The Life of Sir Rowland Hill and the

i86o-3 PACKET SERVICE. 373
service was performed with great credit, the Postmaster-General's
Annual Report should contain due
notice of the fact. The directors showed the value
them in
they attached to such recognitions by quoting
their reports to the shareholders. To complete this
was the effect
matter, I may here state that so striking
gradually produced by these various measures, that, in
the last quarter during which the department was
under my brother's superintendence, viz., that ending
September 3Oth, 1867, there were, as I learn, only
twenty instances of a packet arriving after its time ;
while those of arrival before time were no less than two
hundred and twenty-seven.
Large Expenditure Prevented.
The last great service performed by my brother in this
department, which, for the sake of completing the sub-
ject, I mention here, consisted in the defeat of an attempt
to draw the British Government into the adoption of
such changes in the Australian service as, without any
would have
appreciable improvement in its efficiency,
subjected the mother country to an increased annual
expense of about i 14,000. The proposal was drawn
up with great art, and under show of certain advantages,
really aimed at diverting the main burden of
expense from certain of the colonies to the mother
country. My brother, after a careful consideration of
the whole subject, prepared a minute exposing the
fallacies of the plan and justifying its rejection. This
minute being approved by the Postmaster-General of
the day (the Duke of Montrose), and confirmed by the
Treasury, was sent out with but little change in its
words to the colonies concerned, where it appears to
have settled the question.