The division of the Southern from the Northern States, as far as the post-office was concerned, did not take place till the end of May, l861; and therefore but one month in the year was affected by the actual secession of the South. The gross postal revenue of the States which have seceded was, for the year prior to secession, 1,200,500 dollars, and for that one month of June it would therefore have been a little over 100,000 dollars, or 20,000l. That sum may therefore be presumed to have been abstracted by secession from the gross annual revenue of the post-office. Trade, also, was no doubt injured by the disturbance in the country, and the circulation of letters was, as a matter of course, to some degree affected by this injury; but it seems that the gross revenue of 1861 was less than that of 1860 by only one thirty-sixth. I think, therefore, that we may say, making all allowance that can be fairly made, that the number of letters circulating in the United Kingdom is more than double that which circulates, or ever has circulated, in the United States.
That this is so, I attribute not to any difference in the people of the two countries, not to an aptitude for letter writing among us which is wanting with the Americans, but to the greater convenience and wider accommodation of our own post-office. As I have before stated, and will presently endeavor to show, this wider accommodation is not altogether the result of better management on our part. Our circumstances as regards the post-office have had in them less of difficulties than theirs. But it has arisen in great part from better management; and in nothing is their deficiency so conspicuous as in the absence of a free delivery for their letters.
In order that the advantages of the post-office should reach all persons, the delivery of letters should extend not only to towns, but to the country also. In France all letters are delivered free.
However remote may be the position of a house or cottage, it is not too remote for the postman. With us all letters are not delivered, but the exceptions refer to distant solitary houses and to localities which are almost without correspondence. But in the United States there is no free delivery, and there is no delivery at all except in the large cities. In small towns, in villages, even in the suburbs of the largest cities, no such accommodation is given. Whatever may be the distance, people expecting letters must send for them to the post-office; and they who do not expect them, leave their letters uncalled for. Brother Jonathan goes out to fish in these especial waters with a very large net. The little fish which are profitable slip through; but the big fish, which are by no means profitable, are caught--often at an expense greater than their value.
There are other smaller sins upon which I could put my finger--and would do so were I writing an official report upon the subject of the American post-office. In lieu of doing so, I will endeavor to explain how much the States office has done in this matter of affording post-office accommodation, and how great have been the difficulties in the way of post-office reformers in that country.
In the first place, when we compare ourselves to them we must remember that we live in a tea-cup, and they in a washing-tub. As compared with them we inhabit towns which are close to each other.
Our distances, as compared with theirs, are nothing. From London to Liverpool the line of railway I believe traverses about two hundred miles, but the mail train which conveys the bags for Liverpool carries the correspondence of probably four or five millions of persons. The mail train from New York to Buffalo passes over about four hundred miles, and on its route leaves not one million. Acomparison of this kind might be made with the same effect between any of our great internal mail routes and any of theirs.
Consequently the expense of conveyance to them is, per letter, very much greater than with us, and the American post-office is, as a matter of necessity, driven to an economy in the use of railways for the post-office service which we are not called on to practice.
From New York to Chicago is nearly 1000 miles. From New York to St.
Louis is over 1400. From New York to New Orleans is 1600 miles. Ineed not say that in England we know nothing of such distances, and that therefore our task has been comparatively easy. Nevertheless the States have followed in our track, and have taken advantage of Sir Rowland's Hill's wise audacity in the reduction of postage with greater quickness than any other nation but our own. Through all the States letters pass for three cents over a distance less than 3000 miles. For distances above 3000 miles the rate is ten cents, or five pence. This increased rate has special reference to the mails for California, which are carried daily across the whole continent at a cost to the States government of two hundred thousand pounds a year.
With us the chief mail trains are legally under the management of the Postmaster-General. He fixes the hours at which they shall start and arrive, being of course bound by certain stipulations as to pace. He can demand trains to run over any line at any hour, and can in this way secure the punctuality of mail transportation. Of course such interference on the part of a government official in the working of a railway is attended with a very heavy expense to the government. Though the British post-office can demand the use of trains at any hour, and as regards those trains can make the dispatch of mails paramount to all other matters, the British post-office cannot fix the price to be paid for such work. This is generally done by arbitration, and of course for such services the payment is very high. No such practice prevails in the States. The government has no power of using the mail lines as they are used by our post-office, nor could the expense of such a practice be borne or nearly borne by the proceeds of letters in the States.