VALUE AND IMPORTANCE OF THE ADHESIVE STAMP.
Reading edition
"Why should we be called upon to pass this Penny Postage Bill," said the opponents of that measure in August, 1839, "when no mortal being had at that moment the remotest conception of how it was to be carried into execution?" Mr. Rowland Hill's plan of the impressed stamp had not satisfied the Committee. This plan, as amended by the Committee, had not satisfied the Government. (See ante, page 13.) The paper makers and stationers were in a state of protest and alarm. "This part of the business must stand over," said the Government of the day, "How to carry out the scheme will require much consideration." It was here that James Chalmers, through Mr. Wallace, Chairman of the Committee, stepped in—the adhesive stamp saved the scheme. That was the value and importance of his invention and proposal. It satisfied the paper trade; "Let the stationer, not the Stamp Office," said Mr. Chalmers, "sell the paper, the Post Office the stamp." He saved the scheme of Mr. Hill to the country by relieving and setting agoing the clogged wheels of penny postage—he supplied the engines to the much admired but immovable craft and sent her speeding smoothly and swiftly upon her beneficent mission.
No wonder Sir Rowland Hill determined that no name but his own should be heard of in connection with the adhesive stamp, for of what use is a scheme, however desirable, if you cannot carry it out in practice? This is what he admits on the subject soon after the simultaneous introduction of the Mulready envelope and the adhesive stamp—"The public rejection of the former was so complete as to necessitate the destruction of nearly all the vast number prepared for issue." On the other hand—"Though the presses of the Stamp Office were producing more than half a million of adhesive stamps by working both night and day, they yet failed to meet the demand." Up to this day, after over forty years of public service, and notwithstanding the improvements in the production of impressed and embossed stamps, the adhesive stamp remains indispensable to our postal, inland revenue, telegraphic, and parcel-post systems—"Eighteen hundred millions are issued yearly from the office of the Controller of stamps. These range in value from a halfpenny to twenty pounds, covering postage and inland revenue from a halfpenny to two shillings and sixpence; postage proper from five shillings to five pounds; inland revenue proper (such as foreign bills, sea policy stamps, &c.) from one penny to ten pounds; and fees (such as judicature, &c.), from one penny to twenty pounds. The penny stamp takes the first place amongst the numbers issued. Of these, as many as thirteen hundred millions and a half were despatched from Somerset House in the course of a recent twelvemonth."[22] Twenty-five millions of parcels are now annually conveyed by Parcel Post, a business only practicable through prepayment by adhesive stamp.
Thus, ever increasing in utility, thus indispensable to the carrying out of all or any of these great public services, the value of James Chalmers' invention and proposal—the importance of this "powerful mechanism of the stamp"—may be best felt by the consideration that its suspension, even for a day, would paralyse the entire commercial and social system of the nation, it may be said "of the world" for in all other lands, one after another, has the adhesive stamp become an institution for similar purposes as in our own, and in corresponding numbers.
In this sense an eminent writer has lately stated, "Whoever discovered the adhesive stamp, the discovery has socially revolutionised the world." "Should my plan be adopted," was the prophetic saying of Mr. Chalmers when he sent his plan to London and to Mr. Hill himself, long before the Penny Postage Bill was even introduced into Parliament, "should my adhesive stamp be adopted, the demand for these will in time become so vast, that I am only puzzled to think where premises can be found to get them up." Surely the man who rescued the Legislature from such a complication as has been described, surely the originator of this indispensable and ubiquitous adhesive stamp has done the State some service.