Geoffrey Clarke — The Post Office of India and Its Story

CHAPTER IV LATER POSTAL REGULATIONS

By Act XIV of 1866 postage rates were still further reduced as follows:—

For letters not exceeding ¼ tola	6	pies.
Exceeding ¼ tola and not exceeding ½ tola	1	anna.
For every additional ½ tola	1	"
For newspapers not exceeding 10 tolas	1	"
For every additional 10 tolas	1	"

It will be noticed that the distinction in rates between imported and local newspapers was withdrawn.

Books, pamphlets, packets, etc.—

Not exceeding 10 tolas in weight	1	anna.
For every additional 10 tolas	1	"

Parcels were still charged according to the distance they had to be conveyed, but the rates were reduced. The following table gives the scale of charges:—

If not Exceeding in Weight.

For Distances.

100

200

300

400

500

600

tolas.

Miles.

Rs.

Not exceeding

300

Not exceeding

600

Not exceeding

900

Not exceeding

1200

Exceeding

1200

It was now ordered that registration upon letters, the fee for which was still fixed at 4 annas, should be prepaid in postage stamps. The penal clauses relating to counterfeiting stamps had been included in the Indian Penal Code, Act XLV of 1860, and were therefore omitted from this Act. The other penal clauses were practically the same as those that existed in the Act of 1854, and the principle is again laid down of the non-responsibility of Government for any loss or damage which may occur in respect of anything entrusted to the Post Office for conveyance.

From 1866 the work of the Post Office began to develop enormously, and its functions had to be gradually extended to meet the growing needs of the public. In 1869 the charge on redirected letters was abolished and the letter postage rates were further reduced as follows:—

For letters not exceeding ½ tola	6	pies.
Exceeding ½ tola but not exceeding 1 tola	1	anna.
For every additional tola or fraction thereof	1	"

The antiquated system of making parcel post rates vary with distance could no longer be maintained, and in 1871 a system of rates which varied with weight, irrespective of distance, was introduced. A parcel post service was established between India and England in 1873, but the collection and distribution of parcels were at first effected through the agency of the Peninsular and Oriental Steamship Company, and it was not until 1885 that the Post Offices of both countries undertook the management of the parcel post. In 1873 special postage rates were introduced for official articles, namely:

Not exceeding ½ tola	½	anna.
Not exceeding 10 tolas	1	"
Not exceeding 20 tolas	5	annas.
Not exceeding 30 tolas	10	"
Every additional 10 tolas	5	"

At the same time it was laid down that official covers from Government offices should be prepaid by means of service postage stamps.

Under the provision of the Act of Parliament (III-IV Vict. Cap. 69) soldiers and seamen were allowed the privilege of sending letters not exceeding half an ounce in weight at the rate of 1d. for each letter. This rate was introduced into India in 1854, and 8 pies was reckoned the equivalent of 1d. In 1874 the postage on such letters was fixed at 9 pies for half an ounce owing to the increase in the rate of exchange. In 1899 the Imperial Penny Postage scheme was introduced, by which the initial rate of postage to the United Kingdom and to certain British colonies and possessions was fixed at 1 anna for a letter not exceeding half an ounce in weight, so that the privilege enjoyed by soldiers and seamen was no longer of any advantage, and when in 1907 the initial rate under the Imperial Penny Postage Scheme was raised from half an ounce to 1 ounce there was no further object in retaining this special concession.

In 1877 the Value-Payable or Cash on Delivery system was introduced, and in 1878 the Post Office undertook the insurance of letters and parcels. At first there was no limit to the amount for which an article could be insured, until a claim for the contents of a parcel insured for Rs.60,000 showed the enormous liabilities which the Department might incur under this system. Accordingly, in 1890 the limit was fixed at Rs.1000, but was raised in 1898 to Rs.2000, and the procedure was greatly simplified. The insurance fee was originally fixed at one-half per cent, which was subsequently reduced to a quarter, and in 1905 to one-eighth per cent.

Previous to 1880 the money order work of the country was carried on by the Government Treasuries, and the procedure was rather cumbersome; in that year it was handed over to the Post Office, with the result that in a few months the number of money orders issued and paid quadrupled. The extent to which money order business has increased may be gauged from the fact that the value of inland money orders in 1880-81 was 45 millions, and in 1917-18 it had increased to over 617 millions of rupees.

In 1870 Government Savings Banks were first established in India in connection with District Treasuries, and in 1882 permission was given to open savings bank accounts at post offices, but the management and control of the funds still remained with the Treasuries. In 1885 all savings banks at Treasuries were closed and the business was transferred entirely to the Post Office. The general development of this branch will be treated of in the chapter on Savings Banks, but, as an example of the growth of business, the figures of 1882-83 and of 1913-14 are remarkable. In 1882-83 there were 39,121 depositors with a balance of Rs.27,96,730; in 1913-14 there were 1,638,725 depositors with a balance of Rs.23,16,75,467.

In 1883 combined post and telegraph offices were introduced, and it is no exaggeration to say that these are solely responsible for the extension of telegraph facilities to the smaller markets and rural tracts of India. In 1884 the sale of British postal orders was authorized, and the same year marks the introduction of Postal Life Insurance, a measure at first confined to servants of the Department but afterwards extended to all Government servants. In 1890, at the request of the military authorities, the Post Office undertook the payment of military pensioners in the Punjab.

In this way the Department has grown. From being a mere agency for the carriage of correspondence and parcels in 1866, the Post Office has now become the poor man's bank; it does an enormous value-payable and money order business; it is an important insurance agency and pension paymaster, and to such an extent have postage rates been reduced in India that it would be hard to find a man who could not afford to communicate by post with his friends.

Needless to say, the Post Office Act of 1866 was quite unsuited to modern needs, and Act VI of 1898 was framed to deal with the new requirements of postal work. The 1866 Act was amended by Act III of 1882, which authorized any officer of the Post Office empowered in this behalf by the Governor-General in Council to search for newspapers regarding which a notification had been published under the Sea Customs Act. By Act III of 1895 powers were provided in accordance with the general policy of the Postal Union for dealing with fictitious or previously used postage stamps of other countries found on articles received from abroad, and by Act XVI of 1896 the Post Office was authorized to collect Customs duty paid in advance in the same manner as postage under the Act.

Act VI of 1898 is to a great extent an Enabling Act which reserves to Government the power of dealing by rule with numerous questions of postal practice and procedure affecting the public. For the first time legal recognition was given to registered newspapers, and the Governor-General in Council was empowered to make rules for their registration in the offices of Postmasters-General. The acceptance of the official marks of the Post Office on postal articles as prima facie evidence that they have been refused, that the addressee cannot be found, or that any sum is due on them, was a principle taken from the English Law.

Section 20 of the Act was quite new and prohibits the sending by post of indecent or obscene articles, and the tendency of the age is shown by the first mention in this clause of the word "sedition" in connection with postal articles. "Articles having thereon or on the cover thereof any words, marks or designs of an indecent, obscene, seditious, defamatory or grossly offensive character" were prohibited from being sent by post. The wording of this section is interesting owing to the difficulty of interpreting the meaning of the word "thereon"; it would almost seem that the framers of the Act wished to wrap this clause in ambiguity. In Section 22 the important principle of the English Law is laid down that the Post Office is not bound to send parcels and packets along with the letter mail, but may detain them as long as is necessary. By Section 25 special power is given to search for goods notified under the Sea Customs Act, and in Section 26, the Public Emergency section, "The Governor-General in Council, or a Local Government, or any officer specially authorized in this behalf by the Governor-General in Council, may, by an order in writing, direct that any postal article or class or description of postal articles in course of transmission by post shall be intercepted or detained." Had the framers of this Act any idea of the extent to which this power would have to be used they might have expressed themselves in greater detail.[6] Sections 30 to 36 and 43 to 48 of the Act deal with the power of the Governor-General in Council to make rules for the insurance of postal articles and the transmission of value-payable articles and money orders by post.

To judge from the large number of additional penalty clauses introduced into this Act, postal crime seems to have grown side by side with postal development. Every possible misdemeanour and fraud is visited with appropriate punishment; not even the mail runner who fails in his duty to appear at the time he is required can escape, while the postman who makes a false entry in his book to show that he has been visiting a certain village, when all the time he has been loitering in a neighbouring bazaar, renders himself liable to six months' imprisonment or a fine of one hundred rupees. Sections 62 and 63 are taken from the English Post Office Protection Act, 1884, and impose penalties for injuring the contents of any letter-box or for disfiguring any post office or letter-box. To prevent hasty and ill-considered prosecutions, it was laid down in Section 72 that no Court should take cognizance of any offence under the Act, except with the previous sanction or on the complaint of the Director-General of the Post Office or of a Postmaster-General.

In 1898 postage rates on letters were reduced to the following scale:—

Not exceeding ½ tola	½	anna.
" " 1½ tolas	1	"
" " 3 "	2	annas.
For every additional 1½ tolas or fraction thereof	1	anna.

The postage on newspapers was fixed at:

Not exceeding 4 tolas	¼	anna.
" " 20 "	½	"
For every additional 20 tolas or part thereof	½	"

In 1905 a still further reduction in letter postage was made, namely:

Not exceeding ¾ tola	½	anna.
" " 1½ tolas	1	"
" " 3 "	2	annas.
For every additional 1½ tolas or fraction thereof	1	anna.

In 1907, after a long discussion, it was decided to make the Indian anna rate approximate to the English penny rate. The British Post Office had decided to carry 4 ounces for one penny, and as an ounce is roughly 2½ tolas the weight that could be sent for an anna was increased from 1½ to 10 tolas. The ¾ tolas for ½ anna was very properly considered absurd, and the weight was raised to 1 tola. The rates as revised in 1907 were:

Not exceeding 1 tola	½	anna.
" " 10 tolas	1	"
For every additional 10 tolas or fraction thereof	1	anna.

This was a sweeping measure which mainly benefited that portion of the community which could best afford to pay high rates of postage, and the argument for making the anna rate correspond to the penny rate in England left out of account the very important fact that in England the minimum rate for letters was a penny, whereas in India it is half that amount. It is difficult to estimate what the loss to the Post Office must have been, but when one considers that a letter of 10 tolas, which under the previous rates would have had to bear 7 annas postage, could be sent for 1 anna it will be understood that the loss was considerable. The measure was also one that affected the Post Office in two ways, since less revenue was received in postage stamps and the increased number of bulky letters necessitated a larger carrying staff. Despite the admitted cheapness of postage in India, some short-sighted agitators cry out for a ¼ anna letter rate; but the Post Office can well afford to disregard their murmurings and may congratulate itself on having made its services accessible to even the very poorest member of the community.

By Act III of 1912 the Indian Post Office Act of 1898 was further amended, and special rules were made to protect postmasters who had to search or detain articles passing through the post. The public who use the value-payable system have been protected from fraudulent traders by a section which provides for the retention and repayment to the addressee, in cases of fraud, of money recovered on the delivery of any value-payable postal article; at the same time the Post Office is authorized to levy a fee before making any inquiry into complaints of this kind.

GROUP OF SENIOR OFFICERS IN 1898
C. STEWART-WILSON G. S. CURTIS W. MAXWELL C. J. BADSHAH
J. CORNWALL H. M. KISCH SIR ARTHUR FANSHAWE A. T. FORBES
Director General

Since the Great War broke out in 1914 it has been found necessary to increase inland postage rates for both letters and parcels. In 1918 the letter rates were fixed as follows:—

For letters: Not exceeding 1 tola	½	anna.
Exceeding 1 tola, but not exceeding 2½ tolas	1	"
For every additional 2½ tolas or part thereof	1	"
For parcels: Not exceeding 20 tolas	2	annas.
Exceeding 20 tolas, but not exceeding 40 tolas	4	"
For every additional 40 tolas or part thereof	4	"

Many complaints were received that the parcel rates were excessive and injuring the fruit trade and other local industries, so that with effect from the 1st June, 1919, the rates were reduced to 3 annas for every 40 tolas up to 440 tolas, the minimum of 2 annas for 20 tolas remaining the same.

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