18th Dec.
Mr. Henniker Heaton, M.P., is the champion of Imperial Penny Postage, and he has found an able assistant in his propaganda in Mr. Robert J. Beadon, M.A., a member of the executive committee of the Imperial Federation League, who has published a pamphlet of 56 pages on the subject. Its title is: Uniform Imperial Postage: an enquiry and a proposal, with an introductory letter to Sir Daniel Cooper, Bart, G.C.M.G. In this letter Mr. Beadon points out that Imperial communications form an important link in the chain that the Imperial Federation League is anxious to forge." Uniform Imperial Postage," he says, "is not, indeed, any more an actual part or necessary condition precedent of Imperial Federation in its strictly 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 avy form is surrounded by such enormous difficulties), Uniform Imperial Postage would undoubtedly tend very strongly towards that National Unity, the completion and maintenance of which is the aim of the Imperial Federation League." Whis will hardly be gain said by any one, and Mr, Beadon adds that his reason for supplementing the work of Mr. Heaton is found in the recent inclusion of our Australian and South African Colonies in the Postal Union. The effect of this is "to strengthen the hold of the Postal Union upon the communications of the Empire, and so to intensify and prolong the snbordina~ tion of Imperial interests to an international organisation."
Mr. Beadon divides what he has to say into five sections; (1) The Situation, (2) What is Wanted, (3) Obstacles in the Way, (4) Proposals, (5) Summary. In considering the situation, he mentions the difference, now done away with, in the rates of postage to India, China, and Australia paid by the English mail and by the French or German mails; and while rejoicing that all are now on the same footing, he holds that communication within the Empire should be more easy than with outside countries, just because it is the Empire. There are still inexcusable anomalies in the case of newspaper rates. Not only are the rates in many of our colonies and depen-doneies, and from them tu the United Kingdom, much lower than those charged by the British Post Office, but the Latter insists on all manner of restrictions "as to collected numbers of a paper, folding, enclosures, marks or writing, ete., 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 adver-fisement sheet) often gets cut off to save postage? Or that under the various regulations affecting newspapers the Post Office gets a large quantity of postage for papers that it incontinently confiscates for falling into its own ingeniously-laid traps Similarly, many periodicals most valuable as disseminators of commercial knowledge, and therefore encouragers of imperial trade, are debarred from the privileges that are accorded to newspapers, because they do not come exactly within the four corners of the Post-Office definition.
"What is Wanted is, in half a dozen words, a cheap and wwiform rate of postage throughout the Empire." It seemed impossible to Sir Rowland Hill's contemporaries that the Post Office could carry a letter from London to the Orkneys for the same price as from London to Blackheath, without serious loss; and it seems to the officials of the present day equally impossible to chargethesame rate for a letter from London toNewZealand, But on the principle of " making the good pay for the bad," this can be done, and nothing keeps up the connection of the Colonists with the mother-land like cheap postage. If it can be shown that a penny imperial postage is practicable, ino one will continue to question its desirability.
In dealing with Obstacles in the Way, Mr. Beadon names first the Post Office itself. It has vigorously and successfully pushed the Postal Union, the result of which is that the countries in the Empire out-site the United Kingdom are placed, for postal purposes, on the footing of foreign nations, instead of being regarded and dealt with as parts of a single Empire. Next comes the treatment of the Post Office as a money-making concern. As long as the Treasury regards the Post Office as a source of income, every improvement that might diminish the profit it earns will be strenuously resisted. The Post Office again is made to pay the subsidies to the mail steamers, when they are really subsidised for military purposes. other great obstacle is that the terms of the Postal Union, which fix 2}d. as the rate on a half-ounce letter, are construed to mean that the Post Office may not change less between the various countries in the British Empire. Mr. Beadon holds that if this construction is correct, of which there is some doubt, "this is a state of things which ought not to exist and must not be allowed to continue, and that every effort should be made by the government to get rid of these fetters,..,. bringing every available pressure to bear upon the foreign administrations who have no such special interests to conserve as would induce them to fight long for such a point as this."
Mr. Beadon's Proposals we are obliged by consideration of space to deal with bet somewhat summarily, The estimated Joss by the establishment of an imperial penny postage is only £75,000 a year, and this could be entirely obviated by abolishing the existing fixed contract system, snd paying for the mails as \first-class cargo, upon a weight basis, as the Post Office does now with mails sent by non-contract steamers.. Subsidies would no longer be improperly charged to the working expenses of the Post Offices, though they might still be paid out of the Post Office revenue, and the excessive payments on the Brindisi route must be abolished. he loss now contemplated would soon be made up, as' has occurred. before, by the large increase in business whicl would follow the proposed reduction. Mr. Beadon's conclusion is:—" Finally, what is aimed at is the attainment of a great object, most beneficial in every respect commercial, political, and social, to the United Kingdom itself and to the Empire as a whole, even though the super-surplus of the Post Office be diminished to pay fur it. But if.the Post Office will abandon some bad bargains and soma worn-out traditions there need be no loss at all." And this is a conclusion with which all who study the question dispassionately and without prejudice will certainly agree.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.