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Maps, plates, charts, etc., may be filmed at different reduction ratios. Those too large to be entirely included in one exposure are filmed beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to right and top to bottom, as many frames as required. The following diagrams illustrate the method: Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent 6tre f ilmte it des taux de reduction diff fronts. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour Atre reproduit en un seul cllchA, II est filmA A partir de Tangle supiriaur gauch«). de gauche A droite. et de haut en has. en prenant le nombre d'images nicessaire. Les diagrammes auivant^ illustrent la mithode. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 3 re (y^ou^^'h A^4H^Mu ]/f^ Z — '■ PRICE SIXPENCE. Unifoi^ni Impei'ia! postage: AN ENQUIRY AND A PROPOSAL, WITH AN Introductory Letter to Sir DANIEL COOPER, Bart, G.C.M.G. y-*-. -.."-"--. V'.-'--'-"---.'\-'v>"- rjT.'w\^'\^'uch a looting as would at once mark the unity of the Emp^'re and hf^lp to ensure its permanence. Uniform Imj-er'al j.^. stage is not, indeed, any more an actual part vr- necessarv .-ondition precedent of Imperial Federation in its stricJy political sense, than is the Commercial Union of the Empire which, in one form or another, is just now so much advocated. But, like Commercial Union (the attainment of which in almost any form is surrounded by such enormous difficulties), Uniform Imperial Postage workl undoubtedly tend very strongly towards that National Unity, the completion and maintenance of which is the aim of the Imperial Federation League. Of the telegraphic branch of our communications I do not here speak. Imperial considerations enter into that side of the matter also ; but the circumstances and conditions are so entirely different that the two cannot be treated together. The League has, through its Postal Committee, kept the subject of Uniform Imperial Postage before the Govern- ments and the public both at home and in the Colonies, v/hile in Canada the matter has been specifically brought before the Dominion Government by the League there. The work of the London committee has borne fruit in the action taken, upon its suggestions and recommendations, by a great number of Chambers of Commerce and other bodies of like nature. The subject has also received due attention in the Journal of the League, where many of the 4 UNIFOIiM IMPERIAL WSTAGE. points brought out in the paper which accompanies this letter have already, at different times, found expression. A contribution to the discussion containing valuable sta- tistical and other matter was also made in August of last year in the form of a supplement to the Journal by Mr. Henniker Heaton, M.P., who has devoted so much study to postal affairs, and to whom every subsequent worker in the same field owes so much for the valuable official in- formation and statistics he has elicited. Nevertheless, it is felt by some active members of the League — yourself, who have always shown so much interest in this branch of our work, among others— that something more might usefully be written on the subject ; something fuller than is appro- priate to the reports of the Postal Committee or to the columns of Imperial Federation ; something, also, written more distinctively from the standpoint of the League than any of the statements promulgated by Mr. Heaton, whose postal principles are by no means identical with those which, as I understand them, underlie the poUcy of the League. There are special reasons for bringing the matter forward again in this manner at the present moment. The reductions in Colonial Postage brought into effect on the first day of the present year, while an unquestioned boon so far as they go, involve nevertheless an insidious element of danger to the cause of Imperial Postage. The identity of the letter-rate with that of the Postal Union was too significant not to excite suspicion in those whose aim is a uniform rate of postage throughout the Empire within and without the United Kingdom. The authorities at the Post Office and the Treasury felt the time to have come when the former exorbitant rates must be given up ; but they apparently decided that the International Postal Union should form the basis of the Imperial Postal system of the future, outside the United Kingdom. These fears have only too soon been justified. The Australasian and South African Colonies, which are the principal groups that have hitherto stood outside the Postal Union, have been pressed by the English Postmaster-General to be repre- sented by delegates at the forthcoming qui'.iquennial con- INTIiODUCTOllY LETTER. 5 ference of that Union shortly to be held in Vienna, in the hope that now, when the rates have — by such a fortunate coincidence — been assimilated, those Colonies should con- form to the International Convention. And there is ground to apprehend that at length — after four more than the "twelve years of persistent pressure" to this end referred to at the Imperial Conference in 1887 — they will now accede to the wishes of the central office. The efi'ect would obviously be to strengthen the hold of the Postal Union upon the communications of the Empire, and so to intensify and prolong the subordination of Imperial interests to an international organisation. The time requires therefore that we should now put forward, with what strength we may, the considerations which in our view justify the establishment of a truly Imperial system of Postal Communications, and the grounds upon which accordingly it is so eminently undesirable that any step should be taken militating against this policy. The accompanying paper is a humble endeavour to put before the public the case for a Uniform Imperial Postage ; by which I mean nothing less than the extension of the inland rates current in the United Kingdom to the whole British Empire. Responsibility for the contents of the paper rests with the writer alone. At the same time, I have, as you are aware, had the benefit while writing this pamphlet of learning the opinions of other individual members of the League who have devoted special attention to the subject. In conclusion, I may perhaps be permitted to take t^^is opportunity of placing on record the obliga- tion which the League is under to yourself for the material assistance rendered by you in bringing this subjtu before the public ; and I desire also to express my own acknow- ledgments of the advantage I have derived in the prepara- tion of this pamphlet from valued suggestions and criticisms by yourself, Mr. W. M. Acworth, Mr. H. 0. Arnold- Forster, and others. I am, Yours very truly, ROBERT J. EEADON. (JNIFORM IMPERIAL POSTAGE. I. THE TUATION. The question of Postal OomLiunication between the United Kingdom and the over-sea countries in the British Empire has developed since the Iniperial Conference of 1857 with more rapidity than at that time appeared probable, '''he subject was not really adequately discussed at thr- v\.n- ference, and, partly from lack of special knov.iedge on the part of many of the delegates, partly also, it is to be feared, from the absence of any very generally felt desire for reform, the promise of any immediate practical result did not appear hopeful. The more or less desultory dis- cussions that then took place led at the time ^o little more than a languid assent to the principle that cheaper postage was a good thing in the abstract — only it cost money. Nevertheless, that much, and still more, probably, the information published in the Conference Blue Books and subsequent!}^ digested at leisure by those whom they concerned, have borne fruit later, and the state of things to-day is vastly more favourable than it was four years ago. It is unneces!sa,i.y perhaps to recall the exorbitant rates of postage and tlie hundred-and-one anomalies that existed until only the other day. It seems scarcely credible that (disregarding the unimportant concession made two years ago of a slightly cheaper alternative route to Australasia and South Africa) we went on patiently, until some tliree months ago, paying fivepence for the half- ounce letter to India, the Straits, Hong Kong and other Colonies and Dependencies in the East, and sixpence to South Africa and Australasia ; while all the time the 8 UNIFORM IMPERIAL POSTAGE. French and the Germans were in the enjoyment of a 2^d. rate to the same places and to others even more remote by the same routes and even by the same ships. It was time indeed that an end should have been put to a state of things so discreditable to our administration of Postal affairs, calculated, as it was, to estrange those whom it is desirable on every ground, political, material and social, to keep and bind together, and especially militating against the growth of trade between different portions of the Empire, by means not only of the absolute hindrance to correspondence of high charges, but by reason of the relatively superior position accorded to commercial rivals on the continent of Europe. We have now at length been placed in some respects on an equal footing with our hitherto more favoured competi- tors ; but the same considerations as to the encouragement of trade afford an argument for placing British commerce, at home and in the Colonies, upon a more favoured footing than its foreign rivals, and so helping to swell the volume of the trade done within the bounds of the Empire — a trade the profits of which accrue on both sides to British Com- munities instead of, as in the case of foreign trade, the profits on one side only. If this can be effected without injustice to public or private interests lying outside com- merce, it is surely an oLject worth striving for. Tlie element of personal correspondence also is one that must not be lost sight of. Opportunities of frequent communi- cation afforded by cheap rates cannot but tend to keep up among the scattered branches of our race that sense of being all " of the same community," upon which Lord Carrington on a recent occasion laid so much stress. Still more is this feeling likely to be encouraged by making communication within the Empire more easy than with outside countries, just because it is the Empire. That is bhe principle we want to see acted upon in establishing a cheap and uniform system of Imperial Postage — cheap as compared with the system applicable to the outside world and uniform, because the Empire is a unit and all the people in it one community. Before passing from these general considerations, there THE SITUATION. is one particular point of much practical importance inti- mately connected with this view of the case — it is the postage upon newspapers and certain other analogous forms of postal matter. A newspaper has a double claim to consideration ; it constitutes a form of corre- spondence between persons living apart, as well as being, of course, the great channel of public information ; and it serves, in respect of its advertising columns, as a means of commercial progress. On grounds of public policy, news- papers containing mercantile advertisements should be en- couraged as much as possible. But what do we find ? We find on the contrary their distribution discouraged in two ways — firstly, by high and ill-graduated rates ; and secondly, by the actual exclusion, so far as it lies in the power of the Post Office, of the very class of prints that public policy would especially favour as of the chief com- mercial service. In Canada, as well as in some of the Australian Colonies, newspapers are transmitted at much lower rates than obtain in Grreat Britain, and in some cases actually free. Newspapers published in Canada are carried to their subscribers free — not only in the Dominion but in the United States and Newfoundland, while a pound weight can be mailed thence to the United Kingdom at a cost of one cent. Compare this with the charge in the other direction, hence to Canada, of the same sum of one halfpenny (or one cent) for every two ounces of a news- paper's weight ; so that it would cost fourpence to send to Canada the same weight of newspapers as come thence to us for one halfpenny. Again, it costs a penny to send a newspaper, however light, to the Cape or any of the Australian Colonies ; and if the weight exceeds four ounces, the rate jumps at once to twopence. In addition, there are all manner of regula- tions as to collected numbers of a paper, folding, enclosures, marks or writing, etc., of which an unfortunate newspaper has to run the gauntlet, culminating in what has been well called the " time-trap " — that is, the regulation insisting upon postage within eight days of publication inclusive. Is it any wonder that in the face of these rates the most valuable part of the paper (the advertisement sheet) often UNIFORM IMPERIAL POSTAGE. gets cut off to save postage? or that under the various regulations affecting newspapers the Post Office gets a large quantity of postages for papers that it incontinently confiscates for falling into its own ingeniousiy-laid traps ? And this is not all. Tor transmission abroad, prices current and market reports may be registered as news- papers, as well as such prints as come within the general definition as consisting " wholly or in great part of political or other news, or of articles relating thereto or to other current topics, with or without advertisements." But private price lists and trade catalogues are expressly ex- cluded by the regulations ; and trade journals, consisting as they necessarily do in chief part of such matter and of advertisements, are constantly excluded likewise, being neither prices current and market reports, nor coming always within the definition of a newspaper, as consisting wholly or in great part of news. For example, the Book^ sel/e?' is a trade journal, dealing, as its name implies, with a business devoted to the diffusion of knowledge. Com- mercial interests apart, in the interests of the spread of knowledge generally this particular publication is entitled to the highest consideration ; and doably so in the in- terests of knowledge flowing from a British source in competition with the flood of perverted teaching, historical, political, and social, that pours through the Colonies from the American press subject to no such disabilities. But if the Boohdler, or any similar publication, oversteps by ever so little an arbitrary line regulating the proportion of advertisements to news, the whole issue is confiscated. Yet it is by means of price lists and trade catalogues, and by trade journals and other such vehicles of advertising, that British merchants are able to hold the markets of the world, and, not least, of the British Empire itself with which we are here concerned. A great step, it is admitted, has been in some respects gained by the new rates introduced by the Government in 1890, into the enjoyment of which we entered last New Year's Day. And that reform involved something more than the mere reduction of postage to India and the Colonies. It involved a recognition, in a certain sense, of THE SITUATION. 11 the Imperial idea— of the desirability of facilitating postal communication within the Empire as such. It involved also the recognition of two important principles hitherto not only not recognised but vehemently combated by English governments. One of these is the application of the growing Post Office sujplus to increasing the postal facilities of the public instead of applying it in relief of general taxation. The other is the right of Colonial correspondence to share with that within the United Kingdom in the benefit of such increased facilities. Mr. Goschen had been as stiff as any of his predecessors in resisting the first of these; while Mr. Eaikes, almost up to the very day before the concession was announced in the Budget speech of 1890, had been firing off batteries of arguments to prove the logical and practical justice of excluding Colonial and Indian correspondence from parti- cipation in any reductions or increased facilities that might be going. The recognition of these principles is a great gain, but it yet remains to carry them out to ^heir con- sistent and legitimate conclusion — a conclusion legitimate and consistent not only on theoretical but also on practical grounds. What that is and why it is so, and how it can be reached with due regard to all interests concerned and to the dictates of reasonable workaday commonsense — for there is no need to take a high stand on abstract right alone or to rely on arguments that, how^ever logically unimpeachable, would fail to commend themselves to the wisdom of business men — it is to these questions that we have to try and give a satisfactory answer. RESUME OF SECTION I. Cheapness and other facilities of postal communication within the Empire are vastly important on political, material, and social gn nds. Existing rates of postage within the Empire are obstructive of cheap and ready communication. This is especially the case as regards newspapers and other vehicles of commercial advertisements. 19. UNIFORM niPEEIAL POSTAGE. A great step was gained by the reduction of rates effected on New Year's l)ay, 1891. That step was something more than a mere reduction in rates, which was in itself advantageous as far as it went. It involved some important principles. One of them was the partial recognition of the Empire as a unit to be dealt with. Another, the application of fresh surplus to giving increased facilities instead of its being appropriated as revenue. The third was the right of correspondence to the Colonies to share with inland in the benefits so obtained. 11. WHAT IS WATTTED, "'That is wanted is, in lialf a dozen words, a cheap and uniform rrte of postage throughout the Erapiro. And by " the Empire " is here always to be understood the whole Empire. Many people, when they speak of the Empire, are thinking only of those portions of it that lie over sea. The expression has come to be often used as a compen- dious way of saying " the colonies and dependencies," and so it stands for the Empire with its most important part left out. " Empire " and "Imperial " in these pages refer to the whole of Her Majesty's dominions, those within as well as those without the United Kingdom. I'ifty years ago a cheap and uniform rate of postage was established throughout Great Britain and Ireland. Since that time the developments in the "expansion of England " have rendered necessary, and immensely in- creased means of locomotion have rendered possible, the extension of the system adopted in 1840 within tho four seas to the larger area now embraced within the dominions of the Queen, and peopled by her subjects. It is a common- place to say that many over-sea portions of the Empire are practically nearer to London, and the most distant scarcely further off than were Connemara, Sutherlandshire, or the Orkneys only a couple of generations ago. Steam and mechanical science have not quite "annihilated time and space;" but they have so enormously increased our means of overcoming them, especially upon the ocean, that to have one system of communications, or, to come to the point, one rate of postage, for the whole of the United Kingdom and another outside, is an anachronism. The line so drawn has ceased to square with modern facts. Can it be supposed, for instance, that it costs less to get a letter from London conveyed to and delivered in the Orkneys or Shetlands tban in Montreal? There is no occasion to enter into elaborate calculations based upon the dues paid I A UNIFORM IMPS RIAL POSTAGE. by the Post Office to the Sco':ch steamship companies and the number of letters carried (even if that were obtainable) to arrive at the answer, that, so far from costing less, it must cost considerably more. The figures that follow will be sufficient for the purpose. The contracts for the con- veyance of mails in 1889-90 between the following places were: — Aberdeen and Lerwick, £2,200; Scrabster and IStromness, £2,000; Liverpool and Isle of Man, £4,500; Stornoway and Stromeferry, £2,250 ; Greenock, Eothesay, and Ardrishaig, £2,045 ; Portree, Lochmaddy, and Dun- vegan, £1,550. The total packet service to these and other over-sea portions of the United Kingdom cost £125,331. That to the United States and Canada stood at £85,000. The relative amount of mail matter carried cannot be ascer- tained, but may be safely left to the imagination of the reader. And yet, because Ardrishaig and Dunvegan and the Isle of Lewis are within the circle of what fifty years ago was practically, so far as population counts, almost the whole " realm," inhabited by British-born subjects of Her Majesty, letters are delivered there and brought thence for one penny, while the rate to Canada is still two and a-half times that amount for letters of half the weight ; or, weight for weight, five times as much. That there are other parts of the Empire to which it must always cost more to send a letter than to even the most outlying parts of the United Kingdom is possible, though the number of such places is not large, and their import- ance less. But that does not affect the present argument, which is, that the existing system involves a cross-division and is, under modern conditions of transit, an unfair and unjustifiable one. The time has come for revising our postal geography. The horizon of the Post Office vision needs to be extended, and the great historical fact recog- nised that " Britain " is a world-wide Empire, and that that Empire is a unit. The whole of the territories occupied by the British people form a single political empire ; and therefore logically and practically they must be regarded as a single group, exactly as, fifty years ago, the whole of the United Kingdom, places within a mile of St. Martin's-le-(irand, and the furthermost hamlet WHAT IS WANTED. 15 on the north-west const of Ireland or the islands of Scot- land, were brought into a single group and all placed under one postal system and one rate of postage. This is the one fundamental principle to be recognised, that communication with all parts of the Empire ought to be treated as a branch of internal, not of external, Post Office management. At present, the "Foreign and Colonial Mails" form a class together as disting'jished from "Inland Mails," a phrase covering all mails within the United Kingdom, whether their carriage be actually "inland," or by coast-wise packet service. This classifica- tion was natural enough, no doubt, geographically. And, as regards some routes, and particularly some special services along those routes, such as the trans-continental railway service for the quick eastern mail and the Mediterranean connections, it may not at anytime be possible to sever the foreign from the colonial (or as we prefer to say, " Im- perial ") element, so far as regards the conveyance of the mails ; but a distinction can perfectly well be made in the postage charge nevertheless. Such cases apart, the classification we contend for is one based on the distinc- tion, not between internal and external in a geographical sense, from the point of view of England, but between the same words in their political signification — meaning, by "internal," "within the Empire," and by "external" meaning " foreign "—we would, in short, divide our postal system as we divide many other things into " British " on the one side, and " foreign" on the other. We want the Post Office to take up once more the principles which guided Rowland Hill to the Penny Post throughout the United Kingdom, and apply them on the larger scale denifinded by the existing conditions of Her Majesty's dominions. As a part, though not a necessary part, of this system, may be suggested the adoption of a uniform Imperial stamp, available for postage between all and any portions of the Empire. Such a stamp need not oust from its pride of place the inland stamp of any part of the Empire, where a special device, such as the emu or the centennial device of New South Wales, or the graceful Western 16 UNIFORM IMPERIAL POSTAGE. Australian swan, is clierished as racy of tlie soil. Jiut the adoption of a stani]) common to all Her Majesty's dominions for purposes of intercommunication, 'would serve to mark, in an emphatic and practical way, the unity of the Empire. Such a stamp could be printed whe-^ver issued, upon a uniform design, changing only the name of the country of origin, and where, as in Canada, there is a different currency, the denomination.* When Eowlaud Hill decided to make the postage the same for a letter to Scotland as for one to the next street in London, his calculation was based not only upon the large proportion of total cost assignable to termir.il charges, but upon a general principle of "making the good pay for the bad." The millions of letters collected and delivered in London and other large centres at a high profit ma'ie up for those delivered at great distances and^in outlying parts at little or no profit and often at a con- siderable loss. This principle is still confined to the United Kingdom. It should be extended to the Empire. There is o valid reason why a correspondent in Hamp- shire writing to a third cousin in the Isle of Skye about a terrier should have part of the cost of his letter paid out of the profit made by the Post Office on London letters, while another writing from Sussex to his brother in Australia has to pay the whole cost of his letter, and, as shall be shown by and by, a great deal more than its real cost. Sauce for the Hampshire goose should be sauce for the Sussex gander. Admit the principle, as it has been admitted since 1840, of "taking the rough with the smooth," and there is no just ground for drawing a ring- fence round the United Kingdom and applying the prin- ciple there and there only. A somewhat plausible objection to the extension to Colonial mails of the principle of making the good pay for the bad is that " wiiatever may be the case in individual instances, there can be no doubf that, taken throughout, postages over these long distances must cost a * The ilosisn for such a stamp, sliowii (in forms applicable to countries whoro tlu> coinage cliftVrs) on the outsid > of this pamphlet, is suggested as appropriate to its Imperial character. ' WHAT IS WANTED. 17 considerable amount more tl.an a corresponding quantity ot postages at home ; that tlie question is one of deo-ree and that when the difference is very great it is fair^and reasonable to draw a line." ^ That, under existing arrangements, the difference may m some cases be considerable, is very likely true; and, in order to brmg the cost in such cases more nearly to the level of the inland post, fundamental changes will have to be effected in these arrangements. In many instances, on the other hand, the inland cost can hardly be exceeded • while in others again, as shown above, the cost o*' lo-called inland letters must far exceed the average of i.xc ocean- borne mails. What is contended is that, even thoucrh loss accrue to the Post Office revenue, provided that the loss be brought by administrative reform within the narrowest attainable limits, correspondence with distant parts of the Lmpire is entitled as a matter of right, and, on g.ounds of public policy, ought to be placed on the same footincr as that within the United Kingdom and treated as a part of that rather than as a part of the foreign corresoondence of the country. This contention rests on Imperial grounds It remains, under the present head, to say a few words if mdeeu any woi-ds at all are wanted, as to the general desira- bility of cheap^postal communication throughout theEmpire. Ihe utility of the measure from the commercial point of view has already been glanced at, and may be safely left to speak for itself in the appreciation of a commercial people such as we are. But the ordinary social and personal class ot correspondence, though its necessities rest upon less demonstrably utilitarian grounds, is nevertheless entitled to consideration for reasons in the long run as practical as those which may be taken to be admitted in reo-ard to strictly commercial affliirs. All those who desire'^to see the unity of the Empire maintained— and in these days there are few who do not— must recognise that facilities of intercommunication constitute one of the most important means towards this end. And the unity of the Empire IS coming to be very widely recognised, as it has always been recognised by the Imperial Federation League, as p,ot a mere sentimental idea, but as the fundamentaf condition B 18 UNIFORM niTERIAL VOSTAGE. of material prosperity and of political stroiiirth and develop- ment. The 7'imes\ and other leading daily papers hotli in London and the provinces, did not fail to pointy this moral on the occasion of the Postal Jubilee. The J^co/io- vmt too— a paper not wont to be led away by sentiment from a strictly prosaic view of facts and figures— had some remarks on that occasion which will bear repeating. It said * : " Perhaps, however, the greatest boon which the Department could bestow would be the inauguration of a penny postage throughout the Empire. At first this sounds an impossibility, unless we cire prepared to expend a vast sum of money in making up the loss that would occur owing to the adoption of such a step. In reality, however, it is no more absurd than Rowland Hill's original proposal. Of the political advantages of an Imperial Penny Postage, '76 Lave no space to speak. It may be said, however, that such a link between the various portions of the Empire would be worth three hundred years of agitation by the Imperial Federation League in making the English-speak- ing countries feel the importance of their common in- terests." The Economist would have been glad to know that some portion of that over-long life which it assigns to the agitation of the Imperial Federation League had already been in the past, and will no doubt continue to be in the future, devoted to the furtherance of reforms in this direc- tion ; that the idea itself was first put forward by a promi- nent member of the League— Mr. Arnold-Forster— so long ago as 1883, in an article in the Xiiietccith Ceniurij maga- zine ; in particular, that t,pecial prominence had been given to the subject, a few months bef(jre the above passage appeared, in Lord llosebery's pronouncement as to tl)e programme of the League at a large meeting held at the" Mansion House; that the League in Canada, at their annual meeting held a fortnight after the Economist wrote, carried a resolution in favour of an Imperial Penny Post, to which the Dominion Postmaster-General promised consideration as a Cabinet question; that, acting under the direction of the Executive Committee of the central • Economist, Jau. 18, 1890. WHAT IS WANTED. 19 League in London, the postal sub-committee here has placed itself in communication with tlie Chambers of Com- merce throughout the Empire on the subject; and, gene- rally, that the Imperial Federation Jjeague has always used and continues to use, all the means at its command to forge the link spoken of by the I'k'oiiomist. Perhaps one of the most convincing facts tending to show the disuniting effect of the present prohibitive postal rates is supplied by an argument brought forward to prove that no change is necessary. Sir Saul Samuel, who attended the Imperial Conference of 188 7 as Agent- General for New South Wales, adduced some postal statistics of his colony against any proposed reduction. These showed that the number of letters posted (in 1885) in New South Wales for delivery within the Colony was 84,023,000, and for the other Aust.'alian Colonies and New- Zealand 1,750,300, making altogether nearly 30,000,000 • while the " foreign " despatch of letters, including those to England, was only 793,300; that is to say, the " foreign " despatch was not a million letters, vhile the Colonial was about 30,000,000. " That shows," he added, " that the correspondence with England is very small indeed." Unquestionably it does. But the moral of that, which does not appear to have occurred to Sir Saul Samuel, was supplied not long afterwards by Sir William Fitz- herbert (of New Zealand), who, referring to those figures, observed : — " Instead of looking at that with satisfaction, added to the remark that there was growing up a popula- tion that did not know the Mother Country, I am in- fluenced by that as one of the weightiest arguments that could be adduced in favour of quick and speedy and cheap communication between the Mother Country and the Colonies, so that they may not be forgotten ; and in addition to that great advantage, I am quite sure that there would also be a very considerable stimulus given to the development of trade." Obviously, of course, the small number of lette"s to the Mother Country from New South Wales is accounted for by the very fact of the high ' rate of postage, and affords, as Sir W. Fitzherbert poi'" . out, the best of all reasons for reducing it. 20 UNIFORM IMPEUIAL POSTAGE. But ii is probably only forcing? an already open door to labour the point of the desirability of reform in the djrec- is tion of cheapness, provided that it be practicable. It time, therefore, to ])ass on to consider the propos.-.ls that liave been made, and the obstacles in the way of all or any of them, and so arrive at such conclusions as may be attainable on the practicability of a step, the desirability of which may be taken as sufficiently established. K^SUME OF SECTION IT. What is wanted is cheap and uniform postage through- out the Empir*- The principle of cheap and uniform l)ostage applied by Eowland Hill to the United Kingdom should now be extended to the whole Empire. The distinction hitherto has been between " inland " and " Foreign ; ud Colonial." The time hv-'s come to make the distinction one between " Briiish and Foreign." A uniform British stamp might be issued for inter- imperial correspondence. Eowland Hill's principles apply in the cii-cumstances of the time to the whole Empire. The great advantages of such a reform pve generally recognised. IIT. OBSTACLES IN THE WAY. It may p('rli;i])s be somewhat ungracious to commence a section under this heading with an account of the schemes of Postal reformers themselves. But, as regards the Post Office scheme, at any rate, it is so unmistakable an obstacle in the way of the unioi-nity of postal rates within the Empire advocated in Ihtse pages, that it necessarily finds a place in this section. The great panacea recommended by the Post Office, when the recently amended high rates of the Ocean Packet Services were complaip.ed of, was the further axtension of the Postal Unioii system. We are all given to push our own pet remedy ior any or all of the ills that, whethei literacy or figuratively, our poor humanity is heir to, and not least vvhcn the nostrum happens to be of our own in- vention. And so i*^^ is with the Post Office an^l the Postal Union, which may be regarded to a great extent as its own particular bantling. But, apart from the virtues and vices of this system in relation to our communication with foreign countries on the Continent of Europe and some others outside it, we have very little hesitation in affirming ■roundly that in relation to the question of Imperial Com- munications, the Postal Union system has been and is nothing short of dii^astrous to the interests both of the United Kingdom by itself and of the Empire as a whole. The Imperial Post Office has striven hard to bring the other postal administrations of the Empire into the Union, and has after " twelve years' work ... in persist- ently reviving this question " (as a memorandum of its own ingenuously admitted) succeeded in the case of those Governments over which our own has i. direct control or influence, and of some others, it made strcAiuous efforts a few years ago to induce the Australasian and South Afri*^' i groups to follow suit, on the principle it must be assumed, of the fox vvitliout a tail : for it was quite unable 22 UNIFORM IMPERIAL POSTAGE. to point to any real advantage to accrue to those Colonies from inclusion in the Ihiion, and they remained deaf to the eloqnence even of a Post Office Memorandum on " The British Colonies and the Postal Union" in which the "ad- vantages " of joining were seductively set out. Those Colonies had fiscal objections of their own ; and, apart from these, they might well ask themselves what en- couragement there was for them to come in, seeing that India and the Colonies that had joined were placed in no better a position than themselves. Now, however, the attempts to gain the adhesion of these outstanding Colonies are being renewed, and it is to be feared with more prospect of success. By the arrange- ment effected last year a letter- rate identical with the regulation Postal Union rate of 2jd. has been established between the United Kingdom and, virtually, all the other countries in the Empire, both those belonging and those not belonginc: to the International Postal Union. By this arrangement the rates with India and the Eastern posses- sions that were already in the Union are reduced, by one- half, to the figure all along charged by the French and German Administrations between the same places and tiie Continent of Europe ; while, what is more important for the present purpose, the same rate now obtains with the British Colonies in the Southern Hemisphere as yet stand- in"- outside the Union. These have now been begged by the Postmaster-General to accept the invitation sent to them to be represented by delegates at the forthcoming Postal Union Conference to be held early this summer in Vienna. It is understood that they will be so represented. And it is much to be feared that the Governments of those Colonies will be prepared, since the rates have been equalised, to yield at length to the pressure of St. Martin's-le-l^rand and throw in their lot with the rest in the Postal Cnion. If they do so, the Post Office will have gained its noint. Imperial C'^mmunications will be completely subordinated to the domniation of an international organisation, and all the countries in the Empire outside the United Kingdom wi of II be placed at once, for postal purposes, on the looting foreign nations, instead of being regarded and dealt with OBSTACLES IN THE WAY. 23 as parts of a single Empire. The Imperial idea will be lost sight of altogether ; and, the grip of the international Union thus firmly established by the completion of the circuit, we may say good-bye for many a long day to the establishment of the Communications of the Empire upon an Imperial basis. This will have to be further considered directly. Meanwhile, there are other fiscal obstacles, ante- cedent to and irrespective of the Postal Union, that must br glanced at. The paramount difficulty in the way of Postal lieform of any kind has always been the fiscal one. The Post Office having once been converted into a paying concern and a source of revenue instead of loss to the public purse, successive Chancellors of the Exchequer find in it so con- venient a source of income that their natural tendency is to squeeze every penny they can out of a tax which, as it is said, nobody feels, and which, therefore, unlike most other taxes, offends no class or interest and loses the Government no votes. Against the general principle upon which our Post Office is conducted, as a commercial monopoly kept in the hands of the State on the ground that so, in this instance, the public is best served, no voice is here raised. The charge against the Post Office, or rather- the Treasury, so far as it depends upon general principles of administration, is that the interests of that public wliich the Post Office is established to serve have been relegated to a spcondary place and subordinated to the purely com- mercial side of the organisation. Postal administration obviously ought to look first to that object for which it exists, which is the convenience of the public, and, second- arily only, to the achievement of that object on the terms most favourable to the national exchequer. In place of that, owing to the political temptations just referred to, Chancellors of the Exchequer have insisted upon the collection of revenue being the primary end of postal administration ; so that a Postmaster-General with the best intentions in the world, subordinated as his Depart- ment is to the Treasury, finds himself powerless to effect reforms in the interest of the public, because the money necessary for the purpose is all demanded of him by the UNIFORM IMPERIAL TO J T AGE. Exchequer for the relief of other and more unpopular forms of taxation. An interesting comparison lia.s been made by a Continental witer of the projjortion of gross revenue spent upon their postal auu telegraphi'3 services by various European Postal Administrations. England spends 7G80 per cent, as against an average of 89":23 per cent, of the five Great Powers and Spain. And even this low propor- tion is subject to reduction on grounds which will appear immediately. The net revenue derived by the Exchequer from the Post Office in the financial year ending 31st March, 1890, was £3,340,087 ; and even that large sum inadequately represents the amoant that would appear as net profit for the year in a private commercial institution, or, for the matter of that, in other Government departments, because, whether with a view of concealing the large amount of profit made, or for some other reason, the cost of buildings, v/hicli should go to a capital account, is, in the Post Office, debited wholly to the current accounts of the year. And this amount of net revenue is not stationary but progres- sive. The increase since 1SS7 represents the difi'erence between £:^5i4,G35 in that year and £3,340,057 in 1890, or getting on for a million sterling in three years. Now, what Postal Reformers have demanded is that this progressive increment, above a fixed sum, sa}^ of three millions, should be surrendered by the Tieasury and applied to increased postal facilities and cheaper rates for the benefit of tl\e public. An ex-Postmaster-General, Mr. Shaw-Lefevre, ]M.P., declared at the Postal Jubilee Banquet last year that he could conceive no better way of cele- brating the Jubilee imd commemorating the great founder of the modern Post Office system, than by establishing this principle. The Secretary of the Post Office, Sir Arthur Blackwood, spoke in the same sense. His words, coming from such a source, deserve to be kept before the public and remem- bered by public men who may be called upon to deal administratively or legislatively with this matter. Sir Arthur Blackwood said : — " Though styled a revenue department and most valuable as a machinery for indirect OBSTACLES IN TE" WAY. 2& and unfelt taxation, I should deeply regret if we came to be regarded, or to regard ourselves, as a mere tax-collecting •department. Nothing, in my opinion, would be worse for the Department, and consequently for the public, than for the former to consider as the be-all and end-all of the Post Office Service the extraction of a large revenue from the country ; and indeed such a limitation of its functions would defeat the very object for which it exists, namely, the greatest possible convenience to the public by the multiplication and acceleration of every form of communi- cation which properly falls within its limits. (Hear, hear.) Nothing would be so calculated to chill the ardour, to stunt the energies, and to repress the inventive zeal of the •officers of the Post Office as for them to feel that there 4ire barriers in the path of postal progress which they are forbidden to surmount. (Hear, hear.) . . . It is not for me, as a servant of the State, to attempt to criticise the doings of my superiors, but I confess that I should like to see the Post Office, which is the greatest commercial department in the country, administered on something like true commercial principles, and a portion at least of its large annual profit (which in reality is larger than it fieems, owing to the system whicii charges capital expen- diture against income) utilised for developing and ex- tending is work for the general benefit of the public." {Cheers.) That was a strong statement for a member of the per- manent staff of a department to make. It showed that the demand to the same eli'ect made by members of the outside public could not be set down to popular ignorance, or an unreasonable desire for something; which those who understood the working of the system would declare un- attainable ; and it showed, at the same time, that it was not the fault of those permanent officials responsible for the administration of the Post Office itself that revenue con- siderations were allowed to over-ride the public convenience. The pressure brought tu bear upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer had its effect, and brought about the re- duction in Colonial rates announced, not so long after these <.'xpressions of opinion at the Jubilee Banquet, in Mr. tiH UNIFORM IMPEBIAL POSTAGE. Gosclien's Budget spcecli. That concession admits the principle ofc' dovotinj^ some portior of what may be called the super-surplus revenue of the lost Office to giving in- creased postal facilities to the public. But the same exi- gencies of Budget-making may still operate to make it very difficult to extract from the Treasury any further ap})lication of the same principle. In tliis, therefore, and in what immediately follows, though the principles have been admitted, it is still necessary to make out a case for their further application. The concession of last year admits also a further prin- ciple of the greatest importance, namely, the right of Colonial correspondence to share with the inland in the division of such spoil as the Exchequer can be induced to surrender. But here too the principle hns received as yet only a partial application. Colonial correspondence has been given some advantage, but not the whole advan- tage to which it is entitled. And the arguments that were used against giving it any share at all will possibly be once more adduced agninst giving it any further advantage than it has got. Tlu main aspect of this argument has alreadv been noticed i the contention that the corve- spondent writing to Australui has the same claim to assist- ance out of general Post Office surplus as the correspondent who writes to the Isle of Skye. There is another side to it, viewing the correspondent on the one hand rnd the general taxpayer on the other, which has thus been put by Afr. Haikos: "' Under any circumstances, it (the cost to the Post Office) must come out of one pu^'se, and be provided by the taxpayer, and it is for Parliament to decide how far that section of the letter-writing public which communi- cates witli the Colonies should be relieved of the cost of ^heir correspondence at the expense of those taxpayers who write iij Colonial letters." This argument, though used against Colonial correspondence, really goes to the whole <|uestion of using surplus for the bei: it of correspondents, or for the relief of general taxation. But it is no longer necessary to r^^ply to it, save as regards Colonial corre- spondence, to which it was especially addressed. . The argument, it is conceived, rests on a fallacy. OBSTACLES IN THE WAY. 27 The purse of the whole community and the purse of people who write letters to the Colonies can hardly be described as one. And the whole question resolves itself into this : whether the expenses incurred by the Posi: OHice in connection with the Ocean Packet Services are necessarily incurred in the interests alone of the persons who use them, and are at the same time so great in pro- portion to the expense of the inland services that it would be unfair to support them, either at the expense of other branches of the postal system, or at that of the general taxpayer, who would profit to the extent of any sums not expended upon those services. If this were so, Mr. Eailies would have some show of reason in arguing, as he did, that the plan of charging higher rates of postage on Colonial than on inland correspondence, had the advantage of charging a certain sum to those persons who get the " quid pro quo." But if, on the contrary, it can be shown, as it shall be shown ijresently, that these costs and charges are incurred by the Government, not for the benefit of the letter-writers, but, as to the very large proportion of their amount, for the benefit of the community at large ; then it follows that, even on the vicious principle of making every class pay its own cost, it would not be legitimate to charge the letter-writers the whole of the amount ; and that, so far from there being any truth in the talk about " taxing the many for the benefit of the few," the truth is that at existing rates the reverse of this is still the case, and the writers of letters to the Colonies are not merely charged for the " quid pro quo " they receive, but are being taxed, and were until lately being taxed still more heavily, for the benefit of the rest of the community and for the relief of their taxation. The amount of money expended in connection with the Ocean Packet Services is very excessive. The reasons for this excessive expenditure are twofold, and neither of thom affords any justification for making the correspondence itself especially liable to meet it. One of these reasons is the system of subsidies paid to the great lines of mali steamers ; the other is the onerous character of the obliga- tions undertaken bv tliu British Postal Administration 28 UNIFORM BIPEEIAL POSTAGE. uncler tlic Postal Union Convention and arrangements made in pursuance of it. And, first, as to the enormous subsidies paid to the Mail Steamship Companies. The sums paid in one shape and another under the contracts, which, without reckoning some large amounts paid by Colonial Governments directly, and independently of Im- perial contracts, may be put down roundly at half a million sterling per annum, are not paid wholly or principally for postal purposes, but, as to the very much larger portion of their total amount, for entirely different objects — all laudable, all useful, but all such as concern the whole body •of the community, for which, therefore, the whole body of the community ought to pay. The objects, beyond the •comparatively inexpensive one of carrying the mail bags, for whicii the subsidies are paid, are purely political. They are paid partly for the sake of keeping open trade routes in time of peace ; partly to support and encourage the maintenance and development of the .nercantile marine as a vehicle of trade and an element of commercial great- ness ; partly to support the same marine as a nursery and reserve of the Navy ; partly to form and maintain our .actual reserve of ships for use in connection with the !Navy as transports armed cruisers and otherwise in time of war. The nature of the covenants contained in the agree- ments with the subsidised companies affords sufficient evidence of these facts, if any is needed. In the Post Office mail contract, for example, with the Peninsular and •Oriental Company, there is a clause empowering the Ad- miralty, if it consider it necessary for the public interest, at any time during the continuance of the contract, to pur- •chase or charter any or all of the vessels employed under it, the company still remaining bound to perform the postal service by means of such other vessels as it may have or can get. Another clause enables the Postmaster- General, on account of " political circumstances," to alter the route and places of call to meet the exigencies of war or disturb- ance. The company is also under the obligation, to the ■detriment of its own passenger accommodation, to carry naval and military officers, vvitli their wives and children OBSTACLES IN THE WAY. 29' and bagp^ago, upon the requisition of the Postmaster- General, in accordance with the terms of the contract. In other instances the owners have undertaken to construct or alter their vessels in accordance with plans laid down for them by the Admiralty, so as to more especially adapt them for use as armed cruisers in time of war. Until a little more than thirty years ago, the subsidies for these purposes were actually paid by the Admiralty, and a strong protest was entered, but in vain, on behalf of the Post Office, when the burden of them was transferred to that department. The transfer was a clever way of making the Naval Estimates smaller without apparently swelling those of any other department. The Post Office- is an earning, more than a spending department, and this outlay therefore is made without being recognised as a part of the Naval expenditure or indeed much thought of at all, since Parliament votes money readily enough for the Post Office, knowing that its expenditure on one side- of the account is very amply compensated by receipts on the other. That this system of paying out of Post Office revenues, and under the name of postal subsidies, for all such outside purposes remains still an admitted principle of administration, may be seen from the covenants of the contracts quoted above and by the admission of the Grovernment itself. In a Treasury Minute of 18th July, 1889, approving the contract with the Canadian Pacific Kailway for the conve3-ance of " Her Majesty's mails, troops, and stores" between Halifax or Quebec and Hong Kong, and " for the hire and purchase of vessels as cruisers or transports " (a contract affording good examples of onerous "Admiralty clauses," including a covenant to build vessels with gun-platforms and other fittings re- quired by the Admiralty, and to sell to that department if required), the Lords of the Treasury expressly declare that the scheme is " not justifiable upon postal reasons alone " — what does justify it being, of course, its great political and strategical value. But it is unnecessary further to labour the point, admitted on all hands, that the postal revenue is made to pay, and pay heavily, in subsidies, for purposes that are absolutely unconnected with the postal. 30 UNIFOBM IMPERIAL POSTAGE. sei-vlc^, and that the rates on letters by subsidised routes were kept at the exorbitant rates that ruled until this year, and are still kept at a rate as live to one higher. \vei(»-ht lor wei<,^ht, than on inland letters, to meet this gr^at expenditure. On what ground, either of justice or expe- diency, on what ground at all, are writers of letters to the over-sea countries of the Empire, rather than any other section of Her Majesty's subjects, taxed to pay these charges ? The international obligations entered into under the Postal Union Convention constitute the other great obstacle to the desired reform, and it is one of the most serious nature. These operate in two ways. The first of them is fiscal, and is on a par with the fiscal obstacle to reduction presented by the subsidies. The Postal Union entails heavy charges on the British Administration, and the Post Office seeks to recoup itself for these, as for the charges in respect of subsidies, out of the pockets of the English correspondents who use particular lines. The engagements entered into with regard more especially to the conveyance of the Eastern mails have proved especially onerous. The charges imposed by these en- gagements were avowed as a reason for keeping up the Eastern rates to English letter-writers at their former high rate ; and the same reason will, of course, be given among others for declining to make any further reduction. This state of things was acquiesced in by the Post Office as an inevitable and almost as a satisfactory part of the natural order of things. The circumstance that our Administration paid the piper for the French and Germans to dance to was solemnly adduced by the present Post- master-General as a completely adequate answer to the complaint that the British "letter-writing public was mulcted in rates a hundred per cent, higher than those of Prance and Germany. "Jfoiiiori," he will of course arj^ue, " this state of things precludes his reducing the rates to a lower figure than that charged by France and Germany " ■ — even though it be within our own Empire. Before quitting the fiscal difficulties caused by the Postal Union Convention a word must be said upon one OBSTACLES IK THE WAY. 31 of the largest factors in tlie sum. This is the extremely and most unnecessarily hio-h transit dues paid to Franco and Italy in respect of the overhmd service to Brindisi. The fjict that our Administration allows itself to be mulcted in sums running into JtSO.OOO and £00,000 a year for these dues is one of the most disastrous features, fiscally, in the whole aspect of the Postal Union system. These sums are altogether out of proportion to the services rendered, being, in fnct, " dues " exacted under the Union arrange- ments by the Postal Administrations of the two countries concerned, France and Italy, who pay over to the railway companies who do the work only a small proportion (and even that a much higher one than is warranted by the market value of tlie services rendered) of the sums received from the British Grovernment. Fiscally, this is another and a most serious blot on our Administrative management, and an example of the fatal influence of the international Postal Convention upon our interests. The other great obstacle to extending the inland rate of postage throughout the rest of the Empire presented by the Postal Union is one resting upon a provision of the Convention of Paris which, if the Post Office reading of it be correct — and as against that Office itself at any rate we may assume in argument that it is so — interferes with our Imperial liberty of action in a very grave manner indeed. As a preliminary but insurmountable barrier to any reduc- tion below the Postal Union rate of 2|d. between different countries, though all part of one Empire, that are parties to the Postal Union, the Post Office points to the treaty obligations entered into under the Convention of P',ris, with reference to the provision in that Convention fixing the rate at 2^d. If this be really the case, it is enough to condemn the Postal Union outright from an Imperial point of view, and the sooner we get out of it, with all its detriment 1 provisions, the better. It is an infringement of our liberty of action within our own Empire precisely analogous to the case of the Commercial Treaties, which similarly place an international restriction on inter-Imperial arrangements. The principle in the latter case is now con- demned on all hands, ai.d the treaties embodying it are 32 UNIFORM niPEJlTAL POSTAGE. about to bo simcnclod accordini^'Iy. Tf the Postal Con- yentiou embodies a like principle, it sliould in like manner be condemned and new international terms made. But it IS worth enquiring whether there may not be some doubt as to the soundness of the construction accepted by the Post Office, and whether, if it be sound, the difficulty cannot nevertheless be surmounted by some m-ans short of the only course visible to Mr. Raikes, of givino- ui> altogether the Postal Union, which has its uses in other and international directions. In a letter ^mri the Postmaster-General* which was laid before the Imperial Conference in 1887 there oc- curred the following passage :—" Under the international Convention of 1878, the i-ate of postage between any two. countries in the Union cannot be less than .25 centimes (about 2id., more or less, according to currency) " An- swering a question of Mr. Watts, in the House of Com- inons, Air. Raikes, on March lOth, 181)0, expressed himself in these Avords :—" Although the question has not yet been definitely decided, there is great reason to doubt if it would be competent to this country to reduce the ocean postal charge to its Colonies to Id. per letter without with- drawing from the Postal Union, and thus destroying all the eyisting postal arrangements with other civilised countries." It will be at once noted that whereas the- question was treated as settled in the letter of March 17th, 1887, Mr. Eaikes, three years later, tells us that " the question has not yet been definitely decided," and that "there is great reason to doubt" if it would be competent to this country to take the proposed step without incurrincr certain consequences. However, that having been the result of consideration of the subject for the space of three- years, less seven days, the lapse of the remaining seven days seems to have restored Mr. Raikes's mind on the sub- ject once more to a condition of stable equilibrium, from; which all hesitation and doubt have again vanished.' For on March 17th, the recise anniversary of the date of his * Tl.o substa,ic.c of what, fo!lows on this pomt appeared in a loading article Z^l^ -F'^rf--«<^o„ for April, 1890, and is n\ade use of hei-^by per! OBSTACLES IX THK W.iY. 33 letter, he said, agjiin in the House of Connnons, and in an- swer to a question from another member: — "Under the Postal Union lle, the 25 centimes letter-rate. Article 5 is not the only one that touches the point. Article 3 provides : ^' The postal administrations of neigh- bouring countries, or countries able to correspond directly with each other without availing themselves of the services of a third administration " (whic^ is the case of tbe United Kingdom and probably every ^u cle part of the Empire) "determine by common consent the conditions of the <;onveyance of mails which they exchange across the frontier, or from one frontier to the other." All the Articles appearing to bear on the question are set out in a note below.* There is evidently a question of construction * Articles of tlio Postal TTiiion Coiivpution (Universal Postal Union Convention of Paris, 1st Jnne, io78) above referred to. Article V.— The rates of postage for the convovance of postal ai-tieles ihrongliont tlie entire -xtent of tlie Union, including their delivery at the resuleiicc of the addressees in the countries of the Union wliere a delivery is or shall be organised, are fixed as folloAvs : - 1. For letters, 25 centi-.ies in case of prepavment, and druble that amount ni the contrary cns-e for each letter, and for every weight of 15 grammes or fraction of 1 gi-ammes. 34 UNIFOllM IMPERIAL POSTAGE. to be raised upon the provisions of the Convention ; but it is not intended to enter into argument upon it here. The question has no doubt been under consideration ; and from the inconsistent answers given to it by Mr. Raikes, there is yet room to hope that the opinion of the Law 2. For postcardu, 10 ceutimos for single oanls. or for each of the two lialvcs of cardn with reply paid. 3 For printed papers of every kind, commercial papers and samples of merchandise. T) centimes for cacli article or i)ack(^t bearing a particular address, and for every weight o* oU grammes or fraction of o(> grammes, provided that such a' icle or packet does not contain any letter or manuscript note liaviug tlie character of actual and ix^rsoual correapondenco, and that it be made up in such a manner as to admit of its being easily examined. The charge on commercial paper* cannot bo less than 25 centimes per packet, and the cliarge on patterns or samples cannot be less than 10 centimes ^'"'^In addition to the rates and the minima fixed by the preceding paragraphs, there may be levied : — 1 For every article subject to the sea transit, rates of 15 francs per * kilogramme of letters or postcards, and 1 franc per kilogramme ot other articles; a surchaige which may not exceed 25 centimes per single rate for letters, 5 centimes per postcard, and 5 centimes per 50 gi-ammes or fraction of 50 grammes for other articles. « Fo- every article conveyed by meat of services maintained by "" Administrations foreign to the Urio-., or of extraordinary services in the Union giving rise to special i^^icuscs, a surcharge in proportion to those expenses. Article III.— The Postal Administrations of neighbouring countries, or countries able to correspond directly with each other with-ut availing them- selves of the services of a third Administration, determine, jj .ommon consent, the conditions of the conveyance of the mails which they exchange across the frontier, or from one frontier to the other. In the absence of any contrary arrangement, tl,. direct sea conveyance between two countrii^s by means of packets or vessels depending upon one ot them shall be considered as a third service; and this conveyance, as well as any performed between two offices of tlie same country, by the intermediary of sea or territorial services maintained by tnothei- country is regulated by tlie stipulations of the following Article. (Article IV., winch relates to the charges to be made by the Postal Administrations for transit of mails ot other Adininistrations, and does not refer to tie rates of postage to be charged.) Aevicle XIV.— The Postal Administrations of the various countries coi-'.,»ing the Union are competent to draw up. by common consent, in the foriu of Detailed Regulations, all the measures of order and detail which are iudged necessary. . .\ ^ The several Administrations may, moreover, make amongs^ tliemsel\es the necessary arrangements on the subject of questions which u- not concern the Union generally, provided that those arrangements do not derogate trom the present Conve-.cion. .,, , , i i i The Administrations conc.'vned are. however, permitted to come to mutual arrangements for the adoption of lower rates of postage within a radius of 30 kilometres. OBSTACLES 7xV THE WAY. 35 Officers may finally make out our position to be less unsalis- factory than the one Mr, Raikes is apparency prepared to accept. But, assuming that the Postal Union Convention really was such a gigantic blunder as an adverse decision on this point would make it, but that nevertheless it is on the whole for the advantage of the United Kingdom to remain under its terms in respect of European and other foreign nations, it by no means follows that the alternative j : t to the House of Commons by Mr. Raikes as such a "clincher" is really the only one by which we may escape from the seeming dilemma. Mr, Raikes assumes that if we wish to establish a postal rate of less than 2kl within the Empire, we can only do so at the expense of surrendering all the elaborate machinery provided for our correspondence with the rest of the civilised world. Surely there are less heroic remedies to be found ? One, but it must be admitted not a very promising way out of the difficulty, would be to ask the other countic in the Empire whose communica- tion^ with foreign nations ar9 of far less importance to thera than those with each other and with the mother country, to withdraw from the Postal Union, and so re- establish Imperial freedom of action. But it is probably hopeless to expect the Post Office to turn it?, back on its onn policy to such an extent as that ; and possibly some of tho Colonies too may find uses in the Postal Union. A nother plan may be suggested which should be feasible enough. England, it is said, cannot afford to give up the Postal Union for her foreign corre^ Dondence. But is it too nmch to expect that Her Majesty's Governm.ent could, by diplomacy and by the very strong pressure our own Postal Administration is able to bring to bear, as being the great ocean mail carriers of the world, as well as the largest and best paying customers of other Postal Ad- ministrations, bring about a revision of those terms of the Convention, which, on the hypothesis, stand '. \ t^e way of our freedom of action within the limits of our own Empire ? If the Convention really does forbid a lower rate than the Uiiion 2|d., it is no great thing to demand that this rule should not apply as between two parts of the same nation 'Sf^rn^^ 30 UNIFORM nirEBIAL rOSTAdE. or empire. The nations eomposlng tlie T'ostal Union de- cline to grant a British Colony representai: on as a separate State, th^e whole Colonial Empire having about as much representation as, t considoni- tion on the other side to be taken into account in adoptinij: the inland rates all through. A second ounce goes for a halfpenny, and each succeeding two ounces for another halfpenny ; so that a four-ounce letter goes at the rate of a halfpenny an ounce, and heavier weights at fractionally decreasing rates compared with single-ounce letters. To arrive at any trustworthy estimate of the proportions of the better and the worse paying letters is impossible. The deduction to be made must no dcubt be considerable : though here too the same allowance may be made for T. letters not scaling up to the maximum paid for. To countervail the reduction to be mat j on this score, every other estimate and calculation is here made with a leaning the other way, so £180 a ton may stand for the present, and a general allowance be made afterwards. Book- packets at the inland rate of a halfpenny for the first and every succeeding two ounces would yield (with the same allowance for not scaling up to the maximum) say £46 per ton. Newspapers at a halfpenny for the first four ounces and the same for every succeeding two ounces (like books) may be set down at half the book-rate, say £23 per ton. Out of every ten tons of books and newspapers to- gether, it may be calculated (upon returns showing relative numbers, and therefore only giving an approximate estimate of relative weights) that eight tons consist of newspapers, and two tons of book packets. The eight tons of newspapers yield at the above rates £184, and the two tons 01 books £92 ; making £276 on ten tons of com- bined matter (say £27 10s. per ton). A similar quantity of letters (ten tons) yields £1,860. But here, again, we must not strike a simple average between these two. Eeturns for the year 188U show that of the total weight of mail mattrj despatched to Australia in that year, only 33 tons consisted of letters, against 513 tons of other matter. So that out of the 546 tons 94 per cent., or nearly nineteen-twentieths, was matter paying at the lower rate. ■ Take this as a basis of what the actual receipts of the 42 UNIFOBM IMPERIAL POST AGE. Post Offi^'e would be upon the scale above indicated, and we get the following results. Ninety-four per cent., or Lard upon nineteen tons out of every twenty, of mail matter despatched to the most distant Colonies (which may be taken as a sample of the whole) consist of books "nd newspapers yielding (at £27 10s. per ton as above calculated) £522, and one ton consists of letters yielding £186, making the total of £708 for every complete twenty tons of matter. But since more allowance may have to be made for tlie heavy letters, which pay a lower rate than the light ones, as pointed out above, let us, to make quite sure of being on the safe side — seeing that allowance may also have to be made for payment of freight by measurement weight instead of actual weight — put the receipts for the ton of letters at less than half the £1SG; knock £10S off it, and say the Post Office will only get £000, instead of £708, for every twenty tons of mails. Now tbe highest known rate of freight by the fastest mail steamers to Australasia and the most distant parts of the Empire is 90s. per ton measuren.3nt of first-class caro-o, or " fine goods ; " and it is believed that this is actually the sum charged upon packets of books, &c., sent out by private shippers. The rate to India is only about one-third of that sum. But taking the highest possible figures to the most distant possible destination, und apply- ing it indiflferently all round, the twenty tons of mail matter, for which the Post Office would receive £0(}() at the lowest possible computation, could be shipped ns first- class cargo for £90— or, to make round figures, let us say £100. Let the Post Office pay double this amount in con- sideration of priority of handling and other similar privi- leges, and in some special cases treble the amount, wheie the special services of a steamer would not be adequately recompensed by less, and still— if £300 per ton, or treble, and more than treble, the highest freight to the most dis- tant parts were paid all round and all the time— a margin of one-half would still be left to pay the ordinary costs of collection and distribution and conveyance on shipboard. PROPOSALS. 4J It must be admitted at once that tlie receipts of the Post Office under these rates would not cover the ex- ceptional cost of the trans-continental carriage of the Eastern mails, even if these were reduced to a legitimate figure. That would have still to come out of the larger profits made on other branches. But there is no reason why — if the Post Office would disentangle itself from its unfortunate engagements in respect of that transit, elsewhere discussed — the cost should continue to be enhanced by sending along that route, always and necessarily expensive as compared with sea transit, the whole vast bulk of its worst-paying matter, to which expedition is not of the same importance as to letters. Much, at least, of that might very well be shipped at Plym.outh. The idea of calculating the payment to be made for the carriage of mails on the same basis as that on which freight for other cargo is calculated, is glanced at by Mr. Henniker Heaton in the supplement to Imperial Fcdcrafi.ou already referred to, though rather by way of illustrating an argument than anything else, and he does not formu- late any scheme on that basis, or propose the abolition of the fixed contract system. It is, perhaps, worth while to mention in passing, that the adoption of the system ad- vocated in the present papei has been under discussion among members of the Postal Committee of the League for some considerable time past, and was publicly referred to in connection with the League in a letter which appeared in the Journal of the Society of Arts on 14th March, 1890. The results, as here roughly indicated, differ very materially from those at which Mr. Heaton would probably arrive. One reason for this is, that in his calculations of the profit the Post Office might make with an ocean penny letter-rate, he is speaking of half- ounce letters only, not ounce letters at the penny rate. But what is far more important, he makes no reduction, as there is in the inland rates, upon the second and every succeeding unit of weight. More than that, he leaves out of account altogether the cost of carrying books and news- u UNIFORM IMP E RIAL POSTAGE. piipers, c'onstitutini,'' ab.iut nineteen-twontieths of the total w('iL,'lit carried, for which the Post Office receives some- thin*,' like one-seventh of the amount receivable on letters. No wonder that, by such a comfortable method, w/iic/i i(/nori's all the factor)^ in flic problem except tlic he^l-payhuj if ems in flie befft-pai/iix/ fenth part, he is able to promise wonderful things. TJie proposals hero made can at least claim to be tempered by a sober regard for the realities of the case. These proposals will, nevertheless, probably sound revolutionary in the ears of Post Office officials brought up in the tradition of treating mail mutter as something separate and apart, something almost sacrosanct, and alto- gether different in kind from the other more or less valuable goods carried on board ship. To pack up letters, like herrings, in a box, or send Her Majesty's mails in tin- lined cases, and call them " first-class cargo," will seem to- such as these sheer profanity. Yet, to people outside the Post Office, and perhaps to some inside, the idea appears so reasonable, so practicable, and at the same time so perfectly simple and obvious, that the wonder would be, if we did not remember the tenacity with which old habits of business are clung to, that it was not adopted and carried into effect years ago. On the part of the steamship owners again, and especially the large companies, such a suggestion will probably excite expressions of execration and ridicule. They will tell us that without a " Mail- room " and other apparatus, supposed to be of such mysterious importance on board ship. Her Majesty's mails cannot be safely and securely carried ; and that if they should be packed in boxes instead of in bags it would be impossible to ship and land them without delay, and no doubt much more to like effect. But no one at all acquainted with the interior economy of a mail steamer will be greatly impressed. Mail-rooms on some ships are occasionally used as extra smoking-rooms, at other times as extra baggage-rooms for passengers' baggage that is " wanted on the voyage," and the mail-bags are sometimes huddled up in one corner in the rooms so occupied, and sometimes put elsewhere altcgether. Nor is a canvas-bag PROrOSALS. 45 (not always easily distinguishable from a receptacle for soiled linen) the most ideally safe form in which to trans- port and trans-ship valuable matter. For all that, if the Post Office officials or the ships' officers are wedded to the idea of bags, the continued use of them would not seriously impair the adoption o£ the general plan suggested. And if they like, at the same time, to give the name of mail-room to the particular section of the between-decks spact occupied by the mail portion of the "first-class cargo," there could be no possible objection to their doing so. On the score of expedition in handling, there is no doubt an advantage in bags over boxes, especially in the rapid transfers made on the quick route between London and Brindisi. Some allowance too may always be necessary for the case of sorting " en route." But, as just observed, the particular vehicle used for packing in is not of the essence of the -matter. And somehow passengers' baggage in boxes gets taken out from between-decks and put over the side without much loss of time — and mails could always be put out first and as quickly as now, whatever the basis on which they are paid for, so long as the amount be not less but something more than charged for other first-class goods. Steamship companies are ruled by business con- siderations, and if the Postmaster-General offers them cargo and pays the highest rate of freiglit upon it accord- ing to its class, and something over for special facilities, they cerlainly will not refuse it. The Post Office would be no mere chance customer. On all the principal lines the mail cargo would be both regular and constant in quantity, and arrangements would be come to by tbo Office with the ship-owners just as in the case of any other large and regular customer. To carry out this proposal would involve the with- drawal of the great subsidies in their present form. Subsidies will continue to be granted to secure the polit- ical and military purposes which are their principal ob- ject. The sums so to be paid must be arrived at independ- ently, and may be met out of Post Office surplus or any other fund the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Parliament may determine — provided only they are not debited as 46 UXIFORU DEPERLIL POSTAGE. working expenses of the Postal Service and recouped by cliargos on correspondence. But no payment in the form of subsidy must be paid under any fixed contract in respect of the carriage of mails. Payment for the postal covenants undertaken by the Steamship Companies must be confined to the amounts agreed upon from time to time as freight upon the mail matter carried — reckoned upon a Aveight basis at the current rates of similar cargo (w^ith all due allowances as between actual weight and measurement where such adjustment may be necessary) and with such additions as may be made in consideration of giving' the mail matter precedence in handling and other similar privileges, and of such special obligatious as it may in some instances still be necessary, for the public con- venience, to impose vpon ships carrying the mails. These would not amount to very nmch. To all the principal parts of the Empire there are lines of steamers, often several lines, running with absolute regularity, at high rates of speed, and almost always with perfect punctuality of arrival. For their own sake, for the sake of their own passenger traffic and business generally, all the well-established lines keep up the^'^' speed regularity and punctuality without any further inducement. It is a very well-known circumstance that mail steamers running under contracts with the Post Office constanlly outrun their contract time, and do this whether there is or not any premium upon accelerated delivery of mails, but simply to suit their own business purposes. The adoption of this plan would still leave the great expense of the Brindisi route untouched. It lies with the Post Offi^ce to continue to submit to that exaction — always provided again that it does not allow it to be a burden on correspondence — or to take steps to reduce its expenditure in this direction. Under existing arrangements, not only is oar Administration bound by general agreement under the Postal Union to the payment of exorbitant transit dues to the Administrations of France and Italy, but it has, in consideration of some reduction made in those dues, conceded besides a monopoly of the whole of its Eastern Mails to their agency. In consequence Qf this PROPOSALS. 4T latter obligation tlie Post Office, when two years ago it decided to open the cheaper alternative " all-sea route " to Australasia, found itself precluded from using for this pur- pose its own mail steamers going direct through the Medi- terranean, already under contract to carry any amount of mails entrusted to them, and had to be content with the longer and slower route round the Cape. Could anything more glaringly show up the helpless state to wliicli the Postal Union Convention has reduced our Administration in respect of Imperial communicatiors ? At present we pay to France and Italy an enormously enhanced price for the actual railway services over and above the price received by the railways themselves, the two Governments concerned themselves getting the benefit of the difference. They, so to speak, farm the railway mail service in their own countries for their own great profit. If the lines that are used to transport the mails i?cross the Continent were the only ones available for the- purpose, there might be no help for this ; but such is not the case. An alternative and equall}' convenient route is open as far as the Italian frontier, by way of Ostend, through Belgium, Luxembourg, and so down through Switzerland and the St. Gothard tunnel, and thence, via Milan, to Brindisi. What is there to prevent our Post Office availing itself of this competing route ? Under the Postal Union (and in this respect probably no complete revision of the principle could be effected) it must still continue to deal with the Postal Administrations of the countries concerned, but arraiigem nts migfit perhaps be made, on payment of a royalty to tbase Governments, for passing closed mails through their territories under "bonded seal," so to speak, the actual carria^^e being paid for upon terms made direct with the railway companies. We should at any rate give France the go-by ; and it is the French Offiv.^ that proves so exacting, and is the cause of the present attitude of the Italians also. Dealing with Italy directly and in conjunc- tion with other countries more inclined than France to deal in a liberal and friendly way with us, Ave might obtain vastly better terms. ■w VNIFOB^r DirERIAL POSTAGE. If the political and military subsidies were no Ioniser taken into account in reckonini: the cost of the Ocean Packet Services, and the cost of Euro]iean transit reduced to its market value, then, even without adoptinf:^ the radical chanf,'es advocated above in the system of mail carriaf^e, we should hear no more of the los.; to the Depart- ment m this branch of the Postal Service. If, further, the payment to the mail steamship owners were made on a commercial basis, as su«rgested here, with additional pre- miums not more than adequate to the special service ren- dered, or the special obligations undertaken— a sufficient case, it is submitted, has been made out to warrant the belief that the ocean services might be made self-support- ing if not actually remunerative. Before concluding, it may perhaps be permitted to point to two matters of principle which fundamentally dis- tinguish the views here advocated from the Ocean Penny Post, with which the name of Mr. Henniker Heaton is so closely associated. The first and most distinctive of these is that the Imperial Federation League rests its arguments entirely upon Imperial principles. Mr. Heaton's aims have, for the most part, been rather cosmopolitan. His original scheme of an Ocean Penny Post is international, and his latest efforts, some account of which was published in the Revieio of Reviews last autumn, have returned avowedly to that basis, commencing with the inclusion in his scheme of the United States of America. In the con- tribution made by him to Imperial Federation last August he naturally went more upon Imperial lines, but not alto- gether. , In an editorial introduction to Mr. Heaton s valuable contribution (which fJled a twelve-page supplement) that journal wrote as follows: "The licague has always re- garded the Postal and Telegraphic Services of the Empire as of the first importance in maintaining and strengthen- ino- the Imperial connection ; i^nd it is satisfactory to find that in this, the latest and most important of his published statements, the writer of the paper we print this month should rest his case so much as he does on this aspect of the question. For Mr. Henniker Heaton, though a rnorosALs. 49 member of tlie Leiiguo, and lioUling a seat on its Council, is, first and above all, a Postal Uefbrmer, whilst members of the League, as such, are Tm])erialists first and Postal lieformers after. . . . The one important matter of principle on which we certainly differ from him is that in respect of which a Canadian correspondent criticised his scheme in the June number of this Journal — the inclusion of the United Kcates. As we said at the time, this is to miss the core of the whole movement f /om the point of view of the League, which is its Imperial character. Let us have a penny post to the Soates by dl means. We ought to have it; and so we ougiit to I): uce — and Germany too, for that matter. But let us do one thing at a time and that which most concerns us, and that is — getting a penny post within the Empire. Thac accomplished, our work in this direction is done. We must leave it to some league or body, not national but cosmopolitan, to labour for an international penny post. Mr. Heaton thinks it would be ridiculous to pay more fo" a letter to the States than for a letter to Canada. We do not see it. It is because Canada is part of the Empire we should choose to establish a cheaper rate between it and the United Kingdom, and other parts of the same Empire." The other point is not quite so clear, nor, from the present point of view, is it of so much importance. The reduction of all the rates within the Empire to that obtaining in the United Kingdom is advocated as the legitimate expansion of liowland Hill's principles, in- cluding that of " making the good pay for the bad." Mr. Heaton professes to bo a follower of Kowland Hill. But he uses arguments incompatible with the recognition of this jmnciple. In the contribution to the journal of the Jjeague, for instance, just above referred to, speaking of the cost of the Trans-Continental Railway service, he says : — " In any case, as the Jirindisi route is not required ibr the Canadian, Amo.ican, AV'est Indian, and South Afri'nm services, it is clear that the necssity of making up the £.')2,8()0 referred to does not concern them in any way." And again, " The sums paid to France and Italy (.€8-l-,000 last year) are charged against the Colonial and 1) 50 UNIFORM IMPERIAL POSTAGE. foreign service as a whole, and thus one of the two reasons why a reduction of postage is refused on the North American service is that the Indian and AustraHan service is so expensive." The argument used in the p^'3sent paper is, that the loss of any i)articularly expen- sive branch should be borne by the whole correspondence of the Empire equally. Mr. Heaton appears to lold that it should be borne exclusively by the correspoi Jence on the expensive route itself. These two differences are fundamental, and to these may be added the practical difference already alluded to, in that his proposals extend to letters only, and to carrying them at a penny for the first and every succeeding half- ounce. T'Lat is going a very little way indeed towards establishing a Uniform Imperial Postage. One other point remains to be noticed. Colonial Governments, as is ^vell known, make a loss and not a gain upon r.heir post offices. It was always doubtful there- fore how fa. they would be prepared to face further loss by making any redr tions in their oceanic rates. Mr. Goschen's proposal m March last was made, at the time, conditionally upon the Colonies falling into line and agreeing to make the reduction reciprocal. It soon how- ever became evident that, the Exchequer and the Post Office having once given way on the point, the people of this country would insist upon having the reduction, whether those in the Colonies obtained the same boon ^i'om their own Governments or not. Similarly, with further reductions, it is the people of this country who are commercially most interested in having the rates as low as ]jossible, and there seems no good reason why the Mother Country should not in this matter take the lead, even though not all the Colonies should at once see their way to follow it. Under the arrangements now obtaining, there is no accounting for postages between one Adminis- tration and anotlier. Each one keeps its own postages, making what it can, or what it chooses, of such receipts, and from them paying its outward expenses and the expense of distributing all inland mails from whatever source. One country therefore has no interest in the tcwf/rnwt PliOPOSALS. 51 amount of postage charged by another ; and though it would undoubtedly be more satisfactory, and the benefits more complete, if the cheapest rate obtained both ways, yet it is not essential that they sliould ever be assimilated, and certainly not that they sliould be so from the outset. Moreover, though the Cok)nics did for some time hesitate about reducing the rates, they showed no reluctance to the drop of fifty per cent, proposed last year; indeed, Queens- Land went further and reserved to herself the right (which, by the way, if she enjoys, surely this country may also exercise) of establishing a penny postage of her own to England by the Jh-itish" India line of steamers. If the proposals made in this ])aper are in any way practic- able, and the Home Administration can be induced — ^as, by sufficient popular pressure, it certainly could be induced — to reform its methods and curtail its expenditure in accordance wiih the principles here insisted upon, in that cas( the Colonies will no longer be deterred from making further reductions by the fear of loss, since none need occur. Ultimately therefore we may fairly look forward, if the people of this country choose to take the matter up, to uniform rates of postage throughout the E]mpire, not only outwards, but inwards, and also between the various over-sea countries of the Empire themselves. KKSl'MK OF SECTION T\^ The existing inland rates could be extended through- out the Empire without pecuniary loss. The basis of the plan proposed to this end is payment upon a weight basis and abolition of existing fixed contract system. Upon a weight basis mail matter would be shipped with other first-class cargo, and freight paid accordinglv. The receipts uj)on (^oU aial correspondence at inland rates would, after paying freights on liberal terms, leave a fair margin for other expenses. UMFUliM Dll'EEIAL VU^TAdE. There would be objections raised, but they can be met. Adoption of this plan involves no longer charging sub- sidies to working expenses of Post Office. "Whether they be still paid out oi' Post Office revenue is immaterial. The excessive payments on the Brindisi route have still to be reckoned with. The Post Office must reform that. At any rate it must not over-cliarge correspondence to meet its unnecessary extravagance. There are material distinctions between this scheme and others hitherto placed before the public. Whether the Colonial Governments will adopt these rates or not, the United Kingdom should lead the way alone. V. SUMMARY. As the object of this paper has been to present a general view of the whole question, and as it was desired to make the case intelligible to general readers, among whom not much previous acquaintance with the subject was to be pre- sumed, it has necessarily run to a considerable length. On that account it will perhaps be useful to conclude with a brief summary of the wliole. (1) The principle and mainspring of the whole argu- ment is the immense importance — on high grounds of Imperial policy affecting our commercial, political, and social development— of increasing to the utmost the facilities of communication between the scattered com- munities of the British Empire. This principle was recognised and partially acted upon in tlie reform of Colonial postage rates recently introduced by the Cliancellor of the Exchequer, when the old policy, obstructive of such inter-communication, was partially departed from. (2) The reduction of rates then made involved the admission of two fundamental principles hitherto officially opposed. One of these is the surrender by the Ex- chequer of a substantial portion of the growing Post Offfice surplus, for the purpose of giving increased postal facilities to the public, instead of devoting the whole of it to the relief of general taxation ; the second being the admission of the right of correspondence within the Empire, but outside the United Kingdom, to share in the advantage thus afforded. Though these points were conceded in principle, the application of the lU'inciples was partial only and insufficient. (3) The existing distinction for postal purposes between the United Kingdom and other })arts of the Empire is an anachronism. The expansion of England and the growth in facilities of locomotion demand the extension of iiowhind '" ---^-"-^ 51 UNIFOILM IMPERIAL POSTAGE. Hill's principles over the wider geographical area of to-day. Those principles, so far as material to the present purpose, were (1) the recognition of the preponderance of terminal charges for letters over the cost of their transportation, and the consequent justice and advantage of equalising postal rates over long and short distances, (2) " taking the rough with the smooth " and " making the good pay for the bad." Those principles are as applicable to the whole Empire to- day as they were to the United Kingdom fifty years ago. But to apply them without pecuniary loss the Post Office must get out of many traditional habits of conducting the Ocean Packet service. (4) The adhesion of all parts of the Empire to the International Postal Union whereby the Imperial rates would necessarily be and remain assimilated to and regu- lated by the Postal Union rate, is the solution aimed at by the Post Office authorities. The principal groups of Colonies at present outstanding are South Africa and Australasia, and these are invited to attend a Conference of the Postal Union in May of this year with a view to joining it. The effect would be to make it more difficult than at present to shake off the trammels of the Postal Union. The Postal Union Convention, as it stands at present, presents a fatal barrier to the realisation of a uniform Imperial system. There are other obstacles to be dealt with before this is discussed. (5) The standing obstacles to a uniform Imperial post within and without the United Kingdom are : {a) The unwillingness of the Exchequer to surrender revenue. This has been partly overcome, but the unwill- ingness to make further concessions may continue, and therefore the pressure must not be relaxed. The right of Colonial correspondence to share the postal facilities made possible by the surrender of revenue has also been admitted in principle. But it yet remains to carry this to its legitimate conclusion. {b) The payment out of Post Office revenue of enorm- ous subsidies to steamship owners and companies for political and military purposes, the charging of these pay- ments to debit of the working expenses of the Post Office, SUMMARY. 55 and then seeking to make up for that by charging high rates on the ocean service to the correspondents who use them. (c) The onerous obligations undertaken by the Post Office in providing mail facilities for international as well :^ Imperial uses under the Postal Union, and the enorm- ous tax paid by it to Prance and Italy in respect of the transcontinental mail service. (f/) The contention on the part of the Postal Union, apparently acquiesced in by the Post Office, that between different countries belonging to the Postal Union, even through parts of the same Empire, nothing less than the Postal Union letter rate of 2^d. and other regulation rates for other matter may be charged. The correctness of this view seems open to question ; but if it is correct the Con- vention must, in British Imperial interests, be amended in this respect. (G) Even under existing postal arrangements, the loss to be incurred by making the rates to the of ler parts of the Empire uniform with those in the United Kingdom is admittedly small. And whether small or great, to charge it to the puHicular branch of the correspondence that now pays it is indefensible in principle. Without any complete change of system, by ceasing to regard the whole of the sub 'idles as part of the cost of postal administration, only a small proportion being properly so accountable (whether or not they continue to be paid out of the postal surplus is immaterial), and by ^ 3ting retrenchments in respect of the Postal Union undertakings, the present apparent loss could be wiped out or materially reduced. (7) But something better still might be done by a ra(Ucal change in the traditional method of treating mail matter in the Ocean Packet services. The fixed contract system at present in vogue should be abolished, and con- tracts for the carriage of the mails made upon ordinary commercial principles and at freights approxinuiting to those current for other first-class and valuable caru'o, based upon the amount carried. Some additional remuneration would still be necessary in consideration of special pri- vileges to be accorded to mail matter, and the assumption 66 UNIFOUM JMVERTAL POSTAGE. by sliipownei-s of certain special oblip :ions, but tliis for reasons given, would not be lar