The Life of Sir Rowland Hill and the

1848] ECONOMIC MEASURES. 89
which constituted important features in my plan
as laid before
Parliament. I had nevertheless abundance of less profitable, though
not unprofitable, occupation in work mostly of a routine character.
Here I had steadily to resist such tendency to unnecessary increase
in expenditure as seemed likely, if unchecked, to render all my
economical arrangements nugatory. I had, at the same time, to
seek every opportunity of retrieving false steps made previously to
my appointment;* some of which were still producing serious
waste. Of course, many of the savings effected either way were,
individually, of small amount, yet not only were they important in
their total, but also the care thus exercised tended to introduce that
spirit of economy without which no department can produce its best
effects.
Scales of Salaries.
Sound economy, I need not say, requires that salaries should be
regulated by fixed principles; and as early as January 3ist of this
year I had suggested to the Postmaster-General that it would be well
for the Treasury to appoint commissioners who should establish
scales of salaries equally applicable to all the revenue departments,
so as at once to remove mutual jealousy and to prevent unreasonable
claims in one department from arising
out of unreasonable con-
cession in another. Such a Commission was actually appointed
about five years afterwards, and its proceedings will be mentioned in
their proper place.
Former Prodigality.
One past proceeding, strongly exemplifying the necessity for a
regulating principle, is set forth in the following extract from my
Rectification was an affair of great difficulty :
Journal.
"
May 27th. In preparing for my minute on the mail guards I
have been obliged to read the papers on the subject for the last
eleven years. They show that a scale of wages about two-thirds of
that now in use was proposed by the officers of the department, and
recommended by Colonel Maberly; also that much lower wages
(2is. per week) had been paid for seven years to the guards on the
* "June 8th, 1848. I frequently detect some strange misuse of terms which has
become habitual in the office e.g., many clerks have applied for, and received, a
but I accidentally discovered the other day that one to whom
fortnight's holiday ;
I had granted the indulgence stayed away fourteen working days, and, on inquiry,
I found that such was the interpretation invariably put on the term. In my own
department I, of course, have put an end to this." Sir R. Hill's Journal. ED.