Document information

Physical location:

Gray Herbarium Archives, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 75.00.00f

Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to Asa Gray, 1875 [75.00.00f]. R.W. Home, Thomas A. Darragh, A.M. Lucas, Sara Maroske, D.M. Sinkora, J.H. Voigt and Monika Wells (eds), Correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller, <https://vmcp.rbg.vic.gov.au/id//letters/1870-9/1875/75-00-00f-final.odt>, accessed June 16, 2026

1
Item is dated to 1875 since that is when the treaty establishing the General Postal Union (later the Universal Postal Union) came into effect. One provision of the treaty was that “Official correspondence relative to the Postal Service is exempt from postage. With this exception no franking or reduction in postage is allowed”. While this did not affect mail travelling within the British Empire, where government-franked mail would continue to travel free, it did have implications for government mail such as M's that was directed to recipients beyong the bounds of the Empire. With mail to continental Europe, M took to attaching postage stamps to cover the cost beyond Britain. It was, however, questionable whether the Victorian stamps that M used had any validity for this purpose prior to 1891, when Victoria and the other Australian colonies officially adhered to the Union (see M to J. Agardh, 29 June 1884 (in this edition as 84-06-29a)).
The MS is filed in the archive between M to S. Watson, 15 May 1888, and M to S. Watson, 14 October 1888, to neither of which is it related in terms of its postal historical context. It would however fit with M to A. Gray, 25 December 1875; the text occupies both sides of what appears to be a half-sheet of the same paper as used in that letter.
New postal arrangements have come here into operation lately for the eastern hemisphere, through which the Victor. Gov-Frank-Stamps renders no longer the sending of letters & parcels free to any other countries but Britain & British India & some British Colonies. But I believe it does not affect the postal reciprocity treaty between the U.S. & Australia or at all events Victoria.
2
The USA was one of the original signatories to the postal treaty, but because the Australian colonies were not initially signatories to it, their previously established postal agreement with the USA, that included a provision for government-franked mail to travel free, was not overridden by the treaty — or so M hoped. See also M to A. Gray, 6 September 1879.
Will you kindly let me know, whether my letters of late date have come free there yet, as — to all my knowledge — they have done formerly.