We must also request Mr. Hill to refer to the whole series of
Postmaster-Generals’ Reports. Every one of them contains paragraphs
under the heading “Accelerations,” but in the tenth, eleventh, and
twelfth, there are no less than seven and a-half pages devoted
exclusively to this one subject. In the Tenth Report (undated, but
bearing internal evidence of its being intended for the year 1862),
it is stated, “a statement of all the accelerations which have been
effected within the last ten years, or even a list of all the places
in the United Kingdom which have now an earlier arrival, or a later
despatch of letters than were afforded to them in 1854, would show
conclusively that the Post Office has, during that period, laboured
strenuously and successfully to meet the demands of the public. But
such statements would be confusing from the multiplicity of their
details.” The Postmaster-General therefore confines himself to
alluding “to the acceleration of the Scotch mails, which took place
in 1859; to that of the Irish mails, which took place in 1860; and to
that of the French mails which also took place in the year 1860.”
These accelerations are so great, and bear so importantly upon the
correspondence of the whole kingdom, not only _inter se_, but with the
whole continent of Europe, that each is very completely and elaborately
described. In the report for 1864, the Postmaster-General, in addition
to mentioning several important accelerations, refers, in a triumphant
tone, to the advantages which have been gained to the public by the
adoption of railways for conveyance of mails in various districts both
of Scotland and Ireland; and in the report for 1865, equal satisfaction
is expressed, because most important accelerations were made in the
speed of all the main postal trains throughout Ireland. This part of
the report concludes as follows. “Contracts for the general use of all
ordinary trains were entered into with the Great Southern and Western,
the Dublin and Drogheda, and the Dublin and Belfast Railway Companies;
and the contract with the Ulster Railway Company was extended. It was
chiefly by means of these contracts that the improvements effected in
the mail service in Ireland during 1865, were greater than they had
been in any previous year for a considerable time past.”
The foregoing is the language used in the three latest annual reports
of the department, the last of which was written about the time that
Mr. Hill must have been submitting to the Royal Commissioners his
reasons why the nation would benefit by the purchase of the railways.
And here let us mention a belief which exists in the Office, that for
several years previous to the present year, the Postmaster-General’s
Reports have been drafted by Mr. Hill. This belief, however, cannot be
correct, as it is not to be supposed that Mr. Hill would blow hot and
cold, and write white and black at one and the same time.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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