefore, thought Mr. Rowland Hill had been very unfairly dealt with by being put forward as a kind of scape-goat in this matter. In conclusion he would move his Resolution, merely to bring himself within the forms of the House, leaving it then to drop or not, as the House might desire; for he had no wish to pursue the matter further at present. His Resolution was as follows:—
That while this House will support measures for the correction of any abuses of the privilege of transmitting letters through the post without previous payment, and for the gradual restraint of the practice itself, yet it considers that the Order by the Postmaster General of the 27th day of January last, under the authority of a Treasury Warrant of the 29th day of January last, which absolutely deprives the public of this privilege, by directing that all home letters posted after the 10th day of February last, and not prepaid, shall be opened at the Post Office and returned to the writers, will expose individuals to serious inconvenience and injury; and further, that the compulsory prepayment of foreign and colonial letters, under like penalties, requires revision.
§ The Motion not being seconded, the matter dropped.