TOPICS OF TIIE DAY.; , THE THE POST-OFFICE EXPOSURE. THE Select

Committee of the House of Commons appoiatxscUT inquire into the questions at issue between Mr. ROWLAND TULL; as public accuser, and the Post-office backed by the Treasury, have produced a monster Blue Book of 682 pages. The Committee have consented to share the discredit which hangs on Government in the affair, by an avoidance of their duty—for they make no Report pro- perly so called, but only "report their evidence"; which is no suffi- cient answer to the question submitted to them. On the 27th of June last, fifteen Honourable Members were selected " to inquire into the measures which have been adopted for the introduction of a general rate of postage, and for facilitating the conveyance of letters, and the result of such measures so far as relates to the re- venue and expenditure of the Post-office, and the general con- venience of the country ; and to report their observations thereupon to the House." The Honourable Members have reported no "ob- servations." The neglect of a set duty is placed in a worse light by considering the circumstances which led to the inquiry. To carry out the intention of Parliament, the late Government appointed Mr. ROWLAND HILL, to a special post in the Treasury for giving effect to his plan of Post-office Reform : though slowly, the work was proceeding when the present Government catne into office : then, with a few trivial exceptions, the course of improvement was ar- rested; and soon afterwards, Mr. HILL was dismissed, with only one of the grand essentials of his plan adopted. At the same time, the adherents of Ministers were everywhere crying out that "his plan "—really untried in its integrity—" had failed"; while Mr. HILL himself averred, that since the change of Ministry be had met with continual obstructions in the performance of his duty. People suspected that he had been treated shabbily, and much dissatisfaction was entertained. But we put aside for the present all question of the treatmeot of the individual as a successful though thwarted inventer or a diligent but unrecompensed public servant, and stick to the larger issues—the convenience and advan- tage of the public itself, and the conduct of Ministers, the responsi- ble servants of the public. There was a general demand to know why these strange proceedings had occurred ; and, Goveinment acquiescing, the House of Commons appointed a Select Committee. Had Ministers desired to frustrate the inquiry, they could not have done better than to procure the return of such a Blue Book as this. It is a mass of undigested evidence, correspondence, returns, and "papers" of various kinds. The evidence on any one point is not only scattered piecemeal in each witness's examination, but is broken up into fragments, as Honourable Members choose to stray away from it in their questioning, or to recur to it ; and this me- chanical confusion is increased by endless qualifications, conflicting statements, contradictions, and retractations.

There might indeed be more than merely Ministerial reasons for evading the duty to report. The long-delayed inquiry had run to the close of the session : the Liberal Members, having no specific object in view, dropped off, and are chargeable with leaving the matter at the mercy of the official people : Mr. HAWES was the only one who stuck to his post. At the last, the Ministerial Members had an overwhelming majority : a Minister, Sir GEORGE CLERK, Secretary to the Treasury—himself one of the accused— was in the chair as presiding judge ! Of course the minority could not press their--or rather his (Mr. Hawes's) views : but why did not this powerful majority venture to report ? If Mr. HILL'S charges against the officials were unfounded, we presume it would have been so reported. The Committee, however, thus peculiarly constituted, trust that the various " propositions " will receive from the Trea- sury and the Post-office "the fullest consideration" ! Considera- tion of what ? what is there worthy of consideration ? Why, those propositions, the neglect of which heretofore constituted the gross misconduct of both departments.

Few will read the monster Blue Book ; and those who do must be content to enter on a tedious and troublesome labour. For our- selves, we cannot profess to have mastered the ponderous tome ; but, with the help of a previous knowledge of the subject, and the index, we have traced the working-out of some of the more im- portant branches of the inquiry, and have already ascertained enough to warrant the single " observation " of the Committee. We will communicate some of the results of our studies thus far.

The first witness examined was Mr. HILL; who began by reiterating what were the main essentials of his original plan of Post-office Reform,—namely, "1. A uniform and low rate of postage ; 2. Increased speed in the delivery of letters; 3. Greater facilities for their despatch ; 4. Simplification in the operations of the Post-office, with the view of reducing the cost of the establish- ment to a minimum." These main objects were to be attained by details, of which some have been partially adopted. He enumerates the following " Improvements already effected "—Day-mails on the principal lines (adopted before Mr. HILL'S general plan, but after he had made the suggestion) ; one additional delivery of letters in London, and two additional deliveries in some of the suburbs ; considerable reduction of the inland rates on Foreign and Colonial letters ; sea-rates reduced in some instances ; franking abolished, and a low charge imposed on the transmission of Parliamentary papers; registration of letters, though at too high a rate ; the use of money-orders extended ; the ordinary limitation of weight (maximum, one pound) waived in favour of bankers' parcels and law-papers. It should be observed, that the whole of these ins-

provements were effected during Mr. HILL's first year of office : no further improvements have been made under the present Govern- ment, except an important reduction in the postage of letters between France and England, some reductions on other Foreign rates, and some additional deliveries in limited districts. Not- withstanding the imperfect development of the plan, and the protracted and extraordinary depression of trade, which must have seriously counteracted the operation of the change, the results of the improvement are striking. The chargeable letters transmitted within the United Kingdom, exclusively of Govern- ment correspondence, have increased in number from about 75,000,000, in 1838, to 207,000,000, in 1842; the London district post-letters, from 13,000,000 to 23,000,000; the general increase is nearly 200 per cent. The expenditure of the Post-office has increased, according to Mr. HILL, from 757,0001., in 1839, to 978,0001., in 1842; or 30 per cent, but, excluding various items of increase which have nothing to do with his plan, about 15 per cent. Indeed, the expense of the Post-office had begun to increase before the introduction of the penny postage. The officials of St. Martin's- le-Grand hazarded a variety of anticipations as to the results of the plan : Colonel MABERLY prophesied that "the smuggler would always beat the Post-office "—smuggling is now a lost custom ; Mr. BOXENHAM, Superintending President of the Inland Office, pre- dicted that charging by weight would occupy double time ! All these anticipations would be merely ludicrous, did they not furnish a test as to the competency of the Post-office people to judge in the matter of their own reform. On the other hand, Mr. HILL'S own anticipations have been as signally affirmed by the event. He anticipated that the public would be willing to pay in advance— they do so ; that they would be willing to prepay by means of stamps—stamps are used in the majority of instances ; that post- age-stamps would be of little expense to Government—their cost is about 2 per cent on their value; that the illicit transmission of letters would cease—it has ceased ; that the uniform charge, by weight, prepaid by means of stamps, would facilitate the operations of the Post-office—which they do ; that considerable moral and social benefits would accrue to the public—the increase of letters measures that result ; that the poor would especially benefit—the greatest increase of letters posted in London and elsewhere is in the poorer districts. One of the results about which there is the greatest misconception is the state of the revenue. The projector anticipated that, under his entire scheme, a fivefold increase of letters would suffice to restore the revenue to its amount in 1842, when the gross revenue was 1,579,0001.; an increase of 48 per cent on its present amount would bring it up to the standard of 1837. But already the public have gained very considerably-

" Where diminution of amount in any branch of revenue is produced simply by lowering the tax, the difference between the new and the old amount re- mains in the pockets of the people, and may be extracted by new taxes, or spent in modes which will absorb a large portion of it in old ones. Where the defal- cation is produced by diminished consumption, diminished means of enjoyment on the part of the public may not unreasonably be inferred ; and, in that case, the fund to be drawn upon by new taxes does not exist. In the former case, the loss which the nation sustains in its capacity of receiver of the revenue is balanced by the saving which it makes in its letter-writing rapacity; in truth, it is much more than balanced. Under the old system, the average postage of a single inland letter was about 6d., which would give a reduction of six to one; but as a penny letter will now carry several enclosures, it is a more valuable article to the public than the sixpenny letter was, which was confined to one sheet. If, therefore, instead of a reduction of six to one, I call it a reduction of nine to one, I believe I do not over-estimate the practical advantage of the change to the public. Now, the loss of net revenue being from 1,600,0001. to 600,000/., is over-estimated at three to one; and therefore, uhile the public have been losing revenue at the rate of three to one, they have been gaining convenience at the rate of nine to one ; while the lost revenue remains in their pockets, open to the fiscal operations of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. • • My experience in Post-office affairs since the year 1839 has led ire very much to doubt whether the penny rate, under judicious management, may not be the best, even with exclusive reference to money profit, in a long course of years."

(Mr. Hill's Evidence.) So much as to what has been accomplished. The anticipations of the two opposing parties having been thus remarkably nullified or substantiated by the results in respect of what is done, it is important to bear in mind that the same parties are now at issue respecting things to be done. To complete his scheme by adding

the neglected essentials, Mr. HILL laid before the Committee a draft ofpropositions which had been submitted to the CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER. Their principal objects are—to induce greater eco- nomy in the management of the Post-office, by dint of simplifying its operations and revising its expenditure, so that, as he calculates, 246,000/. could be saved annually ; to enable the Post-office, by sim- plification of its operations, to perform more work ; and to encourage a great increase of correspondence, by giving the public greatly in- creased facilities. Among the chief alterations, the effect of which may be most readily perceived by those who have no intimate know- ledge of the subject, are the following. Compulsory prepayment by means of stamps would abolish postmasters' accounts: a large number of districts in the country remain without any posts, which should of course be supplied, (the "Poste Rurale " in France, a mere carriage of letters from one village to another, has been the principal cause why the Post revenue of that country has for some years been steadily increasing at the rate of 5 per cent) : the esta- blishment of district-posts in the Metropolis, communicating di- rectly with each other, would abridge the time for transmitting a let- ter and obtaining the answer ; and "hourly deliveries" in the Metro- polis would afford another obvious facility and inducement to use the post. These improvements were nearly all objected to by the Post-office witnesses. Lord LOWTHER put in a categorical reply to Mr HaLf s draft, which is nothing but a tissue of assertions that each successive improvement is impracticable or inexpedient, prin- cipally on the ground of " cost "—" it is all a matter of expense," or some such words, are repeatedly used by Lord Lovrrusa. The treatment of one proposition may serve as a specimen of the test: we will take the proposal for " hourly deliveries" in the Metropolis. Mr. HILL suggests that the delivery of letters in London should be made once each hour instead of two hours; and he would pro- vide the force for that purpose by combining the two corps ef General Post and Twopenny Post letter-carriers. He makes a minute calculation, by which he shows that the combined force of 1,000 men could perform the work at the rate of seven hours a day for each man; whereas at present the average time of employment is more than eight hours a day. The advantages of such a com- bination would not be limited to the economy of labour, but would accrue in a variety of ways: for example, the first delivery, in- cluding General Post letters, might always be made at a fixed time ; any late mail being reserved for the next delivery. The officials say that it will not be profitable : unless their attention is expressly directed to the subject, they seem to lose sight of the fact that the Post-office is principally a great engine of public conve- nience and that its agency in contributing to the revenue is only secondary : as the servants of the Executive, and as the recipients of salary, they can look at nothing. but the emolument. Thus, Lord LOWTHER says of hourly deliveries—" A matter of expense en- tirely." Entirely! the public convenience quite forgotten ! Mr. SMITH, the Superintending President of the Twopenny Post, thinks that they won't "pay." He calculates that they would require more men : but that is on the supposition that the distribution of labour remains in its present state. One of his reasons for thinking that they would not " pay " is the assumption, that the extent of accom- modation that would pay has already been given to the public! Mr. BOXENHAM concurs with Mr. SMITH respecting the combination of letter-carriers. Colonel MABERLY spends much pains to show that the thing is impracticable ; all the while supposing that Mr. HILL means, not a delivery of letters every hour, but a delivery of each letter within an hour after its being posted! Some of the reasons against the proposal are very amusing. Mr. SMITH de- poses that his own friends don't like frequent deliveries !— Mr. Escott. "Do you not think that it may be possible to increase the num- ber of deliveries to such an extent, that instead of being convenient, they may be inconvenient to the public ? "—" That will depend upon the opinions of persons. I know some parties, who have said to me, ' Your letter-carriers are a perfect nuisance; they are knocking at my door all day long." " You think, at present the deliveries are more frequent than the public wish them to be ?"—" I do not know that the public regard it in that light." Mr. F. T. Baring. " Have you ever had an application to the Postmaster- General from any part of the country to stop the delivery ?"—" No; it is not likely."

Mr. Escott. " Do you know of persons having complained of deliveries being so frequent as to be inconvenient to them ? "—" Yes ; from my friends I have heard that remark, Your postmen are a perfect nuisance; they are coming to my door all day long.'" Lord LOWTHER, whose evidence is given with an engaging non- chalance, thinks it also a matter of "taste." But on this point he is rather against Mr. SMITH'S friends— Mr. Escott. "Does not your Lordship think that the delivery of letters may be so much increased as not only not to be an additional convenience, but to be a great inconvenience? "—" That depends upon the taste of the people : I believe the majority of the people have a taste for receiving letters; there are a certain number that have not that taste; that is a matter which depends entirely on the taste of the individual."

"Entirely" again! entirely a matter of "taste," or of "ex- pense "—not of commercial importance or social convenience. Such are among the frivolous pretences on which the officials, with the vulgar journeyman-bigotry against " newfangled " improve- ments, shuffled off Mr. HILL'S plan for greatly increasing the efficiency of the Post-office.

Regarded merely as a question of official misconduct, the Blue Book is a very damaging exposure. Gross negligence is sometimes a charitable construction on what would otherwise wear an appear- ance of greater turpitude. Even Lord LOWTHER, once supposed to be an intelligent patron of Post-office Reform, seems now under the influence of some official Circe, and is not himself: witness his naive avowal of divers acts of trifling. In the former Postage Committee he supported a twopenny rate; and that pro- position was now alluded to— Mr. Becket Denison. "Is it your opinion now, that 2d. would have been a better rate than Id. ?—" Really, as to that subject, I must own I have never entertained or imagined a change of the present rates since I have been at the Post-office : I am merely there to execute the orders of the Treasury, and I would not throw the least distrust among any of the officers, in their fancying they had any other way than going on as well as they could with the penny. might have been charged with obstruction or impediment to Mr. Hill's plan, if I bad commenced making estircates, either under the different beads to charge Id. the quarter of an ounce, or 2d. half an ounce, or a general rate of postage according to distance." " Was your Lordship's original opinion in favour of 2d. or Id. ?"—" If the Member for Greenock was here, he would corroborate Inc in my evidence: I always told him that the penny would be an entire loss of revenue; that it may just pay its own way, but nothing more. I voted for the 2d. in the Commit- tee ; and, with a certain degree of inconsistency, when it went into the House, voted for the penny. It was the popular cry then ; and 1 really voted against my own judgment almost, for the penny. But I wished for a change at that time."

Mr. Baring. " Are the Committee to understand that your Lordship was favourable to Mr. Hill's opinions on other points? "—" I was for an important change; and, after my own, I thought Mr. Rowland Hill's principle the next best."

" Mr. Rowland Hill's plan is entirely inconsistent with the scheme your Lordship originally proposed ?"—" Yes.' • •

" I presume, when your Lordship voted for a greatly-reduced rate of postage, you either had or had not some general idea as to its operation on the reve- nue ? "—" Yes ; I certainly eaid I thought the inland postage should be re, duced. If the Honourable Member for Greenock was here, I would calf upon him to be a witness that the doctrine I maintained was, that it should be adopted if it would. only pay itself. One is rash sometimes in Opposition; but where the respomulnIzty was upon me to a certain degree in the Committee, I voted for 2d. in preference to Id."

This spurious, free and easy kind of candour, distinguishes alike the Postmaster General and his Secretary, Colonel MABEELY but it does not avail them to divert attention from Mr. Trit-r:a charge, now substantiated—that he was obstructed in the execution of his duly. His elaborate minuteness is no doubt tiresome and vexatious to those who like to hasten over their routine busi- ness as easily as may be : they may think it very mean nicely-to calculate how labour may be economized, or to keep watch lest the public should be charged some pounds sterling too much by this or that Railway Company. But it is precisely this quality of painstaking perseverance and minute adjustment which would make Mr. HILL a useful public servant in such an establishment as the Post-office. That he was too useful for their purpose, is shown in the lengths to which they went in the endeavour to obstruct him. We will give one example. In June 1842, the Treasury had assented to the establishment of a day-mail between London and Newcastle : Lord LICHFIELD had before devised a plan ; but Mr. Him now produced a more economical one, which was sanctioned by the Treasury : further details were needed, and he proposed to go down to Newcastle to make inquiries there and at the principal towns on the line : the necessary authority was given in a Treasury minute- " Wishing to avail myself," says Mr. HILL, "of the opportunity thus afforded for improving my acquaintance with the details of the provincial offices, and being at the same time anxious to avoid every thing that might by possibility interfere with the discipline of the department, I applied to the Post-office for the requisite authority : to my great surprise, the result of this application was an intimation from the Treasury, that the Postmaster-General objected alto- gether to my personal investigation of the matter ; accompanied with the inti- mation that the specific authority granted by the Treasury was suspended. In consequence, I immediately (on June the 20th 1842) wrote to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, urging the importance of the inquiry, and the futility of any attempt to conduct it through the Poet-office; and in conclusion requesting as early an answer as the press-are of buainesa would admit of. To this letter (which appears in evidence) I received no reply." Conscious of the unworthy treatment that Mr. HILL had received, the official people made every effort to veil the fact from the public. The correspondence that passed between the CHANCELLOR of the ExcitsnuEit and Mr. Flu t, relative to the obstructions and his dismissal from office, having been moved for in Parliament, and ordered, the correspondence produced was garbled by the suppres- sion of important letters. Those letters are now published among other papers incorporated by Mr. HILL in his evidence ; and the earnestness with which some of them urge various improvements, suggests the inference that they may have been withheld to weaken the evidence of his zeal, and of the reluctance of the Executive to fulfil its duty to Parliament and the public by affording him all due facility. From whatever motive, a more positive delusion was practised on the public. In April last, Sir GEORGE CLERK. moved for a "return," which has gained a bad notoriety. This paper is num- bered 201 in the session of 1843; and it is as strange a specimen of manufacture as ever was put forth. It purports to be "A Return, showing the number of Inland Letters ; the gross annual amount of Revenue derived therefrom, including payments for official postage and receipts from the Money-order Office; the Expense of Management, in- cluding that of the Money-order Office, and maintenance of Packets on home stations; the amount of Postage on Dead and Returned Letters; and the net Revenue for the year ended 5th January 1843 also, a similar Return of the Number of Foreign and Colonial Letters ; the gross amount of Revenue derived therefrom, including payments for official postage ; the Expense of Manage- ment, including maintenance of Packets on foreign stations; the amount of Postage on Dead and Returned Letters ; and the Deficiency to the Revenue for the year ended 5th January 1843."

It thus purports to be a return "showing" these things—a state- ment of facts. Now let us see how it was made. Lord LOWTHER conceived the idea that the principal amount of revenue was de- rived from the Foreign and Colonial postage; there is also a sup- position in the Post-office that the Penny-postage does not yield any considerable revenue : on the face of the return, those suppo- sitions are singularly confirmed. It shows, indeed, a net revenue from Inland letters, of 103,2681., and a deficiency in the Foreign account, of 113,0391.: but the latter part of the return includes the cost of packets on foreign stations, 490,5421.; which is, in the most remarkable manner, acknowledged by the officials as a Post-office expense, or repudiated by them as an Admiralty expense, accord- ing as they wish, with varying purpose, to show a loss or a profit on their accounts. It is not a Post-office charge. The West India packets were established at a cost of 240,000/. per annum, though the utmost return that was expected from letters was 40,0001.; leaving an anticipated deficiency of 200,0001.—a loss incurred for political reasons. Mr. HILL shows, by a very careful calculation, that, including the produce of the newspaper-stamp,—which is clearly a postage charge, and one for which the Post-office per- forms a great amount of work, since the newspapers carried by the mails equal in weight the whole of the letters,—and making other necessary corrections, the total net profit on Inland letters is 557,0001., or probably 600,000/.; the Foreign and Colonial post about maintaining itself, though returning no profit. Our business, however, is less with the results appearing in the return, than with the method of its manufacture. There is a note stating, that "of the respective amounts of Foreign Dead letters no accurate state- ment can be furnished ; they are here given so far as they have been separated in the accounts" : another note says, that "the internal Colonial postage, or postage collected within the Colonies, does not include the number of internal letters in Jamaica.' These qualifications look very candid, as ifthe Post-office would not make any assertion without chapter and verse for it: no one would sus- pect that the whole return is a mass of suppositions ; the most im- portant items being inferred, and not at all " separated in the ac- counts." The goes revenue of the Post-office is a known quantity : accounts were kept for two months at the principal ports, of the amount and number of the Foreign and Colonial letters,—meaning, apparently, those received : the amounts were multiplied by six; then the amount of revenue thus calculated was deducted from the gross, and the remainder was set down as revenue of Inland letters The number of Inland letters was got at thus : the return was pre- pared by two clerks, who are gone to North America ; and alluding to them, Mr. Hawes says— "You stated that the clerks who assisted you in preparing this return, No 201, were not now in the Post-office?" Colonel Mencntv answers—" 1 can hardly say they assisted me; for I did really hardly indeed give any attention to this return, except that they asked me questions upon it. The only ques- tion which I recollect that they asked me was, as to how they should take the number of letters; and I told them to take a week in December, and multiply it by fifty-two. I recollect perfectly giving that order ; but with the other portion of the return I had very little concern. As 1 told the Honourable Member be- fore, I was quite overwhelmed with the details of the office ; and especially with the details of the French treaty, which I think 1 went over twenty times, canvassing every article with Monsieur Dubost." Thus, the number of letters, which the " return " professes to "show," is secretly calculated on such data as one week's account ! The return is inaccurate on the face of it ; Mr HILL detected at once a gross error : the sum set down as the revenue on Inland letters would give less than a penny for each letter ; but as a penny is the minimum of a varying rate of charges, it could not be the average; which is indeed, somewhere about lid.; and Colonel MABERLY admits that either the number of letters or the amount of revenue must be wrong. The whole return is full of such inac- curacies. One of the heads in the Inland side of the account is "Expense of Management, including that of the Money-order Office, Packets to Ireland, Channel Islands, and Isle of Man- 195,768/. " : the following extraordinary account is given by Colonel MABERLY of the mode in which this sum is made up- " This is obtained from the Colonial and Foreign expenditure, which amounts to 100,4101. The ship-letter gratuities, 13,184/. Then there is this item, which was put in by Lord Lowther's desire, namely, 'the proportionate charge of the territorial expense attaching to Foreign letters.' The Committee wilt see that a Foreign letter bears a foreign rate, but it is subject also to a certain amount of expense for inland expenditure, from the operations that have been performed in this country itself; and, according to Lord Lowther's view of the question, the Foreign letter ought to have attached to the expense with which it is burdened abroad that expense which it causes to the Inland department at home. The proportion of that is, by these returns, 27,000/. It is obtained in the following way : as the whole number of letters is to the whole Inland ex- penditure, so are the Foreign and Colonial letters to the fourth sum, which is 27,000/. The sum paid by this Government to Sweden for the use of her packets is 2,437/. : the total deduction, therefore, is 143,2991.; leaving the In- land expenditure at 823,4601. To this 823,460/. is to be added the expense of packets on home stations : thew sums together make a total of 895,7681.; and produce the expense of management for Inland letters, which is given in the third head of the return."

So that the single item of Inland expenditure, which the return professes to" show, as if it were a known fact, is vamped up by means of a variety of deductions, calculations in the rule of pro- portion, with cross subtraction and addition ! Colonel MABBRLY says that it was originally sent to the Chancellor of the Exchequer "merely for information "—as if it did not matter what was sent to a Finance Minister "merely for information" ! The Chancellor sent it back, to be made out afresh according to a form supplied by himself; and in that new shape, says Colonel MABERLY, "pressed with the immense details of the Post-office, certainly I did not insert the word estimate,' which I ought to have done instead of 'return.'" Mr. GouLnuas: had the materials whence the calculations were made, and therefore he must be supposed to have known the conjectural nature of the " return ": it does not appear that he told the House of Commons that the "return" was only a very vague and complex "estimate." Lord LOWTHER, in- deed, has faith in it still : he thinks "it gives a just description of the state of the Post-office." His liking for it is the converse of the schoolboy's dislike of Dr. Fell— I much do like thee, loose return ! The reason why, I cannot learn ; But this at least I wen discern- 1 much do like thee, loose return !

Half-fact-misrepresented, half-supposition—erroneous and de- ceptive in its calculations—adhered to by Lord LOWTHER who desired the conclusion which it appears to make out, repudiated by Colonel MABERLY who signed it, tacitly sanctioned by Mr. GOULBURN as a" return "—this notorious document is not a bad type of the ingenuousness, the painstaking accuracy, the sound in- formation, and the disinterested zeal of the officials. Such are the agents to whom Sir ROBERT PEEL transferred the task which the late Government, in deference to Parliament and public opi- nion, intrusted to Mr. HILL—that of carrying out the process of Post-office Reform.