Chapter XXXIII: Appendix: B

[See p. 105.]

_Further letter to Postmaster-General (Lord Clanricarde)._

Hampstead, August 13th, 1849.

MY DEAR LORD,--Knowing how fully your lordship's time and that of other ministers is occupied during the session of Parliament, I have hitherto refrained from again requesting attention to my letter of January 3rd, but now that a period of comparative leisure has arrived, I feel that I ought no longer to postpone the irksome task.

I have enclosed a copy of the letter for the purpose of inviting a reperusal of it, and I think I may confidently appeal to your Lordship's knowledge of the state of the department for supporting me when I say that the experience of the seven months which have elapsed since that letter was written has strengthened the grounds, both public and private, on which my application was based.

The various interviews with which I have been honoured by your lordship on nice and difficult points, arising in the course of business, would enable me to refer to many cases in which the public service has suffered from the continuance of the existing arrangements, while, though this is doubtless a matter of inferior importance, such arrangements are inconsistent both with my personal comfort and my pecuniary interests.

On these, however, I will not dwell, nor even with respect to the public service will I intrude on your attention as to more than one point out of the many which occupy my thoughts. I refer to the necessity for a general revision of salaries in the metropolitan offices, which after being so long delayed now presses with great urgency. It is due in justice to the clerks that their claims, whether well or ill founded, should be set at rest by adjudication; but; notwithstanding your Lordship's earnest desire that the task should be accomplished, I have, I believe, satisfied you that in my present position it would be unsafe to attempt even those improvements which are necessarily preliminary to the still more difficult task of revising the salaries.

Earnestly begging your Lordship will be pleased to take the necessary steps for effecting a decision on my letter of January 3rd,

I have, &c., &c.,
ROWLAND HILL.

The Most Noble
The MARQUIS OF CLANRICARDE,
&c., &c., &c.