The Life of Sir Rowland Hill and the

54 LIFE OF SIR ROWLAND HILL. [1847
possible, and that I would carefully inquire
into all the
defects in its management which they had brought to
my notice.
1* To this task I addressed myself on the
morrow.
Even here, however, I found old impediments to
the progress of improvement ; for when I proposed
to Mr. Banning, the postmaster of Liverpool, to keep
open the Money Order Office to a later hour without
waiting for instructions from London, my advice was
met by the presentation, though with many apologies,
of the Postmaster-General's restrictive minute, the
issue of which had been previously condemned, but
unfortunately not revoked. One consequence was
that I refrained, for the time, from attempting im-
provements at Manchester, lest I
another copy of the minute there.
should encounter
On my return I
pressed on the Postmaster-General the importance of
reconsidering the arrangements affecting my position
before his leaving town, which he promised to do,
perhaps the more readily because he was much pleased
with what I had effected at Liverpool. The con-
no immediate result.
sideration, however, produced
"September 28th. Banning, who called upon me to-day, reports
that the restriction of the Liverpool receiving-houses to stamped and
unpaid letters, accompanied as it is by an extension of time for
posting, is working very satisfactorily ; so are the other improvements
which, not requiring Treasury sanction, have been carried out ;
but I
find that though the Treasury sanction [to certain further improve-
ments] has been received a month, no steps whatever have as yet
been taken thereon. The reply to the weekly inquiry made as to
matters in arrears has been, that the papers were with Colonel
* "February I3th. I met a Committee of the Town Council . . . en-
couraged them to communicate to me any carefully-considered improvements
which might occur to them. The results of this meeting have satisfied me that
it would be very useful to the Post Office to have similar means in every large
town of learning the well-considered wishes of the inhabitants." Sir R. Hill's
Journal.
ED.