Encyclopaedia Britannica > Volume 19, PHY-PRO

572
P O S T-0 F F I C E
[MONEY OEDEES.
£740,429, in 1859 £1,349,676, in 1869 £2,198,220,1 in 1881
£2,597,768, in 1882 (inclusive of telegraphs) £3,100,475, in 1883
£3,061,748, and in 1884 £2,897,427.2
Money
orders.
Postal
notes.
Money-Order Department.
The money-order branch of the post-office was for forty
years the private enterprise of three post-office clerks
known as “ Stow and Company.” It was commenced in
1792, with the special object of facilitating the safe con¬
veyance of small sums to soldiers and sailors, but was soon
extended to all classes of small remitters. The postmaster-
general sanctioned the scheme without ihterposing in the
management. Each of the three partners advanced £1000
to carry it on; and each of them seems, during the greater
portion of the period, to have derived about <£200 a year
in profit. In 1830 the amount of remittances from
London was only about £10,000. The percentage was
eightpence in the pound, out of which threepence were
allotted to each of the postmasters receiving and paying,
the remaining twopence forming the profit of the partners.
On 6th December 1838 the office was converted into an
official department under the postmaster-general,—the then
partners receiving due compensation. The commission
was reduced to a fixed charge of Is. 6d. for sums exceed¬
ing £2 and under £5, and of 6d. for all sums not exceed¬
ing £2. In 1840 these rates were reduced to 6d. and 3d.
respectively. The number and aggregate amount of the
orders issued (inland, colonial, and foreign) in different
periods from the reorganization (1839) until 1884 are as
follows (Table X.) :—
Years.
1839
1844
1849
1854
1861-65 (average)
1866-70
1875
18763 (first three months
only)
1878- 79
1879- 80
1880- 81
1881-824
1882- 83 ,
1883- 84
Number.
188,921
2,806,803
4,248,891
5,466,244
8,055,227
9,720,030
16,819,874
4,436,858
17,740,622
17,307,573
16,935,005
15,383,033
15,090,858
14,663,635
Amount.
£313,124
5,695,395
8,152,643
10,462,411
16,624,503
19,847,258
27,688,255
7,194,943
27,303,093
26,371,020
26,003,582
25,393,574
27,597,883
27,629,879
From 1871 to the end of 1877, the rates having been reduced to
Id. for sums under 10s., and 2d. for sums of 10s. and under 20s.,
increasing by a graduated scale of Id. for each additional £1 or
fraction thereof, inland orders failed to be remunerative; and it
was only by reckoning as profit the amount of unclaimed and
forfeited orders that the cost to the office of inland orders could
be covered. But, as the loss was only on orders for very small
sums, Mr Chetwynd proposed to meet it by issuing postal notes
payable at any post-office without previous notice. When the plan
was submitted to a committee appointed by the treasury, it was
objected that the postal note as a remitting medium would be less
secure than the money order. The objection was met in part by
giving a discretionary power to fill in the name of the post-office
and also that of the payee, and no practical inconvenience or cause
of complaint seems to have resulted. And in like manner another
4 Average of five years, and exclusive of telegraphs.
2 In the Thirtieth Report of the Postmaster-General (1884) the
amount is stated as £2,687,100. The statement in the text is from
the Analysed, Account of the Public Income and Expenditure, pre¬
sented to parliament by the treasury in July 1884, and is unquestion¬
ably the correct one. The comparative deficiency as compared with
1883 is due to the expenditure of £350,000 for plant in the telegraphs
and parcel-post departments.
3 From 1877 onwards the official accounts are made up to 31st
March in each year.
4 The figures for this year are those given in the general tabular
recapitulation of the appendix to the Twenty-eighth Report of Post¬
master-General, 1882, p. 40. In the body of the same report (p. 8)
they are stated at 14,880,821 and £23,848,936 respectively. The
tabular figures are those also of the Twenty-ninth Report, 1883, and
of the Thirtieth Report, 1884.
objection which was urged against the new form of money order
in several quarters, and very strongly in the Banker’s Magazine—
namely, that they would prove to be an issue of Government small
notes under another name—has derived no support from experience.
“It is found,” says the postmaster-general, “that the average time
[during] which these orders are in circulation is six days,—a fact
which shows that there was no foundation for the idea that they
would be used as currency.” 5 The statistics of notes issued under
the provisions of the Postal Orders Act, 43 and 44 Viet. c. 33 (1880),
are as follows (Table XL):—
Number.
646,989
4,462,920
7,980,328
12,286,556
25,376,793
Value.
£292,150
2,006,918
3,451,284
5,028,663
£10,779,015
1881 (quarter ending 31st March)
1881-82
1882- 83
1883- 84
Total.
The postal notes most largely in request are those of Is., 5s., 10s.,
and 20s. In 1884 plans were under the postmaster-general’s con¬
sideration for improving the regulations and for extending the
system to the colonies. Meanwhile the money-order business,
which for several years past had been constantly declining both in
number and in value, was on the increase. In foreign6 and in
colonial orders the increase was in the number as well as in the
amount. The inland orders showed an increase in value of nearly
two millions sterling (£1,856,091) in 1882-83 as compared with
1881-82, although their number was smaller by 386,531. In 1883-
84 there was a decrease of 0’84 per cent, in the value as compared
with that of 1882-83, whilst the increase in the number of postal
orders during the same year was more than four millions, the
increase in value being more than £1,500,000.
The relative amount of the money-order business of the chief
towns of the United Kingdom is shown in Table XII.7 It states
the number and amount of the orders paid in each town on one
day only (5th May 1876), and for the sake of comparison the cor¬
responding figures for one day in 1884 (5th May) are appended:—
5th May 1876.
London (general post-office)
Edinburgh
Dublin
Manchester
Liverpool
Glasgow
Bristol
Leeds
Hull
Total of Orders
paid.
Num¬
ber.
8778
594
1181
1056
1019
882
535
500
393
Amount.
£14,802
1,060
1,550
2,166
2,466
1,855
1,140
948
935
Paid through
Bankers.
Amount.
8339
380
731
215
73
526
171
95
13
£14,073
657
983
506
115
1,169
493
253
20
5th May 1884.
London (general
post-office)
Edinburgh8 ....
Dublin
Manchester
Liverpool
Glasgow
Bristol
Leeds
Hull
Total of Orders
paid.
Num¬
ber.
9117
420
935
960
1074
1088
339
420
294
Amount.
£16,278
760
1,350
1,914
2,755
2,174
752
765
617
Paid through
Bankers.
Number. Amount,
8,784
254
776
no record
£15,608
385
1,112
no record
Postal Orders.
Num¬
ber.
39
307
547
519
371
93
271
319
158
Amount.
£24
134
198
210
166
93
114
148
67
Postal Savings Banks.
The establishment of post-office savings banks was prac- Savings
tically suggested in the year 1860 by Mr Charles William banks.
Sykes of Huddersfield, whose suggestion was cordially
received by Mr Gladstone, then chancellor of the exchequer,
to whose conspicuous exertions in parliament the effectual
working-out of the measure and also many and great
improvements in its details are substantially and unques¬
tionably due. Half a century earlier (1807) it had been
proposed to utilize the then existing (and very rudimentary)
money-order branch of the post-office for the collection and
5 Twenty-eighth Report of Postmaster-General, 1882, p. 8.
6 The rate of commission on foreign money orders was reduced on
1st January 1883 by one-third. To all countries within the Postal
Union (see infra, p. 583 sg.) it is now 6d. for sums not exceeding £2;
Is. for £5 ; Is. 6d. for £7 ; 2s. for £10.
7 Fractions of £1 are omitted.
8 The figures for 7th May are given, as the 5th was a partial
holiday in Edinburgh.