THE SELECT CO3LVITTEE Appointed to inquire into the present Rates

and Mode of charging Postage, with a view to such a Reduction thereof as may be made without injury to the Revenue; and for this purpose to examine especially into the Mode recommended for charging and collecting Postage in a Pamphlet published by Mr. Rowland Hill; and to whom nu- merous Petitions were referred, and who had power to Report the .Minutes of Evidence taken before them from time to time to the House ;-Have examined into the matters referred to them, and hare agreed to the following Report.

YOUR Committee have entered upon the inquiry which has been intrusted to them with the deepest sense of its vast importance to the public ; since on the management of the Post-office, and the regulation of the postage rates, depends, in a great measure, the entire correspondence of the country ; and in that correspondence is involved whatever affects, interests, or agitates mankind : private interests, public interests ; family, kindred, friends ; commercial business, professional business ; literature, science, art, law, poli- tics, education, morals, religion. Every rank and class has an in- terest-more or less immediate-in the safe, speedy, and economical transmission of Post-office communications.

The interest which the public take in the result of this inquiry is shown by the number and importance of the petitions, praying for the adoption of a plan on the principle of Mr. Rowland Hill ; which petitions, 320 in number, containing 38,709 signatures, have been presented to the house in the course of the present Session, and have been referred to your Committee. The merchants, bankers, and inhabitants of 144 principal and other towns, 73 town- councils, 19 chambers of commerce, 9 commissions of supply in Scotland, and one grand jury in England, 8 fire and life insurance companies, 9 mechanics' institutes, 37 printing-offices and bodies of pi-inters, and sundry other societies and individuals throughout the kingdom, have petitioned the Legislature on this occasion. These petitions may be viewed, therefore, as expressing the wishes of large masses of the people, and especially of those among them who are busied in philanthropic, literary, or scientific pursuits, or are actively engaged in trade, commerce, and manufactures.

Your Committee have pursued the inquiry referred to them with the earnestness and diligence which its importance seemed to de- mand. They have sat 63 days ; and in their labours have been much assisted by the Reports of the Finance Committee (1797), and of sundry Commissions which have previously inquired into the management of the Post-office. They have examined the Postmaster-General, the Secretaries and the Solicitors of the three Post-offices of England, Ireland, and Scotland, and other officers of the Post-office department, and have obtained many important Re- turns from the Post-office, most of which they directed to be pre- pared expressly for their use ; they have also examined the Chair- man, Secretary, and Solicitor of the Board of Stamps and Taxes, Mr: Rowland Hill, and 83 other witnesses, of various classes in society, and of various occupations, professions, and trades, from different parts of the kingdom. In the selection of these they have been much assisted by an association of bankers and merchants in London, formed expressly to aid the Committee in the prosecution of their inquiry. The attention of your Committee has been chiefly directed to the question of the Inland Postage, seeing that their inquiries must necessarily have been hasty and imperfect, if extended in detail to the postage of our possessions abroad, and other foreign countries.

The more important points of inquiry have been : 1. The present financial state of the Post-office, in respect both of its receipts and expenditure.

2. The present inland postage rates.

3. The number of letters and newspapers transmitted by post.

4. The average present charge on each latter transmitted by post.

5. The effect of the present rates on the revenue, as evinced by the present receipts when compared with the receipts of former years.

6. The effect which the present rates have had in occasioning the evasion of postage, or the suppression of correspondence among dif- ferent classes of the community.

7. The effect in former instances of reducing the rates, or giving in- creased facilities to the distribution of letters.

8. The plan of Mr. Hill. 9. The expediency of adopting that plan, or that plan with a modiii- cation of so much of it as regards the uniform rate of Id. 10. The changes it may be proper to make in the postage rates. 11. The expediency of retaining, abolishing, or limiting Parliamen- tary or official franking.

12. The anticipated effects of the changes recommended, on the re- ceipts and expenditure of the Post-office, and on the general revenue of the country.

13. Sundry suggestions, calculated to improve the administration of the Post-office, and to facilitate the distribution of letters.

Your Committee, in order the more distinctly to keep in view the condition subject to which they were appointed to make the present inquiry, viz. that any changes they might have to recom- mend should be such as might be made without injury to the re- venue, will proceed, in the first instance, to explain the present financial state of the Post-office department : I. Its receipts and cost of management.

H. The scale of rates which are now charged. III. The number of chargeable letters of various denominations and other documents which it now distributes.

IV. The average rate of postage paid on chargeable letters.

I.-RECEIPT AND COST OF MANAGEMENT OF THE POST-OFFICE, FOR THE YEAR ENDING JANUARY 5, 1838.

The discrepancies which your Committee find to exist between the accounts of the Post-office, for the year ending 5th January 1838, as contained in the Returns made by that department to your Committee, and those to be found in the Finance Accounts for the year in question, prevent your Committee from presenting any account, on the accuracy of which they can perfectly rely, of the receipt and cost of management of this department for that year.. They have, however, preferred following in general the authority of the Finance Accounts.

GROSS RECEIPT FOR THE UNITED KINGDOM.

General Post, including Country Penny Posts-.

£2,32S,205 3 6

(The Country 18. Posteare here estimated at 47,31)71.)

London, Edinburgh, and Dublin, 1r1., 2d., and

3d. Posts 134,064

-9-

£2,462,189 12 11

Deduct Repayments (stated in the Return made to this Committee at 111,2031., see Report 1.,

p. 510 122,ai 14 S

.£2,339* 18 3

COST 01' MANAGEMENT POR TIIE UNITED KINGDOM.

In these Three Column the Items of Coot are classed according to the Prinoiple suggested by Mr. L1111, the data being taken from the Postsoffice Returns, Nos. 41 9 42, pp. IliOtt 221, App. Rep.11.

TOTAL. Cost of Distribution within the United Kingdom.

Cost of Coat of Este- Transit. blislonent.

1. e. d.

67 102,612 12 10 102,019 12 10 107,122 127,152 0

23,023 3 23,1103 1 5

17,081 17 10 ..• 3,1911 17 5,198 17 2

11,718 15 4 sass

10,049 0 9 ••• • 62,506 3 0 30,097 12 7 11,326 10 R • - • • 4,143

0,417 4 3 4,006 0 Ii

3,717 7 1 1,717 7 20,52II 10 13 .•..

1,711712 5 1147 12 5.

021,233 2 8 M7,306 11 0 0118,078 1 7

Menai !train., C own). Midge, 14.3d 2 Is m 297,301/ II C 17,372 10 a

Total Cost of I Distribution

in United ,----a•-•••-••••• did,M2 2 2; Kingdom 573084 13 112.3.:47 9I * Postmasters in Colonies, see It 'turn of Expenditure, in Appendix to Second Re- port of 0,11110Mo°, p. 220. + Other Ctrluuial Expenses, s

I Stated in Return of Expenditure, in Appendix p. 220, as 10,6931, 7s. 1001. nu;,:i.„;‘...nrawy awl freight by t l'oeket,;, e Appendix to Report 11.. p. 220. Expands Of 11M Foreign and Cobalt:it Packets, see Appendix to Report 11., p. 22n.

It appears, from these accounts, that if the charge upon the Post- office be divided into five parts, about four-fifths consist of the cost of distributing letters in the United Kingdom, of which two-fifths arc the cost of transit, and two-fifths the cost of the establishment; the r,nuaining fifth is applied to the maintenance of the post be- tween this country and our colonial possessions and foreign coun- tries, the inland post ill certain of our colonies, and of other charges thrown upon the establishment.

The preceding accounts cannot be considered as presenting a complete view of the receipts and cost of management of the Post- office department ; for since, on making a reduction in the tax upon newspapers, it was stated that the stamp of Id. was retained ex- pressly on the ground of covering the expense incurred in convey- ing newspapers free of postage, the net revenue arising fimn the penny stamp on newspapers, on so many of them at least as are conveyed by post, that is, on 44} millions, yielding a gross revenue of 185,4161., ought to be carried to the account of the Post-office receipts. On the other hand, the expense of the packet service, new included in the Navy Estimates, but so blended with the other expenses of the Navy that it would be impossible to separate it for the purpose of this account, ought to be carried to the account of the cost of management of the Post-office.

COPTSTAWIt OPMAIL..T11 kNNITICIIAnnt

aria 1•AliNtliir PPP Sure Ls-crane. Riding work and Expresses be the Deputy Posimadersio Groot Grind nod Ireland Mileage to )fail Cnoche•, %Voce, to 5loil Coital*, and other 51,01 Coach Expenses

Tolls paid on Mail Coathc........ Riding work and Conveyance of bib in Conalla. Nova St min, ;turd Bowdon Riding work of the Tw”pentic Pod-office Transit Podsmot h rough Foieign Countries

Ship Letter Payments , „,

Packet Service, Expenses, including Port

does ...... ..... .. a....... Tradesmen'. Bills, Building, and Itepairs

Rent of Offices, 'Eddies, and Taxes

LBW ........ ............. Stationery, Printing, Advertising, and

Postage Superttnnitat•ott All ...... and Al ow-

. nnee. foe O1l1ct,t1 and Fees .111°1i:shed

Other Poyments Parliamentary Grant. (Net An. nuol Amman doted in Ac-

count of Revenue In Appel,- 1. s. d. dixtolleportll.p.177,9,t2tLf.9,932 10 0 I

Al Milford Road 7,440 0

SALAMI. AND ALLOW,* see,- Salarivs to Ito 1'ostmoster-General. OM- cern, and (Iva:, in London, Ed•nIntrgit.

and aril, In 1 alive •, and Wage. S Allots. I. 8, d.

once. t.. L. ter-ropier., Mc-seaters, Sc 92,415 2 2 SRlnric on.1 IlAwatteet to Deputy Post-,

milder. 111111 A cent. in Grant Britain : hiphipii, PM! the Colonies ' 124,402 3 11

Salaries and Woges to Officers and Letter-

carrier. in the To npeonv Pad-ollice 45,574 10 1 Allowances fir special Services omit 'fro-

yelling Charges 11,106

2.

98,485 2 2

110,024 17 IL

45,574 10 1

11,106 0 7

I1,3M 19 0 4,143 0 0

-5,417 4 5

2,000 0 0

f 11471 (6' 170 84; 17,001 17 15 11,718 15 4 10,049 9 9: 0,95.s 18 s§ 24,635 II uh

20,538 10 3 105,!•74 9 7 Foreign and Co•ontal Ex- penses, and Superonnuo- lion Allow- ances.

Your Committee proceed to state what the present rates for in- land general postage are. These rates, with the exception of a reduction lately made from 4d. to 2d. on single letters, fbr distances not exceeding eight miles, have continued the same since the year 1812 for Great Britain, and since the year 1814 for Ireland.

TABLE OF POSTAGE RATES IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.

GREAT BRITAIN. I IRELAND.

Rates for;„1 Rates for

Single Let- „ '" . Irish '

Let- ters. tern.

Settle of Distances in Miles.

From any Post-office to any place not exceeding Ditto Ditto Ditto Ditto Ditto Ditto Ditto Ditto Ditto Ditto Ditto Ditto 8 15 20 30 50 80 120 170 230 300 900 500 ••.

d.

2

d.

2 4 5 6 7

8 9

10 11 12 13 14 15 95 35 45 55 65 95 120 150 200 250 300 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

Vor every additional 100 miles, Id., or part of 100 miles. Ia Scotland, letters, when conveyed by mail-coaches only, are subject to utt IF :!itional halfpenny. Lettere passing between Great Britain and Ireland are siNect to the rates df portage charged in Great Britain, besides Packet rates, and Menai, Conway- Uldge, ur Milford rates. The principle of the rating is to charge according to distance however circuitous the route by which the conveyance travels. 'We principle on which the rating of double and other multiple letters is regulated, will be found at p. 43 of the present Report.

§ 2. Penny Posts.

The Postmaster-General has authority to establish penny port for letters not exceeding in weight four ounces, in, from, or to, any city, town, or place in the United Kingdom (other than London or Dublin), without any reference to the distance to which the letters are conveyed.-

The principle which has guided the department in establishing

penny posts, has been to select small towns and populous neigh° bourhoods, not situated in the direct lines of General Post convey. ances, and desirous of obtaining that facility, wherever such penny post did not afford the means of evading the General Post, and pro. raised to yield a return that would pay for its maintenance. of late the rule has been, as stated by Colonel Maberly, to consider whether the receipts on the first setting up of the post would pay about two-thirds of the charge, the Post-office taking its chance Of the remainder being made good. Penny posts have been greatly extended within the last 18 years, as will appear from the Return showing the numbers of penny posts for the years 1820 and 1838-(No. 28, p. 168, of the Appendix to the Second Report of this Committee.)

There is a penny post for Dublin, the limits of which the Post. master-General has authority to alter.

§ 3. London Local Post.

The London Twopenny Post extends to all letters transmitted by the said post in the limits of a circle of three miles radius, the centre being the General Post-office ; which limits the Postmaster. General has authority to alter. The London Threepenny Post ex. tends to all letters transmitted by the said post beyond the circle of three miles radius, and within the limits of a circle of 12 miles radius, the centre being the General Post-office.

III: NUMBER OF LETTERS AND NEWSPAPERS CIRCULATED ix.

NUALLY THROUGII THE POST-OFFICE.

What the number of letters is that the Post-office circulates an. nuttily', your Coimnittec are unable to state with precision ; as the Post-office has not kept any account of' the kind. Your Committee have, therefore, been obliged to form an estimate, founded upon accounts taken of the number of letters actually circulated during three separate weeks,-those for two weeks ill January 1838 were obtained by express desire of the Committee ; that for a week in INIarch was afterwards supplied by the Post-office.

Mr. Hill, in his pamphlet published in the year 1837, estimated the total number of chargeable letters that pass through the Post- offices of the United Kingdom yearly, at about 88,000,000; but subsequently, on giving his evidence, he reduced his estimate to the following- General Post letters 53,500,000 Id., 2d., and. 3d. Post letters 26,000,000 Total 79,500,000 The Post-office, in the first instance, furnished two estimates; the first of these makes the total, exclusive of penny letters, 54,634,920. The second makes the total, inclusive of penny let- ters, 58,224,840.

. Finding this discrepancy between Mr. Hill's estimate and those of the Post-office, your Committee directed that an account should be kept for two separate weeks in each Post-office in the United Kingdom, of the number of letters, the postage for which was re- ceived by such office, together with the sum total received for each week ; and as a check on this account, another return was ordered to be kept of the number of letters posted at each office, and of the postage on the same during each of the same two weeks.

The returns first ordered, being returns for each of the two weeks commencing respectively on the 15th and 29th of January lastorill be found in the Appendix. No return of the number of letters de- livered during the same two weeks at each office has been made; and for reasons stated in a letter from Colonel Maberly, the Scene. tary, the amount of postage received is given only for the last week of the two.

A third return has been supplied for the week commencing the 5th of March last, of the number of letters delivered during that week at all the country post-offices. This return, however, does not contain any account of the amount of postage collected, nor of the number of letters posted during the same week.

The total number of chargeable letters of every description, 89 i estimated by the Post-office from the return of the first week, s 68,324,516; from the return of the second, is 73,596,068; and from the return of the third, is 69,147,052.

It requires to be remarked, that the yearly estimates founded on the return of the second of these three weeks, which is the most productive of the three, must necessarily be below a correct esti- mate for the year, since the revenue collected during that week is less than a fifty-second part of the gross yearly revenue, and when multiplied by 52 furnishes an estimate of the gross yearly revenue, amounting to 2,365,9191., whereas the actual gross !e- venue for the year ending 5th January 1838, was 2,462,2691., eluding 122,5311. returned for dead letters and overcharges.

It; therefore, the yearly estimate of the number of chargeable letters, founded on the Return of the second week, that 1$, 73,590,008, he increased iu the proportion of 2,305,9191. to 2,462,2691., we shall obtain nearly 77,000,000 for the yearly num' ber of chargeable letters. Hill, on his final examination, gave, on grounds similar to the above, an estimate nearly agreeing with the foregoing, of the total number of chargeable letters passing annually through the

Post-office; viz.

Chargeable letters passing annually through the Post- office, counting double and triple letters as single 57,000,000 ld., 2d., and 3d. post letters 21,000,000 78,000,000 Franks 7,036,000 Newspapers 44,500,000

The opinions stated by Colonel Moberly and others, as to what may be regarded as the most correct estimate, your Committee have subjoined in a note below.*

In the opinion of your Committee, the following may be con- sidered as a tolerably close estimate of the number of letters and newspapers circulated annually by the Post-office:

Chargeable Letters— General Post, inclusive of foreign letters, and reckoning

double and triple letters as single 57,000,000 2d. and 3d. Post letters 12,500,000 Country Penny Post letters 8,000,000 77,500,000 Franks 7,000,000 Newspapers 44,500,000 129,000,000 1V.—AvintAGE POSTAGE ON LETTERS PASSING THROUGH THE POST-OFFICE.

From the before-stated amount of the gross annual receipts of the Post-office, and the preceding estimate of the number of letters annually circulated by that department, as data,t your Committee estimate that the average general postage charged on each letter, including foreign letters, and reckoning double and triple letters as single, is about 91d. That on General Post letters, exclusive of foreign

letters, it is about 8!! That the average postage on all letters, foreign as well as inland, and including ld,, ad., and 3d. Post letters, is about 7 That the average on all letters, exclusive of threign,

is about Which estimates agree with those made by Mr. Hill.

Your Committee having now considered the scale of taxation upon letters, the revenue derived therefrom, and the cost of collec- tion, proceed next to consider, 1. What the declared objects were for which the Post-office was esta- blished at the time of its first establishment, and how far, in the course of subsequent events, those objects appear to have been kept in view, Or lost sight of: 2. What have been the of of the present scale of Post-office taxa- tion immediately upon the revenue itself, in respect of its amount, and whether any presumption is thus afforded that the scale of taxation is too high :

3. Whether any presumption thus afforded is borne out by direct evidence, that the correspondence of the country exhibits marks to any considerable extent of the usual effects of over-taxatiou viz. 1st, of the

* In his final examination, Colonel Moberly says, "My impression is, that the real number of letters is about a mean between the numbers taken in the first and second weeks in January, a number of about 70,000,t100." With retbrence to the discrepancies in the estimates made by the Post-otlice. Colonel Moberly says, " In round munbers, by the return before me, the gene- ral post letters would be 53 millions if taken on the second week, and 49 mil- lions if taken on the third week in March; showing a difference of ten millions in one case and six millions in the other. We never gave the 43 millions as more than a rough estimate, firmed on the best data we could. get." " You stated in your return, that t he t tvopenny-post letters were 10,894,570 ; how do you find that to be by the last return?—'There was an account taken for it week in November of the number of letters passing through the twopenny-post, the number in that week producing 1004,570; as that was the last and most accurate return taken, I thought it my duty to give it : now the actual return has produced 19 millions and a fraction."' " With regard to the peony-post letters, what difference do you find between the account you have now given and that before made, which has been alluded to?—Ill the penny-posts we were wrong by one-half; the proportions we hove assumed between the penny let- ters and the pence on general-post letters being: totally erroneous. think we took six agricultural towns and six manufacturing towns, and the proportions on each of those classes of letters, and we assumed that ;hat proportion would be maintained for the rest of the king-dom. It turned out that time proportion we assumed was utterly in error, and the penny-post letters were double what we Lad taken them at:" Colonel Moberly, in another answer, for reasons which he there gives, con- siders the second of the weeks in January an excessive week, and the others fair average weeks.

Soar gentlemen largely engaged in trade were examined as to whether the two weeks in January presented a fair average of letters. Mr. Moffatt says, " January is ordinarily a slack month in correspondence. In the last January, the inclemency of the weather having broken up all the inland water communications, created a comparative cessation of the corre- spondence between London and the provinces in a commercial pMnt of View."

Messrs. Dillon and Whittaker confirm this view of the subject. f Mr. Hill has shown, that in order to arrive at a trite estimate of the average rate of inland postage, there are vet some further corrections to be made ; on the one hand, in the receipts of the Post-office, on the other hand

in the number °netters. Front the receipts he deducts the sums received fur pas- sage-money, miscellaneous receipts, postage in the West Indies and British North America, amounting to 71,755/., (ride Return, Appendix to Report IL, r. 221); also the postage charged on foreign and ship letters, over and above the inland postage on the sante, say about 196,0001. Ile suggests also another

Correction on account of the number of double and treble hitters which at the very end and beginning of each month are sent, enclosing remit ■ ,1,■ces of mer- cantile bills falling due on the 4th of the month, and have the effect of raising

the rate of postage per letter 6 per cent., as be states, above the ordinary rate. See question 11029, and the Abstract of the Evidence, p. 3; where the effect of these disttuthing causes is examined into. See also Note I. to this Report. evasion of the tax by contraband or other means ; 2d, of the suppression or diminished use of the subject of taxation: 4. If the tax on letters be thus proved to be excessive, what classes of the community are principally the sufferers by this over-taxatiou, and in what measure that over-taxation operates upon them.

v.—PRESENT REVENUE OF TUT POST-OFFICE At COMPARED WITII

ITS REVENUE IN FORMER YEARS.

§ 1. Objects fir which the. Post-office was established.

The declared object for which the Post-office was established, as appears from the Act, the 12th year of Charles the Second, was " the advantage of trade and commerce." Lord Lowther, in a Report on "prices current," after quoting from the said Act the preceding v,•ords, adds, " The direct revenue to be derived from the Post-office was not the primary consider- ation."

The Commissioners of Post-office Inquiry, now sitting, observe in their Tenth Report, that "The safe and speedy conveyance of letters for the benefit of trade and commerce, was the primary con- sideration with the Government on the first establishment of a Gene- ral Post-office ; the revenue which it was expected would arise from the exclusive privilege conferred on the Posenaster-Getterai was held to be of minor importance : this principle is recognized in the preemble of the ditferent postage Acts which were passed. front the time of the Commonwealth down to the 10th of Queen. Anne, when the Eustis!' and Scottish offices were united under one Postmaster-G eneral."

Such were the objects for which the Post-office was established, and such are the objects which). in the epieion of your Committee, ought to I e kept in view in the management of that department. It appears from the account of the receipts and the gross cost of tuotiagelnent of the: 1',_.t-offiee for the year ending the 51.11 of January 1S3S, that the cost of management of the Post- office department was 6.+6,6:32/. 2s. ; the gro.::s revenue, exclu-

sive of' repast mews, 2,339,737/. 6-1 lss. 3d. • and the net revenue there-

fore, 1,1,i05/. 16s. Id., that is, that tile price charged amounts to more than three tittles the cost, even it' the vhole expense he placed to the account of letters.* Upon this showing, it cannot but be admitted that the relative importance of the objects in view at the time the Post-office was tirrt eetab!ished, would appear to let et been reversed ; fin', that whit21 was at lirst the secondary consider- ation, the Revenue, can seasecly be regarded in that light any longer, when, owing to the prt,sieg exigi_aicies of the state, a tax is found to have been imposed of it 2:;(1 pc;. :1. flow 1::r this heavy amount of taxation inestioss with tine iri;:cc; of pr1::,Iry consideration, " the advantage of trade and ccountorc,..- it whi be the busith;ss of your Committee to iteluire.

§ ty" Revenues.

The 11)11:eying is a comparison instituted between the Post-oiliee Revenue of the six years ending 5th Jathetry 18:18, and that of six years ending 5th January 1821 : -1!..0,-.)6 : •,

'23 1

This comparison shows that, on an average gross revenue of 2,190,597/. there has been, during an interval of set culeim years, all increase of only 00,827/., and a yearly ineresse thereibre of only 3,57S/., or of little more than one and a half per theusand ; where- as the country, during the same interval, has advanced rapidly in population, and in a still more remarkable degree in wealth, manu- flicturing industry, and c.muncree. From this eemparison, there- fore, a strong presumption is all'orded that the high amount of the tax in question does interfere materially with the objects of primary consideration for whish the Poste tilice was instituted.

Your Committee subjoin, in a note below, the observation of

(j;J:I.S IIEVENLE,

if my 11....1i8.

Net ltEvssrE, Alter Cost

See A 'Tenni,: to Report 1.. p. 1,3-.2tols.;7

11;.•;;;-itt..

I:1 2,175,292

2.1100,1SI 2,15•3.631

2,91:1,29.1 2,151,213 . 2,350,603 Totals of the Six Years

.13,143,583

13,508,7,47

Average of the Six Years

111:•,:"0.1; 9,951,124 Increase at the end of Seven- teen Years ' t :

Animal Average hiervase

: :3,578

7s

X

1,59‘,.295

1,5:11,S 2S 1.619,191;

1,55:1:125

1.5:17.50; 14113,059 1013,57 i 1,564,456 1„.1117,5:;:; 1,615,535

1,522,1140

1,635,479 • :,1,179,0 to 9, 917,1;77

I ,529.&1111

1,577,846 The gross revenue of the Post-office of Frauce, between 1821 and 1835, has increased 54 per cent. The Postmaster-General attributes the non-increase of the Post-office re- venue to certain partial reductions in postage which have taken place from time to time. The amount of these reductions the Postmaster-General esti- mates at about 157,000/. per annum; but it is an ascertained fact, that some of the reductions there referred to have produced an actual increase of revenue : for example, the reduction in the Irish rates in 1827, as the account of the Irish revenue for that year shows, was immediately followed by a considerable gain. Again, a loss of 25,000/. i5 attributed to a change made in the Twopenny-post department in 1831; but the evidence shows, that instead of a loss of 25,000/, there was in a few years a gain of 10,000/. It must also be borne in mind, that a saving of about 50,0001. per annum in the Post-office expenditure was effected a few years ago, by transferring the management and expenditure of the packet service to the Admiralty. This, as stated by the Postmaster-General, would affect the net, thouc.h not the gross receipts of the Post-office. Other witnesses from the Post-office are nearly unanimous in considering the present rates too high, with reference to the revenue.

Colonel Moberly says, " I do think them [the rates] too high, and so I be- lieve every Postmaster-General has thought them for many years. I should say too high for the general interest of the public, and too high for the interests of the revenue."

The Secretaries of the Post-offices of Scotland and Ireland entertain shni- lar opinions.

VI.—EFFECTS OF PRESENT RATES IN OCCASIONING- § 1. Evasion of Postage without Breach of the Law.

The evidence clearly establishes the fact that all classes of the community, each according to the means, direct or indirect, within its reach, use their utmost endeavours to correspond free of post- age, and wherever it can be done without breaking the law. Of the lawful modes of evasion, the most direct and obvious is that by private messengers, which, in the case of insurance-offices and other public institutions having circulars to distribute, is most extensively resorted to. Scarcely less direct is the use of Parliamentary and official franks ; by means of which, Dr. Lardner, the editor of extensive literary works, transmits, as he states, the greater part of his correspondence. Invoices may lawfully be sent in parcels with the goods ; and this, it appears, is the mode of transmitting such documents, which is very generally in use among tradesmen, though in many instances it renders them liable, in case of damage or loss, and, to the consignees, is almost universally productive of incon- venience. If it were not for the high rates, those documents would be forwarded by post to an immense extent. Among the less di- rect means of lawfid evasion, are the following. Where a common piece of information is at the same time to be imparted to many, an advertisement in a newspaper, previously determined on, an- swers the purpose of many letters. The mere transmission of a bygone newspaper is the preconcerted signal of' the occurrence of a certain event, which is thus made known to the party by whom the newspaper is received ; or by a device, precisely analogous to the former, a letter is addressed to the party, which he declines to receive and pay for. By varying the modes of directing the ad- dresses on such newspapers or letters, as many different occur- rences may be notified as there have been signals previously agreed upon. A mode of making explicit communications, and evading the writing of letters and payment of the postage, is resorted to by factors in Ireland. They publish printed circulars showing the state of the markets in their own particular trade, which circulars being stamped as newspapers, are transmitted free of post. Their different correspondents are distinguished in the circular by dif- ferent numbers, and opposite to these numbers are printed the communications which the factor wishes to snake to his several conesponden La. .51 wilier indirect mode in universal practice among printers, booksellers and publishers, and also very prevalent amongst other classes of tradesmen and mercantile men, is to write a letter to one firm containing passages intended for the in- formation of other firms in the same town or neighbourhood, which passages arc to be cut out into slips, and forwarded to those other firms. Exactly on the same principle, when money is due and is to be paid to several tradesmen in the same town, a remittance of the whole suns is made to one house, in order to be distributed amongst the whole.* § 2. Evasion of Postage in Breach of Lass.

The evidence taken before your Committee his also clearly esta- blished the filet, that correspondence otherwise than by post is car- ried on throughout the country, in systematic evasion of the law, if not in open violation of it, to an extent that could hardly have been imagined, and which it would be difficult to calculate.

It is principally in time neighbourhood of large towns and in popu- lous manufacturing districts, that the illicit conveyance of letters has been reduced most nearly to a system. The distribution chiefly extends to the towns and places in the neighbourhood. Some carriers make it their sole business to collect and distribute Letters ; they do this openly, without fear of the consequences. Children and women are empl,iyerl by the carriers to collect the letters. Some carriers convey the letters by their own stage-carts ; those who get their entire living by it, proceed usually in stage- coaches to the places the letters arc destined to. There is a com- petition among the ea: Tiers who go to the same place ; and the price '1' Mr. Parker, publisher, states, 6' A letter coming by post to A., B., or C, contains slips to be sent to other persons in correspondence with the same onntry dealers." 0 On receiving a letter from a correspondent who does business with several persons, we tear of those slips, and scial them from one to another. I may have sent as many myself es I have received, or more or less, 1 cannot tell; it is so much the ordinary practice in business to send and receive in that way. Most of those bear a eortion of the post-mark, and show that the letter may have been cut tip into so:, eight, or ten portions, nevording to eircmnstoneeq." This statement is contirm64 by Mr. Knight and Mr. Whittaker, publishers ; ea M. P. De Porquiet and Mr. Wright.

Mr. Dillon's evidence shows that money is sometimes sent, with a request that it may be paid in given portions to various persons.

for which they deliver a letter is ld. Walsall is one of the town, where this practice is said to have been prevalent ; throughout another district it is said to be universal, and is known to have been established there for nearly 50 years. This mode of s letters is considered perfectly safe. One house sends in that way 150 letters a week. The average number of letters sent daily throughout the year by a house in the neighbourhood of Walsall exceeded 50 ; and by that house more than 120 have been sent in one day. Not one-fiftieth part of the letters from Walsall to the neighbouring towns were sent by post.

The illicit transmission of letters is not confined to the neighs

bourhood of large towns, or to populous manufacturing districts; it extends along all the lines of communication where a constant traf- fie exists, and the more so in proportion as the conveyance on any line is rapid and frequent. Mr. Cobden, an extensive manufacturer at Manchester, who svas

deputed by the Chamber of Commerce of that town to give in evi- deuce the results of inquiries instituted by them respecting the means resorted to in that neighbourhood of conveying letters other. wise than by post, says, that the extent to which evasion is there

practised is incredible ; and that five-sixths of the letters sent from Manchester to London do not pass through the Post-office. One merchant informed the Chamber, that, in every trip he made to Liverpool, he took or brought back for his friends pockets-full of letters; and that he did not doubt that four-fifths of the correspond- ence between Manchester and Liverpool were carried on by private hand.

Mr. Thomas Davidson, an extensive manufacturer at Glasgow, deputed on the part of the commercial interests in that city to give evidence before the Committee, stated, from data collected for the information of a Local Committee, that in the case of five commer- cial or manufacturing houses in that city, the correspondence ille- gally transmitted was to that transmitted by post in the following proportions ; that is to say— In the case of the first house in point of extent of business, nearly as 138 ttoo

Ditto second Ditto Ditto third 67 to 1 Ditto fourth 8 to 1 fifth 15 to 1

Many of those letters, however, were mere invoices, which might have been sent otherwise than by post without violating the law; though, probably, but for the high rates they would have been sent by post. Mr. Davidson stated, as the result of all the inquiries he had made in Glasgow, that 10 letters were sent by illicit convey. ance for one that was sent by post. Mr. Brewin, a dealer in hops and seeds at Cirencester, says that the people in that town do not think of using the post for the con- veyance of letters. He knows two carriers who carry four times as many letters as the mail does. Lieutenant Ellis, Auditor of a district of Poor-law Unions in Suf- folk, says that the numerous letters and communications that pass between clerks of the peace and justices' clerks and the officers of every parish in the kingdom, on subjects of magisterial and county jurisdiction, such as jury lists, lunatic returns, precepts, appoint-

ments of constables, overseers, surveyors, &c. and nearly the correspondence and communications emanating from the mighty machinery of the New Poor-law and its extensive ramifications, are generally sent by other conveyances than the post.

Most of the other witnesses, including many officers of the Pest- office, give evidence of the extent to which evasion is practised. The means by which letters are conveyed, are chiefly I. By carriers, often without disguise.

2. By booksellers' parcels.

Mr. John Reid, formerly a bookseller at Glasgow, says that the latter are the means principally resorted to at Glasgow for evading the postage. Mr. Cobden states that every publisher's or stationer's traveller has his letters of advice forwarded through a bookseller's parcel. M. De Porquet, a bookseller, states that any one of the trade, by leaving letters in a parcel, with 2d., at any of the larger booksellers, can have his letters forwarded to all parts of the kingdom : but packets of letters are thus conveyed to persons wholly unconnected with the trade.* 3. By warehousemen's bales and parcels, and in boxes and trunks forwarded by carriers. Mr. Dillon, of the house of Morrison and Co., testifies to this practice.

4. By what are termed " free packets," containing the patterns and correspondence of manufacturers, which the coach-proprietors carry free of charge, except 4d. for booking. 5. By "weaver's bags," in the neighbourhood of Glasgow ; that 15, bags containing work for the weavers, which the manufacturers for- ward to some neighbouring town. 6. By "family boxes," as they are termed at Glasgow. A fitrmer, who has a son at the University, forwards to him once or twice a week a box containing provisions. The neighbours make a post-office of thus farmer's house. 7. By coachmen, guards, travellers, and private hands. Mr. Samuel Jones Loyd says, that many documents, notwith- standing a difficulty he alludes to, are yet forwarded to London bankers by means of private individuals passing through London, or by means of guards and drivers of coaches.

Mr. Brown, merchant, of Liverpool, says that parcels containing

• See also evidence of Mr. Whittaker, publisher, (3745-7-69, 70-98, 3815 to 3819, 3822 to 3830); Mr. Richard Taylor, printer, (4505-6) ; Mr. Parker, publisher, (4888, 491)8); 1)r. Lardner, (5196); Mr. Webster, (5925); MI.. W. U. Watson, (6135); Mr. Deacon, carrier, (7297); and Mr. M'Laren, (7358); Mr. Murray, (5802-5); and Mr. Ellis, (7464.)

letters are forwarded to Liverpool by every means that can be conceived ; by stage-coaches, vans, railroads, steam-boats, private conveyances, special messengers, &c. The different officers of the Post-office department have in very different degrees attached credit to the evidence given before your Committee of the extent to which the contraband conveyance of letters is carried.

Colonel Maberly states, that from long experience, when he was in Parliament, he knows that merchants and interested parties are

very apt to overstate their case : on this ground he says (and he admits it to be the only ground), that he doubts the evidence. As regards the inland postage, he is not aware of any extensive evasion of the Post-office revenue, except the practice of bringing letters to London in parcels by coach, and then circulating them through the Twopenny-post ; a practice which he states lie is not able to prove. The Postmaster of Bath thinks there is but little evasion in his district.

The Post-office Surveyor for the Northern district of England, notwithstanding he has made the inquiry of a number ot' post- masters, has never heard of letters being collected in towns by carriers.

Mr. George Louis, the Inspector of Mails, thinks it very probable, that in short distances there is a great evasion of the postage. Mr, Sebright, Post-office Surveyor for the Home District, has no doubt, that, to evade postage, many letters arc sent by stage- coaches and carriers, and by private hands. lie repeats an observa- tion which was made to him by the Postmaster at Margate, that in the season when the population was so much increased, the postage did not increase in proportion ; a circumstance which the Post- mister attributed to the illegal conveyance of letters by the steam- boats.

The Postmaster at Exeter informed the Chairman of the Com- mittee, by letter, that though he may not be able to ascertain the fact, he has little doubt that more letters, within the distance of 20 miles, are conveyed illegally, than through the medium of the Post-office.

The Liverpool Postmaster, Mr. Banning, states, that he has reason to believe that evasion is carried on to a very great extent, and that letters arc scut illegally by every possible means of con- veyance ; the extent of evasion is in proportion to the cheapness and facilities afforded. Between Liverpool and Manchester, for instance, where the railway carriages go 12 times each way per day, the charge being only Is. for a parcel large enough to contain more than 500 letters, and the parcel being delivered by a light cart immediately on arrival, the evasion is no doubt very great. The extent must, of course, be unknown; but forming a supposi- tion, he should say that on that particular line the number of letters sent without passing through the Post-office was probably greater than the number sent by post. Mr. Peacock, Solicitor to the London Post-office, states, that it is by no means a fair inference, that because the number of prose- cutions has been less, the offence of sending letters illegally has been diminishing. He apprehends the illegal conveyance of letters to be carried to a very great extent at the present moment, and has no doubt that persons of respectability, in the higher as well as the humbler walks of' life, are in the habit of sending letters by illegal conveyance to a great extent.

The Officers of the Edinburgh Post-office give the following evi- dence as to the evasion of postage in Scotland—

Sir Edward Lees, Secretary of the Edinburgh Post-office, states his opinion, that the practice of illegally conveying letters is very general, and that the subterfuges resorted to, in order to effect that purpose, arc numerous and diversified, but to what extent lie has no means of judging.

Mr. Bowie, Solicitor to the same office, says, that it conies within his knowledge, that the illegal conveyance of letters is carried on over the whole of Scotland, and to a very great extent ; the modes resorted to being, to put up letters in sealed parcels, sent by coaches, carriers, and steam-boats; in other instances to wrap up a letter in brown paper, so as to present the appearance of a parcel; in very many cases to give the letters to a friend, say in Edinburgh, to be thrown on arrival into the Post-office, say of Glasgow or Dum- Mes. He has often been told, that on the market-day, Wednesday morning, more letters are brought into Edinburgh from towns and villages within 30, 40, or 50 miles, by the common carriers, than are brought from the same places by the post. Ile believes that the same observation applies equally to all provincial towns in &otland.

The officers of the Dublin Post-office give the following evidence as to the evasion of postage in Ireland—

Mr. Godby, the Secretary, says, " Every species of contrivance that ingenuity can devise is resorted to for the purpose of evading the payment of postage ; and though I cannot state decidedly the extent to which it is carried, but judging from the cases wherein the practice has been detected, 1 can have no hesitation in believing that it exceeds any idea persons in general may have formed of it:'—" Every coachman, carman, boatman, or other person, whose business leads him to travel regularly between fixed places, is a carrier of letters: of this we have daily proof, from the munber of letters put into this office to be delivered by the penny-post, which have evidently been brought to Dublin by private hands, and which the officers of the sarting-offiee have estimated at about 400 per day." Mr. Thompson, the Solicitor of the Dublin Post-office, gives the following information- " The illegal conveyance of letters prevails in Ireland to a very great extent, and the following modes of effecting it may be looked on as being in constant and daily operation throughout the kingdom ; viz.

"1st. Conveyance from all parts of the country by private hand; an immense number of letters being so conveyed, and by the penny-posts generally made use of for their ultimate delivery. "2d. By drivers and guards of stage, and even of mail-coaches, caravans, &c., personally taking letters for delivery, along the routes of the coaches, &e., or at the termination of their journeys ; and by the agents and clerks of such coaches, &c., so forwarding the correspond- ence of themselves and their acquaintances folded up in their way-bills. " 3(1. By packages of letters, disguised as parcels, being received for payment by the agents of coaches, &c., and entered ou the way-bills ; the letters being afterwards delivered by the person to whom the pack- ages were directed, or the penny-posts made use of for their ultimate delivery.

" 4th. By known carriers and carmen, who having fixed days for setting out and returning, are made use of for regularly conveying letters. and bringing back answers.

"5th. By numerous and extensive car establishments, particularly in the South and West of Ireland, where these cars travel from town to town, and convey letters to a very great extent.

" 6th. By steam-packets between ports in England and Ireland; between Scotland and the North of Ireland ; between ports in Ireland and other ports in Ireland ; and also between various towns where steamers have been introduced for inland navigation.

" 7th. By canal boats and packets between Dublin and the various towns through which the canals pass. " 5th. By written communications on, and letters concealed in news- papers.

" As to the fourth of these modes, the injury to the postage re- venue may perhaps be eethuated front a recent case, in which, under a search-warrant signed by the Postmaster-General, no less than 57 letters were seized with a carrier named Gill, who, for a great number of years, was in the habit of conveying letters from Granard and its vicinity to Dublin, and bringing back the answers. Several of these letters contained enclosures of other letters, and money enclosures to the amount of nearly 2001. Gill WilS subsequently convicted in a penalty of 101. ; and mitigated penalties, to the amount of 851. 10s., recovered from the writers of a portion of these letters."

Such are the opinions of the officers of the Post-office depart- ment in the Three Kingdoms, as to the fact of letters being illegally conveyed by the modes befbre enumerated, and as to the extent to which these practices are carried.

Besides the modes of unlawful evasion already enumerated, there is the contrivance of writing upon bygone newspapers with common or invisible ink, or of enclosing accounts or other papers within their folds. Mr. Newton, Inspector of the Dead-letter Office, the Deputy-Postmaster at Liverpool, and Mr. Godby, Secretary to the Dublin Post-office, state that these practices are carried on to a great extent. The latter gentleman states that in Ireland, in the comparatively few cases of this kind in which, annually, detection takes place, the postage charged, but not recovered, amounts to 7,0001. The newspapers posted are so numerous, and are put into the office so short a time before the despatch of the mails, that it is quite impossible to examine them. The Deputy-Postmaster of' Liverpool states that they do not examine one-fifth of them.

The evasion of the postage on letters sent from different parts of the United Kingdom to the out-ports, for the purpose of being put on board of ships bound to foreign parts, especially to the United States of America, is vet more remarkable than the evasion of the inland postage. It is thoroughly known to the Post-office authori- ties; but the practice appears to be winked at. Colonel' ?Soberly speaks of that practice as one kaown, and almost recognized. Mr. Banning, the Postmaster at Liverpool, says, that the " illegal prac- tice" of sending letters to that port in parcels, in order to be for- warded by ships to places abroad, prevails to a considerable extent; in proof of which, he states, that in return for the 370,000 ship- letters, which, exclusive of those addressed to parties at Liverpool, were, in the course of one year, received at the Liverpool Post- office, only 78,000 letters were received at that office to be sent outwards in ship-letter mails. Ile states, that the masters of ves- sels assure him that the number of letters conveyed outwards is quite equal to the number brought inwards.

Mr. Maury, of Liverpool, states, that Mr. Banning, the Post- master there, had expected that some thousands of letters would pass through his office, in order to he forwarded by the Sirius steam-ship, bound from Cork for New York ; but that, to his asto- nishment, Mr. Banning received only five letters. Mr. Maury adds, that by that ship at least 10,000 letters were in fact sent, all in one bag, which was at the office of the consignee of the ship. Mr. Maury himself' sent at least .200 letters by that ship, which went. free.

Mr. Lawrence, Assistant-Secretary' to the London Post-office, states, that from what the Post-office authorities hove learnt, the American packet, which leaves London every ten days, carries 4,000 letters each voyage, which do not pass through the Post- office; that he is aware of the existeece in London of receiving- houses for letters, to be forwarded otherwise than by the Post : the Jerusalem Coffeehouse, for instance, receives letters for the East Indies; the North and South American Coffeehouse. for South America, the United States, and British America ; that almost every ship-broker in London has a bag hanging up for letters to be forwarded by the ship to which he is brolo r ; and that the number of letters for North America so collected for several ships, in the office of one ship-broker have been enough to load a cab. The Lords of the Treasury., in a letter dated the 8th day of April 1837, and addressed to William Maury, Esq., President of the American Chamber of Commerce of Liverpool, notice the fact, that between the 14th of February 1836 and the 28th of February 1837, the Board of Customs had discovered and sent to the Post- office '2,371 packages and letters ; that in one instant! alone 530 letters were discovered; and that, between the 29th of September 1836 and the 20th of February 1837' in 111 packages, containing 822 newspapers, 648 letters had been found concealed.

All these various modes of avoiding the payment of the inland and foreign postage have increased, arc increasing, and must ob- viously continue to increase, as railroads, steam-boats, nod other improved means of external and internal communication are ex- tended and multiplied. Mr. :11'Claren, Treasurer to the city of Edinburgh, thinks " the system is regularly increasing obviously, because the number of coaches and other conveyances is increasing every day. You have additional facilities, and, consequently, ad- ditional temptations to evade postage. Before stage-coaches and steam-packets became so common as they are now, there were many places which it was difficult to get a letter conveyed to ex- cept by the post, awl, consequently, parties were obliged, either not to write at all, or to post their letters; but now the facilities arc necessarily very greatly Menet:eel, end he fears the practice will continue to go on increasing."

The Secretary of the Dublin Post-office sacs, " The illegal trans- mission of letters to and from Great Britain has very much in- creased since the introduetiou of SiCani navigation with the exception of Sunday, private steam-vessels pass daily between Dublin and Liverpool; and in the offices of the agents of such ves- sels a tin box is kept. fir the reception, they say, of consignees letters ; but it is well known that vast numbers of letters of all de- scriptions are put into them, and the commanders, not being com- pelled by the Customhouse to make the declaration required front masters of vessels Irma fereign parts, ' that all bare been delivered at the Post-elliee,' do not hesitate to coetey them; but I have not any means of' gi%ing you a correct idea of the number of letters thus illegally conveyed." Colonel Maberlv says " I think the establishment of railroads is a very great additional argument for reduction, as giving very great increased flu:Rifles for smuggling correspondence."

From the evidence above quoted, respecting the illicit convey- ance of correspowlence, and !lams the stetements of a host of other witnesses Leas:, ag on tits senee poiut, a summary of whose testi- iaony will be f mud in the Aleerect appended to this Report, your Committee have cmte to the conclusion, that, with regard to large classes of the teenmunity, those prif.eipally to whom it is a matter of necessity to etheesileml on matters ot. bus:Iess, and to whom also it is a matter of ie,Tertitece to save the cepense of postage, the Post-office, hist teal viewed as it ought to be, and would be under a wise administration of it, as an institution of ready and versa! access. distributing el ;tinily to all, and with an open hand, the 1,1essing, ore' ,p1::“.:ra! and e; vili ration, is regarded by them as an establisluut.nt too (\j ut:sive to 1,e emtle use cf, and as ow with the empleytneet of v,Itielt they en.l. .tie. to die,,,ense by every means in their pc,wer.* The ccionour,i.,1 ::act trading classes lave indeed, in a consith.ruble degrac, by dint of superior activity, re- lieved themselves from the pressure of this tax without the inter- ference of the I.C;;,lature, by devising other means fbr the safe, cheap, and exie eitious conveyance of letters. It is owing to the impunity with which, in practice, evasion has been carried on, that tic present high peeage-ratet have been submitted to with coin- eerative kid:Wert:ace, and that tinder those high rates the revenue as maintai,u I its level. For since every letter that is written gives rise probably to a reply, and also very probably to a series of ruiona. ms and sur•ajo the mass of letters which are ilk- gally conveyed originate a mass of correspondence in return, no inconsiderable share of which will probably pass through the Post- office. Were it possible fltr the Legislature, by any ingeniously- devised enactments, or tiw the Post-office department, by the exer- ,,i-e of any increased authority, activity, or rigour, to put an end or eheck to the illegal transmission of letters, at the same time

,intaining the present high rates, an enermous diminution must

1:e place in the number of letters written, and that other evil which results from excessive rating, namely, the suppression of correspondence, must be greatly magnified. The extent to which legal evasion is practised, the cruelty of attempting to suppress it so long as the present rates shall continue, and the utter impossi- bility of succeeding in such an attempt, will appear from the fol- lowing extract front the Evidence " 1 made a calculation some time ago among the poor manufficturers ; and I found, when one of them in hill work could earn 40x. a week, he would receive, on an average, 30 orders, which, at 4/1. a piece, if' they went through the Post-oflice, would lie 2.5 per cent. on his earnings." Sup- pression is the next polo., that your Committee have to consider.

Mr. John Dillon, of the firm of M.,rrison and Co., states that it has be- come a part of mercantile exccpt in the very highest branches of it, and with regard to very large transaelions, to abstain from incurring postage by writing brtiers. Mr. J. 1.. -Murray, eh:Liman of the National Loan Fund Life Assurance Company, says, it is a matter of importance to know how to avoid postage. Mr. Itichant Taylor, printer, says, they take every possible means to send by any other conveyance than the post. Mr. Parker, publisher, speaks to the same effect. Mr..1trewin, hop-merchant, of Cirencester, says, the people there do not think of using the post for conveying letters. Mr. Cobden states, that in the neighbourhood of Manchester the desire to avoid paying imstage exists to an incredible extent. Similar evidence is given by 111r. ?ilaury, a Liverpool merchant ; Mr. Fla s Oerton, ironmonge , of London; Nil.. Henson, a working Nottingham hosier ; and by many other witnesses. § 3. Suppression of Correspondence.

The evidence clearly establishes the fact; that the high rates of postage deter the public, to a vast extent, from writing letters and sending communications, which otherwise they would write or send. In spite of the multifitrious modes in which the postage is evaded by men engaged in commerce or professional business, yet even those who have the means of evasion within their reach, reduce their correspondence greatly below the standard which, under other circumstances, they would think expedient. Indirect modes of transmission in most parts of the country are less acces- sible, less frequent, and less certain than the post. In very many affairs of business, unless the announcement be immediate, the occasion for writing has gone by : unless parties, therefore, find it profitable to use the post, they forbear writing at all. Suppression of correspondence on matters of business takes the placeoof.

sion, in proportion as the transactions to be announced or per- formed are moderate in amount, and the condition in life of the parties is humble. The multitude of transactions which, ine:atO the high rates of postage, are prevented from being done, or which, if done, tut not announced, or are delayed to be announced, is quite astonishing. Bills for moderate amounts are not drawn; small orders for goods are not given or received; remittances of money are not acknowledged ; the expediting of goods by land or sea, the sailing or arrival of ships are not announced, and in. surances thereon are thereby prevented from being effected; printers do not send their proofs; the town-dealer does not inform his country customers when to expect the arrival of his traveller; the country attorney delays writing to his London agent, the com- mercial traveller to his principal,f the town banker to the hanker in the country ; branch banks delay remitting to their central bank ; in all which, and many other eases, instead of communica- tion taking place from day to day, as matters arise, regularity, which is the soul of business, is dispensed with. In the greater number of instances, moreover, in which private individuals, com- panies, or associations, or public institutions and societies, can only accomplish their objects by a wide distribution of circulars or a very extensive correspondence, the usual course is to forego the distribution or correspondence, and with it the objects that were in contemplation. Thus the distribution of circulars from land-agents, announcing properties for sale; from wine-agents, stating the prospects of the vintage ; and from corn-salesmen, of the harvest ; from brokers of every description, advising the momentary fluctuations in the mar- ket; from traders, recommending their goods; from printers, publish- ers, and booksellers, forwarding their prospectuses and announcing new publications; from fire and life assurance companies, stating the terms of their insurances; front manufacturers, enclosing new pat- terns • and from dealers, enclosing samples, are suppressed, or greatly restricted. Charitable institutions, societies for the props- gation of the gospel, unions for the establishment of Sunday schools, associations for the promotion or improvement of educa- tion, or the diffusion of useful knowledge, and ninny other bodies, engaged in various objects fbr the advancement of the interests of society, are greatly crippled in their exertions by the limitations which the postage rates impose on their issue of printed notices and documents. Practitioners and others in the country do not apply for lymph, in the degree they otherwise would do, to the in- stitutions formed in London for the spread of vaccination. The privilege of sending vaccine lymph free of postage is granted, through the medium of a Treasury frank, to the National Vaccine Establishment exclusively. Various literary and scientific societies are cut off, in a great measure, from communication with their non-resident members. Parochial, magisterial, and county busi- ness is much impeded by the same cause. Whenever public bodies or individuals, in the prosecution of scientific inquiries, are desirous of obtaining 1111 accurate knowledge of facts, which is to be pro- cured only by writing to a great number of individuals, as in sta- tistics, medical science, and the determination of the constants that are required for applying mechanical theory to practice, there they find themselves cut off, by the operation of the postage rates, from those sources at which alone information is to be drawn, and discover in those rates an impediment to the progress of science. But of all the descriptions of correspondence that are restricted by the postage rates, that to which the term suppression will most properly apply, is probably the voluntary social correspondence between flintily, kindred, and friends. The restriction becomes suppression in the case of any party, in proportion as the present cost of a letter bears hardly on his income, and as he is desirous, but unable, to correspond freely. It will apply thereffire, more or less, to the social correspolidence of all below the wealthier classes.

Of the inability of the working classes to pay, the expense of

even a single letter, as now taxed, out of their earnings, little proof is necessary. " Sixpence," says Mr. Brewin, one of the Society of Friends, " is a third of a poor man's daily income; if a gentleman whose fortune is 1,0001. a year, or Si. a day, had to pay one-third of his daily income, that is, a sovereign, for a letter, how often would he write letters of friendship? Let a gentleman put that to himself, and then he will be able to see how the poor man cannot

t Mr. Parker, publisher, says, " A traveller on a journey does not send a letter whenever lie takes au order, but keeps it till be can fill a sheet. This mode of doing business is attended with considerable inconvenience; but it is imposed upon us by the necessity of the case. The proper thing would be to correspond. with our travellers ever?' day, but the correspondence would not bear the postage." Some of these letters, which he produced contained, upot the same letter, orders front two or three different towns—Beuconsfield, Maiden- head, and Wallingford.

be able to pay 6d. for his letter. The people do not think of using the Post-office; it is barred against them by the very high charge." Mr. Felkin, of Nottingham, states, " that the average earnings of the stocking-making population of the counties of Nottingham,

Derby, and Lincoln, amounting to 33,000 souls, are from 6s. 6d. to 78.6d, a week ; and that consequently a 10d. letter would operate

as a tax upon them of from one-eighth to one-tenth of their weekly income.

Mr. G. Henson, a working hosier, from Nottingham, observes, a servant girl goes perhaps 100 miles off: if she communicates

her friends] once a month, that will be 12 tenpences; that is 10s., a tenth part, perhaps, of her year's wages. Mr. Henson has given his wife instructions not to take letters in, unless they come from particular persons ; they would ruin him ; it would take half his income were he to pay postage.

The following extract from the evidence of Mr. Emery, Deputy- Lieutenant for Somersetshire, and a Commissioner of Taxes, proves at once the desire and the inability of the poor to corre- spond : ".A person in my parish, of the name of Rosser, had a letter

from a granddaughter in London, and she could not take up the letter for want of the means. She was a pauper, receiving 2s. 6d. a week ; and ifyou will allow me, I will repeat her own words, fbr have taken them down."—" She told the post-office keeper that she must wait until she had received the money from the relieving- officer ; she could never spare enough, and at last a lady gave her ls. to get the letter, but the letter had been returned to London by the post-office mistress. She never had the letter since. It came from her granddaughter, who is in service in London." That led me to inquire further ; and by going to the different local offices in the neighbourhood (I went to almost every one of them within a circle of 14, 15, or 20 miles,) I made inquiry what effect it had on the poor ; and I have taken down their answers, just as they gave them to me. These are the answers from the post-office keepers as to the effect it had on poor people. The Postmaster of Barn- well said. " My flither kept the post-office many years; he is lately dead; he used to trust poor people very often with letters; they generally could not pay the whole charge. He told me, indeed I know, he did lose many pounds by letting poor people have their letters. We sometimes return theta to London in consequence of the inability of the persons to whom they tre addressed raising the postage. We frequently keep them for weeks ; and, lvhcre we know the parties, let them have them, taking the chance of getting our money. One poor woman once c411:red my sister a silver spoon to keep until she could raise the money ; my sister did not take the spoon, and the woman etane with the amount in a

day or two and took up the letter. It came from her husband,

who was confined for debt in prison; she had six children, and was very badly off. I am quite sure it' the postage of letters were lowered to Id., ten times the number would be written by all classes of people." This is the answer of another postmaster, at a large village containing 1,500 or 1,600 inhabitants, called. Con- gresbury : " I have sometimes had complaints made of the high rate of postage ; the price of a letter is a great tax on poor people. sent one charged 8d. to a poor labouring man about a week ago; it came from his daughter : he first roused taking it, saying it would take a loaf of bread from his other children ; but after hesi- tating a little time, he paid the money, and opened the letter. I seldom return letters of this kind to Bristol. because I let the poor people have them, and take the chance of being paid; sometimes I lose the postage, but generally the poor people pay me by de- grees." The_ Postmaster of Yatton says, "'I'he poor, and rich too, complain of the high charge of letters. I am quite sure if they were not so high, Government would lose nothing, there would be so many more written. I have had a letter waiting lately from the husband of a poor woman who is at work in Wales; the charge was Oil. ; it lay many days, in consequence of her not being ahle to pay the postage. I at last trusted her with it." Sir Edward Lees, Secretary of the Edinburgh Post-office, says that some of the labouring classes are unable to raise the sum re- quired to pay the postage of letters, and to redeem them; that they have to lie at the post-office until the money can be raised. In

many instances they are returned to the Dead-letter Office fbr want of money to pay the postage. Mr. 13rankston says that the present postage amounts to tyranny

in the case of the poor. There are thousands and tens of thou- sands living separate from their children, who have no means of

communicating with them in consequence of the high rate of postage.

Mr. Cobden, of' Manchester, says, "We have 50,000 in Man- chester who are Irish, or the immediate descendants of Irish ; and all the large towns in the neighbourhood contain a great many Irish or the descendants of Irish, who are almost as much precluded, as though they lived in New South Wales, from all correspondence or communication with their relatives in Ireland."

As to the desire there may be, coupled with inability, to corre- spond in the classes below the wealthy classes, the following extracts will prove how much of such correspondence must be sup- pressed. In proof of this desire existing in persons immediately above the poorer classes, Lord Ashburton adduces their eagerness to run after franks. Among the operatives, says Dr. Birkbeck, "there is a strong desire that the postage should be reduced. They feel that they are cut off from a very interesting occupation of the talents they cultivate; and they would be greatly gratified, as well as unproved, by having a facility proportionate to what those who are better circumstanced now have. .Many of them desire to com- municate on matters of science and literature, but are prevented from doing so by the high postage rates."

Mr. Henson says, that the general feeling of the working classes is that the postage is beyond their means ; that they are cut off from their relatives by the high rates of postage : they very seldom write now. He does not think the letters they write average a letter a year. They are very desirous of communicating with each other, and would keep up a regular correspondence, provided it could be done cheaper : they have not known that it could he done cheaper, and therefore the subject has not been taken into consider- ation.

Mr. Emery, whose evidence was before quoted, states that the poor near Bristol have signed a petition to Parliament for the re- duction of the postage. He never saw greater enthusiasm in any public thing that was ever got up in the shape of a petition ; they seemed all to enter into the thing as fully and with as much feeling as it was possible, as a boon or godsend to them, that they should be able to correspond with their distant friends.

Mr. Brown, of Liverpool, states that " A very large number of Irish, and a very large number of Scotch, (whose attachment. though they are in a poor situation of lifb, is as strong f w their connexions as the attachment. of' those in the upper walks of life, if not stronger,) would consume the article which is now put out of their reach ; they wish to consume it, but cannot, in consequence of circum- stances."

:Air. Dillon also, and Mr. '1'. Davidson, speak of the desire the working people have to correspond with their absent relatives.* On an attentive consideration of the evidence, your Committee are of opinion that the suppression of correspondence to a vast ex- tent is clearly established in proof.

§ 4. Evils consequent on Erasion of foredo and Suppression of Corre-

.spondenee.

In showing, as they have done, that evasion of the postage and suppression of correspondence are the effects of high postage rates, and that such rates compel individuals, in proportion as they are less wealthy, or as their transactions are on a small settle, to forego the advantage or pleasure to arise from corresponding, your Committee consider that they have anticipated many observations on the evils of' such over taxation which they might otherwise have had to make.

So far as evasion goes, by removing the obstacles to intercommu- nication, it tends to mitigate the evils occasioned by high rates. The moral and social evil it gives rise to is. that it impairs on the part of the people the habit of respect tla. the law. Suppression of correspondence is matters of trarle implies the suppression of trade itself. " Much intercourse,- says Lord Ash- burton, '• takes place bethre you bring any plan to bear. Inquiries are made, patterns are drawn, and samples sent, which may end its sonic transaction:" "you deal with a man with whom you can communicate freely.' Iliese observations apply equally to small as to large transactions. It is " connuerciel suicide," as another witness terms it, to restrict the free temeeission of letters.t

The suppression of' the correspondence of this working classes gives rise to social and political evils of a peculiar nature, which some of the witnesses have very properly dwelt upon.

The misery which they endure in of separation from their family, in consequence of being unable to pay tie• sending or receiv- ing a ietter, is thus described by Mr. Henson. " When a man goes on the tramp, he must either take his family with him, perhaps one child in arms, or else the wife must be left behind ; and the misery I have known them to be in, from not knowing what has become of the husband, because they could not hear from him, has been extreme. Perhaps the man, receiving only 6d., has never had the means, upon the whole line, of paying 10d. for a letter, to let his wife know where he was."

Mr. A. Davidson, of the firm of Durnthrd and Co., remembers an instance in which a party was unaware of the death of his relative for six or eight months after the party died, in consequence of' neither the one nor the other having been able to afford the postage.

Mr. Simpson, the author of a treatise on Education, says," The present obstructions to correspondence are a tax, not only on their

* The extent to which suppres4on of correspondenve re,■ches, in the ells:oonoors£ the mor, is thus computed by Lieutenant Ellis, Auditor of a district of Poor- law Inions in Suffolk—" Parliamentary returns and other recent poldicat show, that the Poor-law A moulment Art ;111:,ets the management of the in upwards of 15,00(1 parishes in England and 11 :11< comprising upwards of 500 Unions, and inehnling. according to the con-us of I s31, a population of about eleven millions. From similar data it is sheem. th:it about one-twelfth part of the entire population are pmi:iers in the actual recyiit of relief But, imder the operation of the Poor-laW Amendment Act, Ilk re is an undoubted tendency to a decrease of pauperism; iu other wools, provident habits are in- dared, by throw:mg the poor upon their own resources. The poor then, who are not paupers, form a much larger and infinitely more inTalant class of the community. Their number may be reckoned at the lem,t double that of the actual paupers; and the two classes together form one-fourth part of the en- tire community, which fourth part is wholly debarred from communicating through the channel of the Post-otlice, by reason of the high rates of postage. The more the poor are thrown on their own resources. and the more the ad- vantages of education spread among them, the more it is imperative on the Legislature, as well for the benefit of the revenue as the moral good of the poor, to afford them the means of intercourse, by a penny rate of postage. The poor can and do subscribe their pence together for the purchase of a newspaper or other publication, but they cannot pay the present rates of postage."

thoughts, but on their affections : the removal of them would cause a great improvement in their social feeling and domestic affection, and would be a solace to the working classes, who often feel very intensely in their separation from their friends."

Mr. Dunlop believes, that " one of the worst parts of the present system of heavy postage is, that it gradually estranges an absentee from his home and family, and tends to engender a neglect of the ties of blood—in fact, to encourage a selfish spirit ; at the same time, he has known very affecting instances of finuilies in extreme poverty making a sacrifice to obtain a letter from the post-office." Mr. Brankston says, " I have seen much of the evils resulting from the want of communication between parents and their children among the young persons in our establishment ; I find the want of communication with their parents by letter has led, in some instances, to vice and profligacy, which might have been otherwise prevented. They come from the country young and in- experienced; neither the parents nor the young persons can afford to pay postage ; and the consequence is, that the fine feeling be- tween relatives, which ought to be kept in exercise, is likely to be- come deadened and grow cold."

The Reverend Th. Socket, of Petworth, says, " He thinks that if the parents were constantly in the habit of hearing from the child, the child would be often restrained from doing that which he some- times does, by the knowledge that his parents will hear of it from somebody. That must be the case if there were great facility of intercourse by post, and therefore that effect would be produced." The evils of suppression are seen in its keeping the working men ignorant of the state of wages iu different parts of the country, so that they do not know where labour is in demand.

Mr. Brewin says, " We often sec poor men travelling the country for work, and sometimes they come back, and it appears they have been in a wrong direction ; if the postage were low, they would write first, and know whether they were likely to suc- ceed."

Mr. Henson says, " Working men are very desirous of commu- nicating with each other ; and I am satisfied that they would keep up a regular correspondence, provided it could be done cheaper. There are other subjects connected with that in which it is a great hardship. Persons in particular trades go upon the tramp ; for in- stance, the shoemakers. The Shoemakers' Society at Nottingham tell me that :350 persons have come there for relief; they allow them Cd. for relict; and a bed ; the bed is 3d.; that is 9d. Very few of those persons would have gone upon tramp if they could have sent circular letters to a number of the largest towns in Eng- land at ld., to receive information whether a job could be got or not."

This state of ignorance has a tendency to promote strikes and trades unions among them.

Mr. Henson—" It keeps the working men in ignorance, and gives them erroneous ideas as to the wages that are paid at other places at any particular time ; and thus has a tendency to promote strikes."

Mr. Simpson—" Low postage rates would tend to enlighten the working classes on the matter of markets and wages of labour, all over the country. They are disposed exceedingly to get that in- formation by correspondence. They have more trust when they get it in a letter from a friend at a distance. A greater extent of knowledge and of education, particularly moral education, would entirely put an end to the Very conception of unions, particularly such as we have seen at Glasgow. They are the result of their minds trying to think, freely but fallaciously ; they are the result of very imperfect information." On the subject of the migration of the agricultural population to manufitcturing districts, Lord Ashburton says—" In my part of the country a great many persons have been removed from the agricultural to the manufficturina districts ; and if a man wishes to write to his friends to know how they are going on, it is a full day's labour to pay the postage. A reduction of the postage would increase the social communication. It is impossible for me to say how much."

Lieutenant Ellis, Poor-law Auditor in Suffolk, states, that one of' the perceptible effects of the present heavy rates is shown in the remarkable pertinacity of the poor to continue in their own parish, rather than remove to another where their condition would be bet- tered. This arises chiefly from their inability to pay the cost of communicating by post with their relatives and friends they might leave behind.

The Reverend Th. Socket, of Petworth, is of opinion, that the desire to emigrate would have been much encouraged, if a cheaper communication by post could have been had with those who were left behind.

Mr. Davidson, of Glasgow, says, that to enable the working classes to correspond, would tend to moderate their excitement on political and other questions. "There arc various points of view in which I think it would benefit the working classes particularly. From the very limited range of their enjoyments, whatever object of a political or social character they take up, they throw into it a feel- ing of excitement and intensity which appears to me to be injurious to their general moral and intellectual happiness. Hence the excite- ment for politics at one time, at another for trades unions and com- binations of various kinds ; and it appears to me, that to furnish them with the means of frequent epistolary intercourse, would tend to modify and let down in some degree those feelings of excite- ment in their minds upon the subjects just mentioned.' Mr. Davidson, of Glasgow, thinks "that additional opportunities of correspondence would lead the industrious classes, the classes, to pay more attention to the education of their children than they now do, and that it would have a highly beneficial effect, both upon their moral and intellectual character. The habit of writing, from want of opportunities, having fallen into disuse with them, it would be a great effort to many of them to write a letter." Such, among others, are the evils which the suppression of cor- respondence among the working classes is stated to give rise to, as regards their moral habits and feelings. So strong is the sense en. tertained by some of the witnesses of the evils inflicted on society by imposing a tax upon postage, that they express their doubts whether it is a fit subject for taxation at all. Mr. Samuel Jones Loyd says, " I think if there be any one sub- ject which ought not to have been selected as a subject of taxation, it is that of intercommunication by post ; and I would even go a step further, and say, that if there be any one thing which the Go- vernment ought, consistently with its great duties to the public, to do gratuitously, it is the carriage of letters. We build national galleries, and furnish them with pictures; we propose to create public walks, for the air and health and exercise of the community, at the general cost of the country. I do not think that either of those, useful and valuable as they are to the community, and fit as they are for Government to sanction, arc more conducive to the moral and social advancement of the community, than the facility of intercourse by post. I therefore greatly regret that the post was ever taken as a field for taxation ; and should be very glad to find that, consistently with the general interests of the revenue, which the Government has to watch over, they can effect any re- duction in the total amount so received, or any reduction iu the charges without diminishing the total amount." Mr. Brown, an eminent Liverpool merchant, states, " It seems to me more to the interest of the country to raise revenue through the medium of the Excise, the Customs, or even of direct taxation, however obnoxious that might be, than to take it as postage. I con- sider that taking it from the Post-office shuts the flood-gates of know- ledge ; it embarrasses our commercial proceedings ; and in every way,I think, it is the least desirable source from which a revenue could be drawn. When Rowland Hill's pamphlet becomes generally under- stood in the country, and the evidence before this Committee known, you will find public opinion raise such a storm in favour of reduction, that no Ministers can hold their seats without taking off the tax. The public do not understand the subject at present ; they have hardly had their attention drawn to it. I was perfectly igno- rant of it until I saw that pamphlet : I merely considered the re- duction of postage as a profit and loss question affecting my own pocket, without considering the effects it would produce in other points of view. I have not the slightest wish that the revenue should be impaired ; if it were a matter of pounds, shillings, and pence only, it would be as little an objectionable source of revenue as any other, but it does not resolve itself into that : its effects are so general: benefits will arise to commerce, to science, to educa- tion, and to every thing that is desirable, by taking it off."

Lord Ashburton, looking at the postage question generally, and with reference to its effects in other ways than as a branch of revenue merely, says, " I have certainly always thought it a very bad means of raising the revenue ; I think it is one of the worst of our taxes. We have unfortunately many taxes which have an injurious tendency, but I think few, if any, have so injurious a ten- dency as the tax upon the communication by letters."—Again, "I cannot doubt that a taxation upon communication by letter must bear heavily upon commerce ; it is, in fact, taxing the conversation of people who live at a distance from each other. The communi- cation of letters by persons living at a distance is the same as a communication by word of mouth between persons living in the same town. You might as well tax words spoken upon the Royal Exchange, as the communications of various persons living in Man- chester, Liverpool, and London. You cannot do it without checking very essentially the disposition to communicate."

Your Committee have quoted these opinions, in deference to the authority of the persons expressing them, trusting that the llouse will be disposed to give to those opinions due consideration, when- ever it shall endeavour to apply a remedy to the fiscal, commercial, and social evils above exposed.

Your Committee have next to consider what ought to be the principle of any measures for removing the evils complained of Your Committee concur altogether with Mr. Peacock, Solicitor to the Post-office, and with other officers of that department, in

the opinions expressed by them, that it is not by strong powers to be conferred by the Legislature, nor by the vigorous exercise of such powers, that it will be possible to effect all improved administration of the Post-office affairs. The Post-office must recommend itself to the public, and secure to itself a virtual monopoly,* by the greater security, expedition, punctuality, and cheapness with which it performs its office, that of transmitting letters.

As it is admitted on almost all hands, that it is mainly the high rates of postage that induce people either to have recourse to licit or illicit means for evading those rates, or to forego corresponding at all, it is obvious that it is mainly by a reduction of the rates that evasion is to be checked, correspondence extended, and the count- less streams of intercommunication restored to legitimate channels. But besides reducing the rates, it will also be necessary to make efficient arrangements for circulating expeditiously the correspond- ence of the country.

If provision, then, is to be made for circulating through the Post-office a vastly increased amount of correspondence at a lower rate of charge, and with increased expedition, rt is obvious, that as See the Evidence of Colonel Colby on this topic. 7865-9 ; 7873-5-8.

far as is practicable, an improved system of administrative ma- chinery ought to be provided, for rendering less costly, and more expeditious than at present, the receiving, sorting, taxing, convey- ing,.and delivering of letters ; for facilitating and securing the col- lection of the postage charged; for carrying without defalcation the collections to the public account, and thus rendering, by eco- nomy of expenditure and improved receipts, the revenue of the Post-office as productive as possible. First, as to the extent of the reduction to be made, your Com- mitee are satisfied, that, to be effectual for its purpose, it must he a great reduction. The officers of the Post-office are mostly agreed, that any small reduction in the present rates would pro- bably occasion a considerable loss to the revenue, without affording relief to the community in any perceptible degree. Moderate rates might possibly haveprevented systematic means of evasion from ever being established, and caused in a less degree correspondence to be suppressed ; but it must require a greater reduction to destroy a system of contraband conveyance once established, and to form a habit of corresponding which does not exist, than would have sufficed to prevent the growth of that system in the first instance, or to keep alive the habit once formed.

Colonel Moberly, at the same time he admits that the postage rates are too high, is of opinion, that to whatever extent the postage is reduced, those who have hitherto evaded it will continue to evade it, since it cannot be reduced to that price that smugglers will not compete with the Post-office, at an immense profit. Mr. Peacock, Solicitor to the Post-office, says, that the only means he knows of to check illicit transmission of letters, is to reduce the postage rates, though he is of opinion that nothing will entirely prevent it. Sir Edward Lees, Secretary to the Edinburgh Post- office, and the Solicitors to the Edinburgh and Dublin Post-offices, arc of opinion that the only mode of putting an end to the contra- band conveyance is a vigorous reduction of the rates. Mr. Reid, who gave evidence respecting the illicit transmission of letters at Glasgow, advises the making the charge so small that there will be no inducement to smuggle. A retired contraband letter-carrier says, " I should just follow the example that was set in putting down illicit distillation in Scotland : I would reduce the duty ; and that would put an end to [the practice], by bringing [the postage] down to the expense of conveyance by carriers and others." Mr. Knight, Mr. Parker, Mr. Brankston, Mr. Christy, Mr. Wright, Mr. Boord, Mr. Cobden, Mr. Flight, Lieutenant Ellis, Mr. Deacon, and other gentleman, whose evidence has been already quoted, re- commend a very large reduction; and state that the effect of such reduction would be to turn that immense amount of correspond- ence which now, either legally or illegally, passes through other con- duits, into the channel of the Post-office. The reduction which most of the last-mentioned witnesses contemplated, in giving that recommendation, was the reduction advised by Mr. Hill.

TH.—EFFECT OF FORMER REDUCTIONS IN THE DATES OF POSTAGE.

Your Committee do not intend to inquire what has been the effect of any reduction in the rates of postage at any remote period. The Postmaster-General, in his evidence, has enume- rated several partial reductions and modifications, the amount of which he estimates at 157,500/. a year ; by which he would seem to imply, that the Post-office revenue would have been greater by that sum if those alterations had not been made. This view of the subject is not confirmed by the results which followed upon those changes. The reduction of the Irish postage rates, which was made in 1827, was immediately followed by a considerable in- crease in the Irish Post-office revenue, though precisely to what. extent it would be difficult to state, owing to a transfer that was made at the same time of certain receipts from the English to the Irish Post-office revenue. An alteration was made in the year 1831, which was equivalent to a partial reduction, by exempting the cor- respondence of a portion of the metropolis, which had paid the General-post rate, from paying an additional Twopenny-post rate. Consequent on this reduction, though at first attended with sonic loss, the Post-office revenue was improved to the amount of 10,000/. it year, instead of there being a loss of 20.0001. a year, as had been expected by the Post-office. A reduction made in 1835, on the rates of ship-letters, has been followed by a considerable increase in that branch of the revenue.* The reduction which has been made, from ad. to V. in General- post letters delivered within eight miles of the place were they are posted, and the reduction made in the rates between this country and Prance, accompanied by a regulation fbr leaving optional the previous payment of postage, which before was compulsory, are changes which have been made too recently to enable any one to form a judgment of the effects by which they arc likely to be fol- lowed ; though it is stated in the Evidence, that the reduction from 4d. to 2d., in the case of one town, has put a stop to the illicit con- veyance of letters by carriers. The more general establishment of penny-posts has unquestionably tended to secure to the Post-office - the conveyance of letters between neighbouring towns andvillages.!

* From a return (nide Appendix,No. 21, p. 471., Report I.) made to the Com- mittee, it appears that in the four years' from 1833 to 1837 inclusive, the num- ber of ship-letters sent outwards annually through the Post-office, from the port of Hull, hail increased from between 15,000 and 16,000 to more than 47,000, i. r. threefold; and of Liverpool, bad increased from between 15,000 and 16;000 to 63,01)0, i. e. fourfold. Mr. Lawrence, the Assistant Secretary to the Post- office, says, of this reduction, ".It has been so productive as to have been a great benefit instead of injury to the revenue ; a rate of 84. from the sea-port, and Is. from any other part of the country, was making it almost a uniform rate.

t Colonel Maberly, speaking of a reduction from 24. to 14. which has re- cently been made in certain country posts, says, " that as far as they can gather the effect, the temporary sacrifice will be about compensated in two years and a half or three years ; ' which is equivalent to saying, that during that period,

Mr. E. F., a member of the Town-Council of the borough of , states, that in a district round his town, in which evasion by means of carriers and newsmen is almost universal, the places to which there is a penny-post form the exception to the practice of evasion. All these changes above enumerated, however, though, on the whole, they tend to justify conclusions favourable to plans of re- duction, yet they are far too inconsiderable to be quoted as prece- dents applicable to reductions so extensive as your Committee have under their consideration in the present instance. On the subject of any existing want of facilities for receiving, transmitting, and delivering letters, and making efficient arrange- ments for effecting those objects,—objects scarcely less vital to the prosperous administration of the affitirs of the Post-office than a reduction of the rates,—your Committee will delay entering upon those matters until they have examined Mr. Hill's proposed plan, and given their opinion as to the expediency of adopting that plan, or some modification of it.

vm.—PLAN or MR. ROWLAND HILL.

-

§ I. Heads of the Phut stated.

Your Committee have been instructed especially to examine Mr. Hill's plan ; which, as explained by him to the Committee, after he had made some modifications, embraced the following points-

1. That all letters not exceeding half an ounce in weight should be conveyed from any one place in the United Kingdom to any other for the charge of 14.

2. That all letters, exceeding half an ounce in weight, should be subject to an additional penny for every additional half-ounce. 3. That such postage should be paid in advance. 4. That the postage should be collected in advance, by the sale of stamped paper or stamped covers; and that in order to facilitate oh- taMing stamps in any distant place, every keeper of a post-office shall have them constantly on sale. 5. Ile recommended the establishment of day-mails on all the great lines of communication, in order to give more frequent deliveries of General-post letters in all the great towns.

In the very first instance, it might be necessary to allow an op- tion to the public to pay ld. in advance, or 2d. on delivery ; but it was desirable to get rid of the option as soon as the circumstances of the case would permit.

§ 2. Uniform Rate of Postage.

Mr. Hill recommends a uniform rate ; first, because of its ab- stract fairness ; secondly, on account of the simplicity that would result from it, in all the operations of the Post-office. With regard to its abstract fairness, he states, that the cost of distributing letters consists chiefly in the expenses of receiving them at and delivering them front the Post-office. In comparison of these expenses, the additional expense that arises from conveying them along the mail-roads, is small and unimportant. As all letters, whether going to a short distance or to a great distance, must be both received and delivered, the chief expenses are common to all ; and the total cost, therefore, is much the same, whatever the distance may be to which the letter is carried. It is not a matter of inference, but a matter of filet, that the expense to the Post-office is practically the same, whether a letter goes from London to Barnet or from London to Edinburgh. "The difference is not expressible in the smallest coin we have."

It is undeniable that letters could be sent from London to Edin- burgh by an ordinary coach parcel, at a cost of somewhat less than one-tenth of a penny each. Together with those letters arc sent, say four times their weight of franked letters, newspapers, and Par- liamentary and official documents. The state, front its-own views of expediency, thinks proper to exempt the latter from any payment of carriage, and to lay the whole charge of carriage on the letters of the first class. It is obvious that four-fifths of the charge which these letters are made to bear, cannot, with any propriety, be ranked under the head of cost of carriage ; but arc of the nature of a tax, which, for particular purposes, and in a particular manner, the state thinks proper to impost.. Say, then, that the chargeable letters form, on an averae of the whale kingdom, only one-fifth part,* by weight, of the` whole letters, newspapers, and 'documents tbrwarded by all the mails. The total cost of transit, as appeals from the account of receipt and expenditure of the Post-office, (page 5,) being 287,3061., one fifth-part only of that amount, namely, 57,4611., is really to be accounted the cost of the transit of charge- able letters ; but the remainder. na:rchv, 229.8451., is of the nature of a tax imposed by the state for the purpose of conveying other documents free of charge. Now, since the number of chargeable letters is 77,500,000, the average cost of transit per letter, accord-

ing to the above assumption, free of tax, would be 57,461/. 77,500,000 equal nearly two-elevenths of a penny ; the tax itself would be eight-elevenths of a penny ; mid the cost of transit, including the

the Penny-post letters will inmase at the rate of from 33 to 40 per cent. per annum. It appears that the 'diet of halving the rate in the case of many of the Penny-post letters in the five great towns of Leeds, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, and Bristol, and in the case of the Peunv-post lcttcrs between the city of Edinburgh and the neighbouring towns, has leen nearly to double the correspondence. See Note to the Abstract of Colonel Maberly's Evidence on Penny-posts, and the Note to the Abstract of the Evidence of Sir Edward. Lees, pp. 23 and 24 of the Abstract.

* According to the Estimate of the Comparative Weight of Chargeable Letters, Franks (including Parliamentary Papers). and Newspapers, for the whole Kingdom, at p. 15 of the Notes appended to this Report : Char cable letters weigh 16 per cent. Franks and Parliamentary papers, about 9

And newspapers weigh, about 75 700 Total lax, ten-elevenths of a penny. In the case of' the letters carried from Loudon to Edinburgh, in consequence of the greater weight of that particular mail whereon he founded his calculation, Mr. Hill computed that the cost of transit, free of tax, was per letter, one thirty-sixth part only of a penny. It would be consistent with perfect fairness fbr the state to distribute the whole amount of this tax upon chargeable letters, say 229,8451., in equal shares on all the chargeable letters which the Post-office conveys ; each letter being, in that case, debited with its share of the whole tax, being an invariable sum, say eight-elevenths of a penny, plus a variable sum, being the cost of carriage to the place to which the letter was to be conveyed. But considering; the infinitesimal amount of this variable suns, when compared with the aggregate amount of the other elements that enter into the amount of the postage rate, that is, the tax imposed for the purpose of franking, the cost of receiving and delivering, end, in addition to all this, the tax of 236 per cent., im- posed for the purpose of revenue, it is obvious that it is a quantity too small to require to be taken into consideration. It has been shown above, that if the whole expenditure of the Post-office be divided into five parts, two of those parts are chargeable to cost of transit, and three to cost of establishment, &c. On the former assumption, therefbre, that the chargeable letters are one-fifth of the whole by weight, the cost of transit on those letters would be one-fifth multiplied by two-fifths ; that is to say, two twenty-fifths, or eight per cent. of the whole charge ; or if by imposing the re- venue tax the whole be increased in the proportion of 1 to 3.36, the cost of transit, ftee of every tax, would be only one forty- second part of the whole. Even this minute variable element is not proportional to the distance to which the mail travels, ' but is rather in the inverse proportion of the number of letters which arc carried by mail on any given route. Thus the cost of transit of a letter from London to Louth, 148 miles, is greater than that from London to Edinburgh, 400 miles ; and the cost of sending a letter by a penny-post to the distance of five or six miles may be greater than in either of the fbregoing instances. On the whole, then, since the cost of transit, independent of the tax imposed for the purpose of franking, forms a very small part of the whole charge, and, small as it is, is not in proportion to distance,—and since the other elements of cost are invari- able in their nature, and wholly independent of the distance,— the fairest principle on which to regulate the postage rates, sup- posing there were no tax tot the purpose of revenue, would be to make that rate uniform. But the principle of taxation, imposed for the sake of revenue, ought to be to leave matters, after the im- position of a tax, in the same relative state in which they would have been had no tax been imposed ; whence it follows, that whe- ther that tax be taken into consideration or not, the result arrived at would be the same, the rendering the postage rate uniform.

Some objections have been made to these arguments : they hold true, it is admitted, in respect of places situated on the direct lines of communication ; but since, on quitting those lines, the points of divarication from the direct mail-roads into those less direct, and from these again into roads still less direct, and so on, will increase in number with the distance front the centre,—and since every point of divarication may become a new point of de- parture, that is, a new point firr sorting,—the number of sortings, it is conteuded, will increase as you recede from the centre, and with the number 01 sortings the proportion of the cost of the establishment of the Post-office which the letter sorted ought to bear. Your Committee will proceed to examine the force of the objection. Assuming, as they did beibre, that the weight of the chargeable letters is one-fifth of the whole weight, four-fifths of the cost of transit may be regarded as a tax imposed by the state to cover the cost of franked documents and newspapers. The cost of receiving And delivering letters cannot, like the cost of transit, be considered as depending on their weight, but rather on their number, or, more truly, on some mixed ratio into which both weight and number enter. If the number alum be considered, as the number of chargeable letters is to the number of franks and newspapers, as 775 to 515 (see page 9), that is, nearly as three to two, the cost of receiving and delivering the chargeable letters would be three-fifths of the cot of receiving and delivering the whole mail. Proceeding then on the fhllowing data, first, that two-fifths of the whole cost are cost of transit, two-fifths the cost of receiving and delivering, and one-fifth consists of miscellaneous charges thrown upon the esta- blishme'it ; second, that one-fifth only of the cost of transit apper- tains to chargeable letters, and three-fifths only of the cost of re- ceiving and iclivering appertain to chargeable letters, it will be found that 32 per cent. only of the whole cost of distribution is due to the chargeable letters, and the remaining 68 per cent. consists of 48 per cent. tax tbr maintaining the free distribution of franks and newspapers, and 20 per cent. miscellaneous charges thrown on the establishulent ; consequeetly 68 per cent. may be divided WI the principle of a uoitioni rate, and 32 per cent. is the only part of the charge which is subject to vary according to distance. If the revenue tax of 236 per cent. be taken into account, the cost of distri- bution, including transit, receiving and delivering, five of tax, will amount to only 9i per cent. ; while the tax imposed for sending the newspapers and franked official letters and papers, free of postage, the miscellaneous charges thrown on the establishment, and the revenue tax will, together amount to 90i per cent. of the whole charge. It does not appear to your Committee, therefore, that the objec- tion now under consideration, applying as it really does to only a small fraction of the whole charge, ought to prevent the adoption of the plan of a uniform rate, in case, upon a general view of the whole question, it should be thought expedient to adopt it. 11/11., Hill himself, at one period, appears to have entertained an objee. tion similar to the above, and to have had in contemplation the payment of an extra rate for what he called " secondary distribu. don ;" but this he afterwards abandoned, for the sake of preserving greater simplicity in the working of his plan.

Another objection has been raised to the universal application of the principle of a uniform rate, that in certain cases extra rates are levied, and are applicable to the maintenance of certain roads and bridges, undertaken with a view to expedite the mails which travel over them. The amount of the rates thus levied being only 7,4407. 4s. 6d., the objection does not appear to your Committee to present any serious obstacle to the adoption of the plan of a uniform rate.

Some witnesses from the Post-office regard the uniform rate as unfair in principle. Dr. Lardner thinks it abstractedly unjust, but to be recommended on account of its simplicity. All the other witnesses are in its favour, if the rate be as low as ld.; and nearly all would prefer a uniform to a varying rate, though the rate should somewhat exceed ld.

Mr. S. Jones Loyd observes, that the " justice of the uniform plan is perfectly obvious. You are not warranted in varying the charge to different individuals, except upon the ground that the cost of conveyance varies; so far as that varies, the charge ought to vary : but it appears to me that that which consists of a tax upon individuals, ought to have no reference to the place of their residence; it should either be equal, or, if it varies at all, it should be in proportion to their means of bearing the tax." Being asked the question, whether, if' a uniform rate of 2d. were imposed on all letters, and if a person at Limerick got his letters for 2d., a person at Barnet would not soon find out that lie ought to have his letters for Id., Mr. Loyd answered—" If such be the fact, he would soon find it out, I presutne; if' it was not the fact, of course he would never find it out." In answer to a similar question, Mr. Richard Taylor replies—" That would be supposing a man to have but one correspondent; but if he has correspondents at different distances, he would say, the whole arrangement is one highly beneficial to

me;' else we must suppose hint to separate his letters, and say, this letter, which comes only 20 miles for ld., is a dear letter; this, which comes 2n0 miles, is a cheap letter.' He does not think I any person would reason in that way."

Mr. Dillon observes—"'There are many analogous cases in which the mere transit of goods adds little or nothing to their price or value in the market ; a book published in London is sold at the same price in London, Dublin, and Edinburgh ; articles of wearing apparel, in the large cities, where the means of transport are many and cheap, are sold at the same prices in all the different parts of the kingdom. To show how little the cost of transit sometimes enters into the price of goods, I may mention to the Committee, in the way of illustration, that we buy goods in Manchester ; they are conveyed to London ; we sell them in London very often to dealers resident in Manchester, who again carry them back to the place from whence they came; and, after the cost of two transits, they will have bought them of us cheaper than they themselves could buy them in Manchester. In this instance, the cost of transit, as an element of price, has become absolutely destroyed by the three of capital, and other arrangements. 1 mention this as show- ing, that: in an advanced state of commerce, and where the fici-

lities of intercourse are very great, and constantly increasing, the mere cost of transit enters very little into the price of the article."

Lord Ashburton approves of the principle of a uniform rate ; and Colonel Colby terms it " just and convenient." The other ground stated by Mr. 1E11, in favour of a uniform rate, is tine simplicity that would result from it in all the operations of the Post-office. Colonel Malady states, "that he is a great friend to a minim rate of postage, if it can be ; but be does not think it practicable. If you could reduce the postage as low as Id., the charge would then be so imperceptible that he thinks you might maintain it ; but if it were above Id., its not being acceptable to the public would render it impracticable. He is very much in fa- vour of a uniform charge, when it can be adopted, as producing great simplicity in the accounts between the Post-office mid their postmasters. Any arrangements which, in the great details of Post-office matters, introduce simplicity, he looks upon as a great improvement." Mr. Lawrence, the Assistant Secretary, likes the idea of a uniform rate; it has been adopted in some degree in the post-office already ; there cannot be the least question it would very much facilitate all the operations of the Post-office. Sir Ed- ward Lees is of the same opinion with Mr. Lawrence; and says, that there is no question it would be preferable to a varied scale of rates. Mr. Banning, Postmaster at Liverpool, says it would be a very great convenience in the operations of the Post-office depart- ment; and Mr. Godby, Secretary to the Dublin Post-office, is fa-

vourable to it as a principle, and thinks it would remove many dif- ficulties, and accelerate their operations. Mr. Bokenham, Super- intending President of the London Inland Office, differs from the preceding witnesses, and asserts " that it. is quite as easy to make 20 different taxes [of' letters] as to make them all the same." The precedents for uniform rating probably referred to by Mr. Lawrence, were—lst, the penny posts, in which case ld. is levied on every letter not exceeding in weight four ounces, without refer- ence to the distance over which it is conveyed or the number of its enclosures; 2dly, the letters to and from soldiers and sailors, which are charged W. only, without reference to country or distance ;

adly, the ship-letters sent from the interior to any port, in which case the invariable charge is Is., 4d. being the rate for inland post- age and 8d. that for the conveyance by ship; and Mthly, news- papers, that is the penny stamp as a commutation for postage.

§ 3. Paipnent in Advance.

At present, the London office has two daily accounts against every Deputy Postmaster throughout the country ; one for unpaid letters sent .from London to the country, the other for paid letters posted in the country and sent to London. The Deputy Post- masters, in like manner, have daily accounts one with another ; daily accounts also have to be made out. against every letter-carrier for the postage he has to collect. These daily accounts amount, in the aggregate, for the whole kingdom, to many thousands ; they are necessarily, made up hastily, and, as might be expected, are fre- quently inaccurate. A unifbrin rate would do much to simplify the accounts; but as a means of effecting still greater simplicity, and of reducing the expenses of the Post-office, Mr. Hill proposes that postage should be paid in advance, that is to say, by the sender of the letter. This arrangement, assuming it for the moment to be practicable in all cases, would at once get rid of one-half of all the accounts with the Deputy Postmasters, and of all the accounts with the letter-carriers. Further, the letter-carrier having no money to collect, would be able to deliver letters with increased rapidity ; from which economy to the department and great convenience to the public would result. A further important advantage as the re- sult of payment in advance, would be a diminution of the item in the Post-office accounts of sums returned for overcharges, and letters missent, refused, and redirected; which item in the year 1837 amounted to 146311. 14s. 8d.

The evidence is highly in favour of the plan of payment in ad- vance.

?dr. Banning, Deputy Postmaster of Liverpool, says, that it would be highly convenient to the Post-office to have no accounts to keep, mid no revenue to collect ; that those are two of the most important and troublesome parts of the duty. Mr. C. T. Court, the Accountant of the Post-office, says, that payment in advance, if universal, would greatly lighten the labour of his office ; would re- duce it, as far as regards the charge on the postmasters, by about one-halt; and would create a great saving in the account. Mr. Lawrence, Assistant-Secretary to the Post-office, thinks it would simplify the business of the Post-office, and, if made compulsory, would occasion a considerable saving of expense. The Secretary of the Dublin Post-office is favourable to payment in advance, under stamped covers. The Seerdtary of the Edinburgh Post-office sees great advantage in it, and has no doubt it must facilitate every operation of the Post-office.

The Postmaster-General admits that the consequence of pay- ment in advance would be, that the delivery would be completed in much less time than it is now; for in that case the postman, as he went on, would have only to drop his letters, instead of being obliged to stop, give change, and keep his account. He would de- liver, in a short time, a great many more than he does now. Mr. Banning, Deputy Postmaster at Liverpool, says, that the delivery there at present occupies two hours; he thinks that with the same number of letters, the men, having no money to receive, would de- liver their letters in about one-third of the time. That pre-pay- ment would save time to the letter-carrier, is proved by what oc- curs in London in the "early delivery" of letters : a privilege allowed to parties who choose to pity a fee, and of which the merchants avail themselves very extensively. Colonel Maberly says, " that all the early delivery is on credit ; the postman merely knocks and leaves the letters, and calls for the pmaage at a later period of the day : he has been told by the practical officers, that were the early delivery to be abolished, the London Post-office would re- quire the services of 50 more letter-carriers.

The principal objection that was urged against payment in ad- vance was, that the public would dislike it. The Postmaster- General was very touch inclined to think that payment in advance would not be agreeable to the public. Colonel Moberly did not think the public would like it ; they would sustain, in ninny eases, great inconveitience train such a system. Mr. Lawrence, Assist- ant-Secretary to the Post-office, does not apprehend it would very much diminish correspondence: if the rate of postage were mode- rate, payment in advance would not be objected to. Mr. Banning, Deputy Postmaster at Liverpool, states, that if the postage rate is as low as Id., he does not think the public would object to it. To this objection, that the public would dislike pre-payment, Mr. Hill answers, " Payment in advance is so contrary to the habit at' the people of this country, excepting in a minority of instances. that I have no doubt it would be objected to, if' brought forward as a solitary measure ; but if the public were made to understand, that the required payment in advance was essential to the proposed reduction in postage—that the question was, in fact, between Id. paid in advance and 2d. paid on delivery—I imagine their objec- tam would very speedily die away." "There can be no doubt that the amount of postage would make a great difference. We are apt to fhrget that the feeling which now exists against payment in advance, is founded on the very high rates of postage." " I con- sider a low rate of postage quite essential to reconciling the public to the payment in advance." " I should consider that. the option jto pay or not to pay in advance] would cost the Post-office a grca deal; it would render it. necessary to continue the accounts be tweet' the Central Office and time Deputy Postmasters, which con- stitute a very expensive part of the business now transacted. I should consider it desirable to get rid of the option, as early as time circumstances of the case would allow. At the same time, I am cm tic' aubject of pay-

ment of postage in adtemee, eto,r c tic :"arth point it: Mr. Hill's plan, namely, that the pss, e.• ce be in advance should be collected by time side of st. , eh. , ,vers.

§ t. Cu/IN-:ion qt" Poo' v..0,, 'f. St",

Payment of postay:e ium mlvanee. me • .

111011ey to the ben-itli'.1,, or t) or to a demi ty-postn mils'. ma would st..'a ea ve than one- half' of the daily accounts now. ees-'s ls oacen thoaa

officers and the Post-office. le t (e.e. : •user taking at letter to the post, must 'say to pay the postage. To !act rid of the- e eemey and to obviate

the necessity of trusting messeeescrs ac i Mu:Ivy to pay the post- age, Mr. llill proposes to effect payincnt of posta::e in advance by the sale of stamps; that is, of stem:m.1 covers, Or stamped sheets of paper, or simile(' laltsls, or seoeils in any nom that conve- nience iniellt require. Were ll:fs emgem, :It to ha universal. and he sees no difficulty in its !icing made so ;at least after a little time has been allowed for effectine- a change in the hahits of the people), the Post-office would he relieved from nearly all its financial ac- counts, and this would effect an enormous saving.. of expense.

not prepared to say that, in the very first instance, it night not be necessary to give an option to the public. The option might be

ld. paid in advance. or 2d. paid on delivery ; and I would here remark, that the difference is not proposed mms an artificial means of enfbreing, the payment hi advance, but that it arises out of the • greater economy to the Post-office of the ot, 7Irrangoneat as com- pared with the other," Other witnesses, mercantile amen, have spoken of payment in ad- vance in the following terms— :Mr. Dillon, of the hoesc of Morrison and Co., warehousenteu. says, "that the plan is deairable." lie objects to the option. Looking, to the it:lame-ages of simplicity in collecting the revenue, and to the Iltirness of time case, I believe that it is fair and reason- able that the person sorting the letter shoald not have the option of paying the postage : he is without the option whether he shall or shall not pay for the paper, and ink. and the sealing-wax, out of which he forms the letter: and I eonl'ess I do not FAT ti.hv he should have

the option of paying or not paving tar the steeling of the letter by post. It should be recollected, that. when he exercises the option, he exercises another option to which he has no right, namely, he compels another person, who has no part ie sLnding the letter, and exerts no will in the matter, to pay that postage." Mr. Knight recommends an option at first, a higher charge being made on delivery. Mr. .11offittt, Colonial Produce Agent, states, at " ld. there would be very few objectors;" and recommends', " that those who do not wish to pay in advance, should be able to send their letters at the rates which now exist." Mr. Davidson, (11 Glasgow, says that one or two persons anticipated difficulties as to

the payment in advance. They consider salm a mode to a certain extent objectionable, but the great majority. of persma.s he has con- versed with; consider it indispensable to the 'mess. ss of the Oen.

Mr. Christy, hat-manufiteturer, who does busints with a great number of sne.II tradespeople in the country, thinks it might not be as agreeable to them to be required to pay postage as to send their orders to their correspondents without payment, but he does not think it would be felt as a grievance. if it became an object.

frora the frequency of their:sending letters, they aught easily chargt:

than to the house they dealt with. lie thinks that compulsory payment \\-Mid be most C.vcrfully :-1.;1);1::t.i..(1 to, a: mrl regarded as a

main. Mr. Whittaker, bookseller, does not " see any impediment commercially, or to private individuals." Mr. Wright, partner in the house of Messrs. Warren, blacking-manutimeturers, says. "neither himself nor his customers would object it:' Mr. Charles Knight, publisher ; Mr. Dm:borough, Secretary of the Atlas In- surance Company ; It. Taylor, printer, Sc.; are favourable to payment hi advance at a penny rate. Mr. Felkin, lace-manufac- turer ; Mr. W. Vickers, cutler ; Mr. 3. 3. lirewiu. se,Alsman; Mr. Brown, Liverpmd, men:le:at ; and Mr. Cobden, :Manchester, mann- theturer ; Mr. J. M. A shlin, corn-factor ; Mm'. Ifrankston, ware- houseman, approve of the principle of payment in advance.

Pre-payment has been objected to ou the ground that it would diminish the security for the delivery of letters. :dr. Bill apper.r,

to admit that such might be the case, unless precautionia.y men" suers, such givitmg to the smaider of a letter the option, On pay-

ment of a small extra rate, of tm.king a ree,ipt for the letter (a phi,'

for effecting which he describes in detail) were :adopted. WW1 these precautions, which appe;:r miler grounds, Iv<.

shows that the security for the tls1uoc ;S would be aug- mented; but no evidence has be ;:s.1 pst-paid hate:ae after having once inched a post-office. ees le— secure of being delivered dem other hoters.

precedent er the con e dsory prt'•,tags is ih1111.1 in the case of the letters et solliers ese subject to a penny rate.

The cases in which payment ie not be enfweed, will be noticed in the se,ititl.

Your Committee 'aid state their letters in the evening there is no check:'—" The species of control -which is exercised over the deputy-postmasters is little more than nominal."—" In many instances it appeared, upon inspection, that for twenty-five successive days the office account,' as it is called, differed from the charges admitted by the deputy-postmasters; and this with reference to towns affording the most considerable revenue, as Hull, Brighton, Exeter, Plymouth, Birmingham, Liver- - pool." Mr. Court, Accountant-general of the Post-office, being asked whether any improvement has been made in the system of checking the accounts for postage, between the date of the said Report of the Commissioners of Revenue Inquiry and the present time, replied, " I think there has been but one improvement, and that is, that the postmaster sends [au account of] the sum total he makes at the end of every month ; and as there are a great many vouchers to be wiled together, there might a mistake occur in the adding up, which is prevented now." Mr. Court states, that when a dif- ference occurs between the Office account and that of the deputy- postmaster, the latter is preferred : the deputy-postmasters, there- fore, may almost be stud to cheek their own accounts.

That au insufficient means of checking the various accounts does, in fact, continue, is indirectly confirmed by Colonel Maberly ; who, speaking of the return frOLT1 Scotland of the week's postage, says,

" I thiuk the amount of postage in Scotland is an error • that it is too short." He also specifics particular cases in which fie believes a deficiency to have existed : the cheek on the account of cross-

postage is still less perfect than on that of direct postage; and it is manifest that frauds to a great extent might be committed ,without detection, particularly in case of any collusion existing be- tween the deputy-postmaster in the country, whose officers are in

direct correspondence with each other. Upon the plan of stamped covers, even though their adoption could not be made absolutely universal, the receipt of money would be confined to comparatively few transactions ; so that the only matter of grave importance to be considered, before coming to a judgment upon this plan of collecting the postage, is, what would be risk of the stamps being forged. On this question of the risk of forgery, and also on some matters of detail, namely, what means must be taken to secure the distribution of the stamps throughout the country, and at what expense to the revenue they could be distributed, your Committee examined the Chairman, the Secretary, and the Solicitor of the Board of Stamps and Taxes. On the question of the risk of forgery, Mr. John Wood, the Chairman of the Board, stated that, with regard to stamped letter- covers, there was the greater risk of forgery, because letter-covers would be wanted by almost every individual who can write a letter; their use being so general, there would be great facility for dis- posing of them. On the other hand, if a forgery takes place in letter-covers, the letter itself would give a clue to the name and residence of the writer; there would, therefore, he pretty obvious means of tracing the forget:. The detection of forgeries would be the business of the Post-office ; it would be their duty to form a judgment whether a stamped cover was a forgery or not. As to the means of preventing forgery, if an object is to be gained, such as the prevention of forgery, the means best calculated to attain that cud should ba employed. There would be some risk of forgery, but it could be guarded against at a comparatively small expense.

To stop as effectually as possible that risk, he would wish to super- add to the use of stamps that of some paper of peculiar manu- facture. Forgery is more difficult of execution when it requires the combined talents of the engraver, the printer, and the paper- maker. A paper may be made which it is so exceedingly difficult to manufacture, that a forger would scarcely be able to imitate it.

A paper, like Dickinson's, Which has lines of thread or silk stretched through it, is the best preventive of forgery he has ever seen. The attention of ingenious men has been much directed to projects for preventing forgery : he has seen very many such, and has taken great pains to investigate their relative value; but, after several years' experience, he has seen only one project winch turned out on investigation to be available, and which, lie thinks, would afford a probable. protection against forgery, that is Mr. Dickinson's paper. The expense and extent of the machinery, and the large capital required to manufacture it, would prevent its being manufactured without that circumstance being known. Establishments for ma- nufacturing this paper might be formed on the Continent, and it might be smuggled into this country ; but the difficulty of pro-

curing such paper at home or from abroad would furnish a great security- against forgery. No paper of that kind would be stamped,

except that supplied directly from Dickinson's mill : there would therefore be no opportunity of having the Government stamp affixed to any but Dickinson's own paper. If such a paper were used, forgery would be so improbable, as to be out of the question : the risk would be so much diminished, that all prospect of loss to the Go- vernment from that quarter would be at an end. Were such a paper adopted, the labour of the Post-office, in examining covers with a view to detect forgeries, would be very much diminished ; it would be seen at a glance whether it was Dickinson's paper or not. To prevent, however, any imputation of monopoly, the Government might give the public the option of either purchasing the stamped paper of Government at Somerset 'House, or of sending their own paper to be stamped. if that option were given, he would recom- mend to Government the use of Dickinson's paper. Were the Government to sell that paper at the same price at which other paper is sold, or at a very small difference, the advantage of that paper would lie so great, that the stationers themselves would soon come to the Stamp-office for it : and in that way the imputation of monopoly would be entirely obviated.

to the Board, stated, that forgeries of the stamps in question must pass through a Government office, and would be liable on that occa- sion to the inspection which would take place ; whereas, in the case of receipt-stamps, they merely pass between the parties, and are then put away ; and bill-stamps never pass into the hands of parties who feel it a duty to ascertain whether they are forged or genuine: it is only by accident that the Board hears of such things, from the offer made by parties to sell stamps at a reduced rate. He does not apprehend any very great loss from forgery in this case, if reasona- ble vigilance be used, and occasional inspections by the Post-office. He is satisfied that forgery could not go on to any great extent, without its being brought home to the parties who put it into circu- lation.

Mr. Pressly, Secretary to the Board, generally speaking, de. cidedly concurred in Mr. Wood's evidence.

Respecting the means to he taken for distributing the stamps throughout the country, Mr. Wood said, that his department would have no difficulty in supplying every part of the country with stamped sheets of paper for letters. It would be the business of the stationers to make up the stamped paper into envelopes. The present machinery of the Stamp department is so perfect, and works so regularly for the supply of the country with stamps of all denominations, that he does not see that it would fail, were greater pressure [of business] applied to it. There is either a distributor, sub-distributor, or licensed vendor of stamps in every town in Eng- land, Scotland, and Ireland ; in addition to these, every postmaster throughout the country might be made a distributor. In this way his department could superintend the distribution of stamped paper for the use of the country, without the smallest difficulty. To every postmaster might be remitted a certain quantity of stamped- paper ; and his stock might be taken from time to time, at uncer- tain periods, as in the case of other distributors. Respecting the expense of collecting the revenue in the way pro- posed, Mr. Wood said, that it would be collected at a cheap rate, because, instead of payment being made in detail, by every person who put a letter in, it would be made in gross, by persons buying a large quantity at a time of stamped letter-paper. The adoption of the plan would not entail the employment, in his department, of any officers at high salaries : they can stamp any quantity of paper which is sent to them at a certain rate of expense, and can distri- bute stamps over the kingdom at a certain other rate of expense. Sheets of paper might be stamped and delivered to the public in London at a rate not exceeding Is. the thousand, that being the mere expense of counting the paper before it is stamped, stamping it, counting it out after it is stamped, packing it, and delivering it in London; it does not include any expense of carriage into the country, nor of commission to be allowed to distributors, sub-dis- tributors, or vendors. As to the expense of carriage, by contracting with carriers to send parcels, not exceeding a stated weight, on stated days in the week, they can get the carriage done at a com- paratively low rate ; but what the expense would be, he cannot state precisely. From one to three per cent., the per centage di- minishing,- with the extent of sale, should be allowed to distributors and sub-distributors, and an addition of not less than five per cent. to the licensed vendors : the latter pay for their stock in ready money; the distributors and sub-distributors do not pay until they have actually sold their stock, and received the money from their customers. Mr. Pressly, the Secretary of the Board, agrees ge- nerally with Mr. Wood, but estimates the carriage, perhaps, at rather more than Mr. Wood does.

Your Committee examined the gentleman referred to in Mr. Wood's evidence, Mr. Dickinson, on the subject of the price at which stamped paper of his manufacture, the cost of the paper and stamp included, could be delivered to the public. He stated that, with a remission of the whole excise-duty, he could afford to de- liver stamped half-sheets of paper at one-twelfth of a penny each; or on remission of one-half the duty, paper of the same kind, but of a somewhat inferior manufacture, at the same price. Your Committee also examined Mr. Stevenson, another paper manufac- turer, ou the subject of a kind of paper of his invention, for effect- ing the same object as that of Mr. Dickinson, the prevention of forgery. On the relative merits of these inventions, your Com- mittee forbear to express any opinion of their own, satisfied that were the plan of collecting the postage by means of stamps to be adopted, the working out of details like these would be left most fitly in the hands of the executive department of the Board of Stamps and Taxes.

Your Committee will proceed to consider the opinions of the officers of the Post-office, for or against the use of stamps. Colonel Maberly admits, that there would be infinitely less trouble to the Post-office, as regards accounts, if payment in ad- vance were effected by means of a stamp, than if money were to be paid to the postmasters. Sir Edward Lees, Secretary of the Edin- burgh Post-office, states, that stamped paper, or stamped sheets, as covers, would be a great convenience ; and that there would not be any difficulty in distributing them throughout all the villages of Scotland to the deputy-postmasters, from whom the people might obtain them.

As to saving of time and %holm at the General Post-office, Co- lonel Moberly admits, that payment in advance by stamps would certainly save some labour; but not so much as is imagined, nor that great amount of expenditure which Mr. Hill, in his pamph- let, seems to think it would. To what extent the manual labour required for the sorting, taxing, and delivering of letters, would be economized, by the adoption of stamped covers, your Committee On the question of risk of forgery, Mr. Joseph Timm, Solicitor will defer considering, until after they have gone through all the chief points contained in Mr. Hill's plan. Colonel Maberly has enumerated nine classes of letters, to which, he thinks, stamps would be inapplicable : he states that on all those classes accounts must be kept ; and, consequently, you would not, except in degree, have relieved yourself by stamped covers from the complication attending the collection of the postage. Foreign and ship-letters form two of those classes ; letters weighing more than the weight covered by the stamp upon them, form another ; letters redirected, another. Your Committee do not mention the other classes, as Mr. Hill appears to have shown sa- tisfactorily, that they do not present any serious obstacle to the application of stamps.

In respect of foreign and ship-letters, Mr. Hill admits, that they do present a real difficulty ; and he believes it would be necessary, in the first instance, to collect the postage on the delivery of such letters. As to letters which are over-weight, he recommends, that whenever the use of stamps shall be made compulsory, such letters should be sent to the Dead-letter Offiee, as franked 'letters refused for over-weight now are. With regard, to redirected letters, he pro- rows that they should not be subject to any additional charge.

Other witnesses speak in direct terms of the great convenience of stamps. Mr. Brown, of Liverpool, states, "that payment in ml- vance, if it were not made by means of stamped covers, would have the same demoralizing effect that now arises from intrusting young men with money ; the great object is not to intrust them with money at all ; young men become demoralized, and get possession of fonds at that early period of life when they have not discretion how to use them : he has seen many lamentable and melancholy in- stances of this. Having these stmnps would be exceedingly desir- able; it would prevent sending many unfortunate young men with money, which his house is frequently obliged to do, and which leads to many unpleasant consequences;' lie thinks it a great con- venience.

Mr. Knight thinks, if the payment in advance were to be made by means of a stamped cover, allowing the stamped cover to take half an ounce, it would give a greater certainty that the letter reached its destination; it would put men above the possible frauds of persons sent with letters to the post, and intrusted with money to pay the postage : he would invariably adopt the use of covers in preference to paying the postage ; it would be a very plain and simple operation to purchase 100 or 1000 covers, and not involve the constant handing over of money to pay individual postage daily : of course all saving of complexity, all saving of paying money in small sums, is an advantage in a large business.

Mr. Christy states, that paymentin advance by means of stamped sheets of paper, or stamped covers, would be received as a very great boon, as an accommodation, and, be thinks, would give rise to much more correspondence : it would, perhaps, at first not suit the habits of isolated individuals in various parts of the country, as it might do those of persons engaged in wholesale houses ; but they would get into it; few families would be without stamped paper; they would willingly give a poor person a sheet of stamped paper : no person, he thinks, would be at a loss for the means of writing a letter through the post. Mr. Dillon, Mr. Parker, Mr. Brooks, Mr. Desboroueh, Captain Bentham, Mr. Brewin, Ms. Davidson, of Glasgow, and Dr. Lnrdner, all approve of payment of postage in advance, by means of stamped covers.

Taking into consideration the whole evidence relating to payment in advance, and to the use of stamps, your Committee are of opinion, that payment in advance would tend to simplify the Post-office ac- counts, and to expedite the delivery of letters ; but that by far the most convenient and economical mode of effecting payment in ad- vance would be by means of stamps to be issued by the Stamp- office, which should have the effect of franking letters : that by this arrangement the Post-office would be relieved of the greater part of its accounts with deputy postmasters and other officers, for money received ; and that great additional security would be thus afforded to the collection of the revenue : that, consequently, postage, by this arrangement, might be reduced to a lower rate than would otherwise be practicable ; that the public would prefer paying a low rate in advance, to paying a high rate on delivery ; that it would be expedient, in the first instance, to allow an option whether to pay in advance or not, the rate of payment on delivery being consider- ably higher than that for payment in advance ; and, lastly, they are of opinion, that, with the exception for foreign and ship-letters, payment in advance, by means of stamps, should be made compul- sory, as soon as warranted by experience. An incidental advantage would result from the use ot stamps. Any one might be permitted to send letters through channels not provided by the Post-office ; aid thus one motive to the breach of the law would be removed.

§ 5. Postage regulated according to Weight.

The charges of postage are now regulated as follows :—All letters weighing less than an ounce are charged, if consisting if one piece of paper, single postage ; if consisting of two pieces, double post- age ; and if consisting of three or more pieces, treble postage. All letters weighing not less than an ounce are charged, if weighing one ounce and less than au ounce and a quarter, quadruple postage ; if weighing one ounce and a quarter, and less than an ounce and a half, quintuple postage, and so on, adding a single postage for every additional quarter of an ounce. It appears, therefore, that in respect of letters weighing not less than an ounce, weight is the principle which now regulates the charge. The objections to the present mode of charging letters under an ounce in weight, are—

I. Its want of fairness. Mr. Richard Taylor complains that a letter, which is only a cover, containing a small drawing on tissue paper, pays double, though weighing only a quarter as much as a thick post letter. Lord Ashburton thinks that the present is a hard mode, an unjust mode, and vexatious in its execution; and it appears to your Committee that double and treble letters do not occasion such additional labour and expense to the office as to justify double and treble postage. 2. It is essentially uncertain, as the number of enclosures can only be come at by guess, on a very hasty examination. Accord- ingly, it appears, from Colonel Maberly's admission, that a great number of letters are charged as double and treble which are not so, and give rise to returns of postage ; and which, therefore, go to swell that large item in the account of the expenditure of the Post- office which is for overcharges, &c., amounting to X122,000. 3. It leads to a closer system of examination by the taxers than, considering that many letters contain cheques on bankers, or bank notes, it seems prudent or humane to encourage. Sir Edward Lees says, that charging by weight would, to a certain extent, prevent letters being stolen in their passage through the Post-office. 4. The 'benefit which the Post-office revenue might have derived from this mode of charge, has been, in a great measure, defeated by the practice very generally adopted, of writing several letters to dif- ferent parties on one sheet.

Mr. Hill proposes to regulate the charge of postage entirely by weight, which lie considers a fairer principle than that by which the present charges are regulated. Ile also regards it as better adapted to the use of stamped covers. Ile proposes the addition of a single postage-rate for every additional half ounce. Mr. Hill believes that the charging by weight will facilitate the operations of the Post-office. It is manifest, however, that any advantage to arise, in the manual operation of taxing, from the substitution of a graduated scale of weight, must depend very much on the distance of the intervals, according to which the scale is gra- duated. Mr. Bokenham, superintending President of the Inland.' office, has described an experiment made at the Post-office, from which he concludes that a greater number of letters can be taxed in a given time, on the present plan, than by charging in proportion to the weight of each letter. These trials, however, do not appear to justify the conclusions he has drawn from them : for, 1st, the inter- vals of the ascending scale of weight proceeded, not according to half ounces, as Mr. Hill proposes, but according to quarter ounces : 2ndly, Mr. Hill justly remarks, in commenting on this experiment, that, upon his plan, the letters would come all ready assorted ; since the receiver might be directed to make up all the half-ounce letters into one parcel, all the ounce letters into another, and so on ; all that it would be necessary for the Post-office to do, being to ascertain whether the receiver had done his duty, and made a correct exami- nation as to weight ; and this could be done by weighing a small number from each parcel. 3rdly, If all were to be examined, an experienced taxer would be enabled, in most cases, to estimate the weight, and tax the letters correctly, by hand ; particularly if the scale were to advance by half ounces, without having recourse, in every single instance, as was had in the experiment referred to, to weights and scales. Mr. Holgate, President of the Inland-office, Mr. Lawrence, the Assistant-Secretary, and most of the other wit- nesses frown the Post-office, arc unfavourable to taxing by weight. Sir Edward Lees thinks that the alteration would add to the diffi- culties, but that those difficulties would in time, if they did not wholly disappear, be considerably reduced in practice. ' Lord Ashburton thinks the practice of other countries, viz., that of charging by weight, is a better plan. Your Committee are in- formed that on the Continent of Europe the charge is universally regulated by weight, without reference to the number of enclosures; though in the United States of America the same rule prevails as in this country.

To obviate the objection that has been made by the officers of the Post-office to taxing letters by weight, Mr. Hill suggested the construction of a machine, which he calls a tell-tale stamp (the principle of which he explained to the Committee), for performing at the same time the operations of weighing, stamping, and count- ing the letters. Your Committee have had no evidence before them of that na- ture to enable them to form an opinion, with any degree of preci- sion, whether or no the taxing letters by weight, with half-ounce gradations, as proposed by Mr. lilll, would facilitate the operation of taxing at the Post-office ; but they are of opinion that such an arrangement would be fairer in principle than the present, and therefore more acceptable to the public ; that it would also be much less liable to error, and would remove temptations to fraud : on the whole, therefore, considering it as part of a general plan, they are of opinion that the charge of postage of a letter ought to be regulated by its weight. Whether the rate ought to increase in the simple ratio of the weight, after the manner proposed by Mr. Ilill, or, according to some ratio lower than the simple ratio, your Committee are unable to decide with any great degree of confi- dence; for, on the one hand, if the ascending scale of rates were to advance according to the simple ratio of the weight, the charge for distributing ten letters, of one ounce each, would be the same as the charge for distributing one letter of ten ounces; whereas the labour and expense in the latter ease is much less than the labour and ex- pense inthe former; on the other hand, if the scale were to advance ac- cording to a lower than the simple ratio of the weight, a temptation would be held out to persons to enclose many letters under one cover, for the purpose of evading a portion of the postage that would be payable on the letters separately. On this particular branch of in- quiry, your Committee have taken but little evidence.

6. Probable Effect of Me Adoption of the Measures previously con- sidered on the Expenditure of the Post-Office Department.

Your Committee next proceed to consider, whether adopting as a basis for chargieg and collecting postage, first, a low and uniform rate, graduated, not according to distance, but according to weight ; second, payment in advance, collected by means of stamps, would conduce to economy in the establishment of the Post-office depart- ment. The Post-office authorities, it has been before stated, almost all approve of the principle, in the abstract, of a uniform rate, as tending to introduce great simplicity into their accounts. It has been also shown, that those authorities admit that payment in ad- vance, and collection of payment by means of stamps, would get rid, in a great measure, of money accounts between the Post-office and the Deputy-postmasters, and would enable the letter-carriers to deliver their letters in much less time than is now required for that purpose. There arc employed at present at the Inland-office of the General Post-office in London S-1 clerks, 50 sub-sorters, 211 letter-carriers, and about 30 messengers; in all 405 persons.

The operations of the Post-office, belonging to the despatch of letters, or the evening work, as it is called, consist in,

1. Facing the letters and stamping them, to show the date of their receipt. Stamping is performed with a hand stamp at the rate of 200 letters per minute.

2. Sorting, according to the different mail-routes; in doing which 54 persons are employed. Mr. Bokenham states that sort- ing is done at the rate of 30 letters a minute. Sir Edward Lees says, that 60 is the lowest number that a sorter ought to sort. 3. Examining and taxing the letters; in which business 21 per- sons are employed for one hour and a quarter each. Taxing is performed at the rate of 33 in a minute.

4. Re-sorting, according to the different post towns.

5. Telling ; that is, making out the bills for the unpaid letters, against the different Deputy-postmasters. Twenty tellers are thus employed for somewhat less than one hour and a quarter each.

In the evening there arc also the newspapers to sort. The first step is to put the directions all one way, the second is to sort. The 241 letter-carriers, and the 50 sub-sorters, in all about 290, are em- ployed upon this duty.

The morning duty of the Post-office consists in unloading the mails, and delivering the letters, that is to say, in 1. Opening the bags, of which there are 700, and in checking the Deputy-postmasters' accounts for paid letters; 15 persons arc thus employed; one person examines a bag in one minute and a half ; 10 clerks are employed in examining the taxings of unpaid letters, made by the Deputy-postmasters, 2. Sorting : 50 sorters are thus employed for two hours. 3. Telling; that is, making out bills against every letter-carrier. Ten tellers, assisted by three cheek• clerks, are employed in this business during an hour. 4. Delivering; the letter-carriers, of whom there are 241, are to return by a certain time, and are to pay the money charged against them to the Receiver-General ; also 50 sub-sorters, who are in a situation between clerks and letter-carriers, assist in the early deli- very of general post letters.

In the evening work, taxing and telling employs 41 persons; most of whom, according to the plan under consideration, would not be wanted. The taxers, according to the statement of Sir Ed- ward Lees, are sorters who have been promoted, and are the hea- viest class of officers, in point of expense. It would still be neces- sary, however, to examine the letters, in order to select those which were over-weight, and to see that the stamp was not forged. In the morning work, checking the Deputy-postmasters' accounts for paid letters, examining the taxings of unpaid letters by the Deputy-post- masters, and making out the bills against the letter-carriers, em- ploys SS persons; the services of whom, for the most part, would no longer be required; though some examination, of the nature above stated, would still be necessary. Facing, stamping, sorting, and re-sorting are operations which would not be dispensed with or shortened by Mr. Ilill's plan ; unless, indeed, a preparatory assortment at the receiving-house, which he recommends, were adopted; in which case, the number of sortings at the central office would be reduced from two to one. Stamping, performed at the rate of 201) per minute, is only a very unimportant item of expense. Sorting is represented by Mr. Bokeuham, the superintending President of the Inland-office, as taking more time than any other process; Mr. Stow, on the contrary (Mr. Boken- ham's predecessor in office), when examined before the Commis- sioners of Revenue Inquiry, stated, that of the three processes, viz., stamping, sorting, and taking the accounts, taking the accounts was the longest; because it very often led to a difference, which might retard the operation. Mr. Bokenham states thatpayment in advance, even though it were to occasion no increase of letters, would not enable the Post- office to dispense with a single clerk or messenger. Mr. Hill com- putes that, taking Mr. Bokenham's own statement of the number of sorters employed, and the rate of thirty per minute, at which rate he states they sort ; and supposing them to begin sorting at half after five o'clock, by which hour a large body of letters have arrived at the central office; the present number of sorters is equal to sort- ing eight times the present number of chargeable letters ; or sixteen times that number, according to the rate of sixty per minute, stated by Sir Edward Lees. Mr. Lawrence, the Assistant-secretary of the London office, thinks that in the Inland department four times the number of letters might be undertaken by the present number of hands. He adds, " I am speaking e ith great caution upon this subject, because I am not practical enough to say that ; but I am merely giving my, opinion. '

The duties perfermed by the officers in the Accountant-general's department in London, Dublin, and Edinburgh, would also be con. siderably diminOied. The number of persona in the office of the Accountant-;:encral in Loudon, is twenty-four. Half the present business of the office is in examining the accounts of the Deputy. postmasters in the country. if the office were relieved from all ac. mints relating to receipts, from four to six persons would be ample to perform the remaining business. The examining and checking the accounts of the letter-carriers is performed in the Inland-office. The saving wonlil be important, and would be still more so, if ac. counts with Deputy-postmasters could be entirely dispensed with; but even after a compulsory and general adoption of stamps for the inland correspondence, au accouut fur foreign and ship letters, at least, must still be kept. A very considerable reduction would be made in the labour and duties of the letter-carriers, from the more rapid deliveries in London and in all large towns. From all these details it is to be inferred, that, supposing the number of letters to remain the same, the plan under consideration would occasion a very considerable saving in the establishment; and if' in consequence of adopting the plan, any very large increase of letters were to follow, there would not be required anything like a proportionate increase of establishment. Sir Edward Lees, the Se. cretary of the Edinburgh Post-office, whose long experience in Post- office arrangements entitles his opinion to great weight on all ques- tions connected with the routine of his department, states, that with his present establishment, under Mr. Hill's plan, he would not re- fuse to make an attempt to despatch aud distribute a threefold number of letters, in addition to the present number of newspapers, and official and Parliamentary franks and decuments. In addition to the consideration of the savings growing out of the details of the plan itself there are other grounds for considering that any assignable increase itn the munberof letters would not be fol. lowed by a proportionate increase in the expense of the Post-office de- partment. First, there is the gent ral argument, which applies equally to almost all uncnts, that there are many expenses which remain constant, whatever he the amount of business done, and that it is only certain of them which increase in proportion to the busi- ness ; bat secondly, there arc other convincing reasons which show that, necessarily, the expense could not increase in the same pro- portion in which the chargeable letters might increase. It has been shown above, that on an average of the whole king- dom, the chargeable letters constitute, in point of number, about three-fifths of the whole of the documents transmitted by post, and, in point of weight, one-fifth of the whole. No one Call reasonably venture to contend, that if, in consequence of a reduction of the postage-rates on clmrgeable letters, those letters were to increase in any assignable ratio, in that cas:., either the total number of all the documents carried by post, or their total weight, would increase in the same ratio. The newspapers, in that ease, might be considered as invariable; so might the Parliamentary documents; so might as minty of the official ?ranks as relate to the real business of the seve. ral offices: but N.,. iz11 regard to those official franks which arc made the vehicle of private correltomlenee, and the franks of Peers and Members of Parliament, so far from increasing upon ally great re- duction of Lite pm:tagi.:-rates being effected, they would almost cer- tainly undergo a very marked (billhook ill. But supposing, foe the sake of argument, that the total number and weight of the news. papers, o l,ieial and Parliamentary franks, and Parliamentary documents taken together were to remain constant, while the charge:Jilt:letters increase in nninher six-fold ; the chargeable lettersn that ease, from being 3-5ths, will have become 18-5ths; the'llWspapers and franks which were 2-5ths, will continue the same, and the total number will have become 20-5ths, or -1; that is, while the charge- able letters have increased six-fold, the whole of the documents will have increased in number only four-fold. If the test of weight iu- stead of that of illklaber be applied, the result will be still more striking; time chargeable letters from being 1-5th would have he- come 6-Silts; the newspapers and franks which were 4-5ths would continue the same ; the total weight would have become 10-iiths, or 2; that is, while the elnu•geable letters have increased

the total weight of the documents transmitted by post would have increased only two-fold.

It was only in the case of the mails out of London that there ap- peared to beauty risk that a two-fold weight, as compared with the weight at present, would occasion any difficulty ; since the minis to London, awl those in the country are, generally speaking, so com- paratively light, as to admit of far more than a two-fold increase, without endangering the over-loading the mail-coaches. Mr. Louis, the superintendent of the mail-coaches, stated, that a mail-coach would carry of mail 15 cwt., or 168(1 lbs., bags included. lie re- presented that if the letters were increased to the extent assumed, the present mail-coaches would be unable to convey them. There would be no difficulty, in the ease of one or two of the mail-coaches, in allowing them to carry an additional passenger, as Mr. IIill had proposed; but nothing could be more erroneous as to the generality of the mails; and lie gave as an instance, that on a day which be mentioned, the Post-office were obliged to hire two places by time Devonport mail; " it was frightful to see the extent to which they were loaded; the Gloucester mail is also overloaded." 345i 100

But as the return which the Post-office made did not include any mail of importance for a Saturday night, when there is always an extra weight of newspapers. or for a Monday night, when there is generally an extra weight of letters as well as of newspapers, there were also directed to be returned the weights for a Saturday and a Monday night of two of the mails usually most heavily laden. The mails selected for this purpose were those of Holyhead and Car- lisle: these four additional mails being included in the average, the result is as follows :— 463 100

It appears then, from what precedes, that 4631bs, which may be taken as a sample of the average weight of the mails out of Lon- don, as ascertained from the above returns, is to 1,6SOlbs., the weight of mail that Mr. Louis says a mail-coach will carry, as 27 is to 100. In the cases referred to by the Postmaster-general in his evidence, more than half the weight of the mail, exclusive of news- papers, out of London, consisted of franked letters and official and Parliamentary documents ; and, that it is so generally with the mails out of London, is rendered highly probable frotn the Post-office Re- turn, Appendix to Report II., No. 12, page 1(19, which gives the estimated postage on the franks received at and despatched from London in the year 1837, as amounting to the large sum of £1,064,874 Ss. 4d. As it appears, then, from the average above given, that letters (franked letters, and other franked documents included) form 20 per cent. of the weight of the whole mail, the chargeable letters (franked letters, and other franked documents not included), must form less than one-tenth"' of the weight of the whole mail. From these data, that the weight of the mail out of Loudon is only 27 per cent. of what the trail-coaelfts might carry, and that the letters, franks included, form one-fifth only of the whole weight of the mail, and that the weight of the franks and other franked documents is at least equal to the weight of the chargeable letters, it may be deduced that the averge weight of the chargeable letters might be increased twenty-seven fold, or, al- lowing for the additional weight of the bags themselves, twenty- four-fold, before the limit of Mr. Louis, 1,6SOlbs., would be reached.

The particulars of the Saturday's and Monday's Holyhead and Carlisle mails arc subjoined.t In one mail only of the 32, the Sa- turday's Holyhead mail, is the limit of 1,(ir.W1lis. exceeded ; and in that case, after allowing for the franks, the chargeable letters form

only four and a half cent. of the whole Iveil-,ht. The next, in point of loading, the Saturday's Carlisle mail, would admit of a twenty-fold increase of chargeable letters, after allowing for a cor- * From the number of chargeable letters, privileged letters, and news- papers in the mails out of London, as stated in (lie Tilde at p. II of the Notes to the Report, and from the weights ;Isigtted, at 14 12 of the same Notes, to a chargeable letter, to a privileged letter, end to a newspaper, respectively, it follows that, in the mails out of London, the chargeable letters form only 7 per cent. of the whole weight of those mails.

t Particulars of the Weights of a Saturday and a Monday night's Holyhead and Carlisle Mails.

Potimht weight.

Bags weighed 68 Average Letters, including franked letters and do- of 91runts . . . . , . . 32 mails. Newspapers . ... . 304

Per centage.

14 20 66

HOLYII EA D. Ill Puimils.

CARLISLE. III pounds.

HOLYHEAD. Per cent. CARI.It4.E. Per cent.

Satur. day.

Mott- day, Saner- day. Moll-

day. it

s.,t,11.- 110:1-

day. day. Saint- day.

?Aron- day.

Ills.

122 185 1,726

lbs.

118 189 770

Dab

153 264 700

Ii,,. i

151 197 593

per vent.

6 9 85

Per

cent.

11 17 72

per cent.

13 23 64

per cent.

16 20 64 . 2,033 1,070 1,117 941 100 100 100 100 Bag

Letters, Franks, and Frasked do-

cuments

Newspapers..,

Total Opposed to this evidence of Mr. Louis, is the following evidence of Colonel Colby, conductor of the Ordnance Survey of Great Bri- tain and Ireland :—" The first circumstance which drew my atten- tion to the cheapening of postage was, in travelling all over the kingdom, as I have done in the execution of my duty, particularly towards the extremities of the kingdom, I observed that the mails and carriages which contained the letters formed a very stupendous machinery for the conveyance of a very small weight ; that, in fact, if the correspondence had been doubled or trebled, or quadrupled, it could not have affected the expense of conveyance : it therefore appeared to me, that a very large public revenue was lost, from the prohibitory rate of postage acting upon the poor people in those districts ; that they were, in fact, prevented from corresponding."

To determine whether the mails were, in fact, overloaded, your Committee directed a return to be made of the weight of the mail actually carried by the several mail-coaches going out of London, each on a different night. The average weights of the mails carried by the twenty-eight mail-coaches that leave London was :315Hbs. Pounds Per weight. ventage.

58k 17 744 22 61 The bags weighed . . . . . Average Letters, including franked letters and do- of =mots . . . 28 mails. Newspapers 2121 responding increase in the weight of the bags themselves. Except therefore in the case of some few of the mail-coaches which are now most liable to be heavily laden, the present establishment of mail-coaches is adequate to a very large increase in the weight of chargeable letters. The total weight of chargeable letters and franked documents carried by the whole 32 mails, is only 2,912Ibs; from which deducting one-half, for the franks and franked docu- ments, there remains for all the chargeable letters carried by the 32 mails the weight of only 1,4561bs.; that is, less than the weight which Mr. Louis states that a single mail-coach is able to carry. In Ireland, also, it appears from the statement of Mr. Bianconi, proprietor of the Irish mail-cars so extensively used in the South and West of Ireland, that the present means of transport would convey a much larger weight of mail than is now carried. He says that he could very well ailbrd to carry for the Post-office six or eight times the number of letters he now carries, at the same price he now receives; since, generally speaking, it would not occasion any additional charge : there might be exceptions. It appears, therefore, that upon an examination of the present establishment at the Post-office, whether we look to the present arrangement for effecting the despatch and delivery of letters, or to the means that now exist for conveying the letters on their route, a large increase might take place in the amount of corres- pondence, without occasioning anything approaching to a propor- tionate increase in the expenditure. Precisely what additional per- centage of expense any assumed percentage of increase in the number of chargeable letters would occasion, it would be impos- sible to ea:ciliate with accuracy; but, considering the enormous number of articles that would have to be dealt with, and the vast detail of machinery there would be to keep in motion, too high a value can hardly be attached to any plan which would introduce great simplicity into the arrangements. On this point Lord Ashburton says, " The opinion I have ex- pressed with respect to the present high rate of postage, is an opinion I have always entertained ; but I was much struck with the statement of Mr. Hill upon the subject. I thought the uniformity of the rate of postage, and the plan of stamping covers, and the plan of not making any addition for moderate-sized letters, were very good and very desirable ; also, I was much struck with the great facility in the delivery of letters, arising from the deliverer having no money to collect upon the delivery, and the great means of simplifyiug the whole transactions of the Post-office by trans- ferring the money part of it principally to the Stamp-office, and taking away Irma it nearly the whole of its functions as a board for the collection of the revenue.*

IX.—EXPEDIENCY OF ADOPTING MR. HILL'S PLAN, OR SOISII MODIFICATION OF IT, SO FAR AS REGARDS THE UNIFORM RATE OF ONE PENNY.

§ 1. Anticipated Increase in the Correspondence of the Country, in case ige the adoption of a Iola Uniform Rate of Postage.

Your Committee have hitherto pursued their examination of Mr. Hill's plan, without bringing under consideration the value to be assigned to the arbitrary constant that is involved in the plan itself; that is to say, the pecuniary amount of the low uniform rate of single postage to be charged for all letters under half an ounce, to whatever distance in the United Kingdom they are conveyed the proper determination of this amount is, of course, of the utmost moment to the working of the plan, whenever it shall come to be applied to practice. The value assigned by Mr. Hill himself to the uniform rate is Id. ; and as most of the witnesses to whom, on their

* Subsequently to the examination of Sir Edward Lees before the Com- mittee, in answer to a written question addressed to him by the Chairman, lie has made to the Committee the following communication. (See Ap- ptildix to Report II., page 35.)

Q. Have you, since your attendance on the Postage Committee in Lon- don, given your attention to the plan of adopting stamped covers, or of a money payment of postage in advance, and in how far such a plan would tend to expedite the delivery of letters in Edinburgh ?

A. If 1 remember correctly, 1 did state, in my evidence to the Com- mittee, that considerable time would be saved in the delivery of letters, and great simplification be produced to the general system of the Post-office, by the introduction of stamped covers, and by previous payment of postage. If I did not so state, I do so now distinctly ; and, in addition, that such a system must lead to a con- siderable reduction of expenditure. Nothing has attracted sly atten- tion more than the interruption and delay experienced by letter-car- riers in the collection of postage. There is scarcely a walk or distri- bution in this city that I have not from time to time personally watched ; and although I have adopted every means in my power to prevent it, it is lamentable to witness the detention that occurs at every hall-door. I have made an experiment of delivering newspapers and post-paid and franked letters by distinct carriers, separate from charged letters, and I feel a perfect conviction, that nearer two-thirds than one-half the time might be saved, as compared with the present deliveries, were stamped covers to be in use, and were letter-boxes (a model of which I have had constructed, combining simplicity with security and cheapness) to be pro- provided for the hall-doors of the principal houses. It is at such houses the great delay occurs.

The expenses in almost every branch of the department might be much reduced, but principally in the Inland and Letter-carriers' offices.

The complex accounts of the Bye and Dead-letter offices would be greatly simplified, if not entirely got rid of, and the expenses greatly diminished. The system of accounts between the Deputy-postmasters, which now present so many opportunities and facilities for combination and fraud, would disappear ; the labour and responsibility for surveyors would be curtailed ; a system of complex and intricate duty, inseparable from the existing nature of the country part of the Post-office, would give way to one of simplicity and uniformity ; and the entire principle and machinery of the Post-office would be changed in its character, greatly contributing, I feel, to the security, comfort, and advantage of the com- munity in its connexion with the public correspondence.

examination before your Committee, the question was put, " What, hi their opinion, would be the increase in the number of letters, in case Mr. Hill's plan were to be carried into effect?" assumed the rate of ld. as the basis for their several estimates,' your Committee, before they proceed to recommend the adoption of any definite amount of uniform rate themselves, will state generally the sub- stance of the evidence so given by those witnesses, in relation to their anticipations of increase in the correspondence of the country.

Of the sources of increase indicated by the witnesses, the prin- cipal are those branches of correspondence which, in treating of Evasion of the Post, and of the Suppression of Correspondence which the present law occasions, the Committee have already noticed as most evading postage, or as most suppressed by it. Among the sources arising from the discontinuance of evasion, Mr. Hill men- tions the voluntary disuse of franks. In matters of trade, com- merce, manufacture, banking, and insurance, the different witnesses speak of the various accounts, letters of advice, remittances, letters relating to the administration of bankrupts' estates, policies and other documents relating to insurance, and letters enclosing pat- terns and samples, which, instead of passing, as they now do, through irregular channels, would be directed into the regular one. The invoices sent by post would alone, in Mr. Cobden's opinion, exceed in number the whole of the communications now trans- mitted by the post; and the correspondence of commercial travel- lers would, according to him, amount to not less than 20 millions of letters a year. In professional business, Mr. Austin thinks it would be a very reasonable computation to say, that the posted letters between country :atomics and their London agents, reduced to the standard of single letters, would be increased four-fold. In parochial business, Lieutenant Ellis notices the vast amount of correspondence arising out of the administration of the New Poor Law, which is now irregularly conveyed, but which, at a low rate, would be sent by post. In matters of magisterial and county jurisdiction, the same witness speaks of the lists, the returns, the precepts, and other papers that are constantly passing between the clerks of the peace and the justices' clerks and parish officers, as a source from which accession would accrue to posted correspond- ence, if the postage were low. In the business of various local trusts and commissions, for the management of sewers, harbours,

and roads, and of schools and charities, the same witness, and Mr. Emery, a county magistrate, mention the notices of the various meetings sent to the trustees or commissioners as an important addition that would be made to Post-office communications ; to which may be added, the notices of the meetings and elections to be held by joint-stock and proprietary bodies, which are referred

to by several of the witnesses. The foregoing branches of cor- respondence, which belong to that class of communications which now exist, and, whether by lawful or unlawful means, evade the post, would be an accession to it immediately on carrying into effect the proposed reduction. Under the second head, that is, of the new correspondence that the proposed reduction would call into existence, the principal sources of increase indicated by the witnesses are, in the first place, most, if not all, of the sources noticed under the former head. There would not only be more letter-writers, and more persons transmitting communications, but by those who now write letters, and who now transmit communications, there would be more letters written, and more communications transmitted. Whether in trade or out of it, there would be a vast accession to correspondence in relation to matters individually of small amount : " Postage," says Mr. Richard Taylor, printer, " would cease to be a matter of con- sideration in any individual case ; he would no more think of it, than of the sheet of paper he wrote upon." " It would lead persons," says Dr. Lardner, " to make communications of a much more trifling nature than they now do." The increase from these sources would probably be immediate, great in amount, and rapidly progressive. A second and very important source of new corre- spondence would arise out of printed circulars of every description. These, in matters of trade, commerce, and business of every kind, would embrace prices current, catalogues of sale, prospectuses, and notices in infinite variety, which, on the reduction being made, would rise up at once into a vast amount, and grow progressively as fast as men found it to their advantage to recommend themselves, or what concerns them, to public attention, or as competition forced them to do so. In the affairs of public institutions, having the pro- motion of literature, science, public instruction, philanthropic or charitable ends, or religion for their objects, the circulation of printed announcements of the times or purposes of holding their meetings, or of the minutes of the proceedings of those meetings, or of the periodical or other reports made to the members, would form a very important addition to posted correspondence, not less by reason of its amount than on the score of public utility ; and the rise of this branch also would he immediate, and its growth rapid. To this might be added the circulars which societies or individuals, engaged in extensive statistical, scientific, or other researches, might issue, with a view to obtain answers on matters of fact from great num- bers of persons judged capable of giving the required information.

The last source of new correspondence, indicated by the wit- nesses, which it remains for your Committee to notice, is the very important branch of the social communications that are exchanged between friends and relations. In the middle classes of society, this interchange takes place at present on a very restricted scale ; among the working classes, except in cases where the means of

evasion are at hand, or where penny posts offer the means of cheap correspondence, it can scarcely he said to have existence. Among those of the middle classes who are now in the habit of letter- writing, the increase would probably be both great and imtneai. ate ; since at a reduced rate, few would grudge to spend on the private correspondence the same amount which they now expend at the existing rates. Among the working classes, considering ehow vast the numbers are to whom the privilege of corresponding with their friends would be practically extended, the aggregate amount of all the letters they would write would, even in the first instance, probably, be very important ; though perhaps very much limited, at starting, to the manufacturing districts. Mr. Felkin, agent for the sale of lace to the Nottingham lace- makers, and one of the Guardians of the Poor of Nottingham, states, on the information of Mr. Barrett, cleric of that union, that the poor, in that neighbourhood, write, to speak comparatively, no letters ; but that they arc disposed to do so ; for wherever there is a penny post, they avail themselves of it to correspond with their friends and relatives; anti their letters, in those cases, are Fre. quent. Mr. Cobden mentions that one of the answers that were sent to the inquiries of the Chamber of Commerce at Manchester, stated, that it was amazing to see how indefatigable the working classes are in finding out channels for evading postage. An early, if not immediate, increase from this source, to a large amount, 'is the more probable, from the great increase there has been of late years in the number of persons belonging to these classes who can read and write. This spread of education is spoken to as a fact in the neighbourhood of Petworth, in Sussex, by the Rev. Thomas Sockett, rector of that place ; and in the neighbourhood of Not- tingham by Mr. Gravener Henson, himself a working hosier and lace-maker at Nottingham. Mr. Cobden also states that near Manchester education is advancing, he will not say rapidly, but steadily. Mr. E. F., a member of the Town-Council of § 2. Effect upon the Revenue of adopting a low uniform rate of Postage instead of the present Rates.

Mr. Hill, upon the assumption that the increase consequent on the adoption of a penny-rate and of the other parts of his plan, would be, on an average of all the chargeable letters, an increase to five-fold, has calculated the effect of his measure on the revenue. The cost of dis-

states, that improved education produces among the poor a greater desire to correspond. lie also states that their position has been such, of late years, as to give them additional motives for wishing to correspond : for, owing to the same trades being now carried on in distant parts of the country, and to the emigration which takes place, under the New Poor Law, from the agricultural to the manufacturing districts, the working classes are necessarily de- sirous of communicating with their absent friends. It seems, there. fore, highly probable that, owing to the spread of education, and the peculiar circumstances in which large numbers of the people are likely to be placed, the growth of correspondence among them, if encouraged, and allowed to proceed unimpeded, will become as extensive as it would be important, considered as a means of cul- tivating their social affections, and of improving their moral con- dition. For a summary of the statements of the different witnesses as to the increase of social correspondence among the middle and working classes, your Committee begs to refer to a section set apart for that purpose in the Abstract of the Evidence, which they have caused to be appended to this Report.

Of the amount of increase that would arise from all these sources, some of the witnesses have spoken only in general terms ; others have stated how many fold they thought it would be. For the in- crease anticipated by each witness, with the grounds laid for such anticipation, your Committee beg to refer to the Abstract of the Evidence : the average of the whole of these anticipations is an increase to ten-fold. Mr. Hill anticipates a five-fold increase, on the average, in the chargeable letters ; that is to say, a six-fold in- crease in the Gcneral-post letters, a three-fold in the letters of the London local post, and in the letters of the country local posts, no increase at all. It is not so much from the quantum of increase that the witnesses may anticipate, as from the general bearing and tenor of the Evidence, that your Committee are led to believe that a a penny rate, coupled with the other more essential parts of Mr. Hill's plan, there would he immediately on its introduction a very great, and at no distant period a vast and incalculable accession to posted correspondence. As a reason why, if a great reduction were to be determined on, a penny rate should be preferred to every other, they attach no inconsiderable importance to the remark of Dr. Birkbeck, that every thing that is to be had for a penny, is very extensively produced, and very extensively employed; and that, on that account, a penny is a very convenient sum for the postage of a letter.

Your Committee also took evidence as to the increase that was to be expected in the posted correspondence of the country, from the adoption of a uniform rate of 2d., of which evidence they have caused a summary to be inserted in the Abstract appended to the Report. Much greater diversity of opinion prevailed as to the effects that are to be anticipated from such a rate than as to the ac- cession of correspondence that would arise from a penny rate. Mr. Thomas Davidson, of Glasgow, represented it to be the prevailing opinion among those with whom he was conversant in that city, that a reduction to any thing short of a penny would cause the failure of Mr. Hill's plan. Lord Ashburton, Mr. Vickers, steel- manufacturer, of Sheffield, and Mr. Dickinson, manufacturer of the paper which has been proposed as a security against the forging, of the stamps, were, for the sake of protecting the revenue, fa- vourable to a plan founded on a twopenny rate ; other witnesses, on the same ground, appeared rather to acquiesce in, than to ap- prove of such a rate ; and others wholly disapproved of it.

tributing the present number of newspapers and franks, added to the cost of distributing a five-fold number of letters, he computes, would be 664,801/. ; the cost of distributing the present number of newspapers, franks, and chargeable letters being 575,384/. ; to this sum he adds 104,1651. for the cost of his stamps, and 100,000/. for unforeseen ex- penses, making together the sum of 868,967/. ; the documents to be dis- tributed, according to his computation, being as follows.

General-post Letters, including Foreign and Slop Letters London Twopenny and Threepenny Post Letters Country Penny-post Letters Total of Chargeable Letters Privileged Letters Newspapers Total of Documents by Post

Present Number.

Millions * 59 124

Multiplier.

6 3 Expected Number.

354 37}

— 80 7 441

— 5 1 1 400

7 44 I

l31is 3.44 454 The computed expense divided among the chargeable letters would amount to little more than a halfpenny per document.

Calling a letter not exceeding half an ounce in weight (which is one of Mr. Hill's proposed single letters), 1, the letters, according to his plan of rating, would average, he conceives, 11 ; and consequently their average rate of postage would be lid. ; at which rate, 400 mil- lions of chargeable letters would yield a gross revenue of 2,083,333/. ; and the expenditure being 868,9671., the net revenue to arise from inland postage would he 1,214,3661.: and the net revenue now arising from inland postage being 1,498,820/4 the difference between these sums, 284,4541., would be the loss that the revenue would sustain from the reduction of the present rates to Id. The whole net revenue would be obtained by adding to 1,214,3661. and 1,498,8201. respectively, the sum of 132,858/., which is the net revenue accruing to the Post-office from the additional charge beyond the inland rates on packet and ship- letters, from passage-money, from freight, and from all other miscella- neous sources. This makes the present net revenue amount to 3,631,678/. ; and the anticipated net revenue, in case of the adoption of a penny rate, to 1,347,2241. The deficiency, Mr. Hill considers, would be made good by the beneficial effect which the great extension given to the correspondence of the country would have on the other branches of the revenue. Every branch of trade and commerce would he im- proved, he conceives, by cheap correspondence : all transactions in the Customs and Excise departments, all sales by auction, all proceedings that give rise to rates and duties, would be extended by his plan : the facilities given to the distribution of small publications would create an increased consumption of paper, and so greatly increase the receipts arising from the Excise upon it. The indirect effect of his measure on the revenue would, he thinks, be very considerable indeed. In this view of the beneficial effects on the revenue which would follow indirectly from a reduction of the postage, Lord . shburton concurs generally with Mr. Hill. He says there is no item of re venue from the reduction of which lie should anticipate more benefit than he would from the reduction of postage : that there would be an improvement in the revenue generally

upon the reduction of the charge, may be inferred, he thinks, from general principles ; though whether that would countervail the whole

amount of the Post-office revenue, he does not pretend to say. If, under any plan of reduction, you did not find an improvement in the Post-office revenue, you would find considerable benefit in every other way.

After considering the effects, as computed by Mr. Hill, that a universal penny-rate would have on the revenue, your Committee proceed to estimate what would be the effects of a 2d. rate, applied to all General- post letters for distances exceeding 15 miles, and of a penny-rate applied to all distances not exceeding 15 miles; and in making this estimate, your Committee, without assuming any rate of increase, will direct their attention rather to what increase of letters would be requisite at the above-stated rates to maintain the gross revenue at about its present amount.

The number and the average rate of General-post inland letters for distances not exceeding 15 miles may be determined with sufficient pre- cision from four Returns laid before your Committee, two of them giving the number of letters despatched to London from each post- town in the United Kingdom in the weeks commencing January 15th and January 29th, 1838, respectively ; and the two others giving the number, according to the rates they paid, of single inland letters deli- vered by the different country post-offices, in the weeks commencing May 14 and May 21st, in the same year From these Returns it may be deduced that the General-post letters paying rates not exceeding 4d. form about one-tenth of the whole of the chargeable General-post inland letters, and that the average rate of those letters is about aid. These letters, added to the present country penny-post letters, and to the letters of the London local post, would, according to the plan now under consideration, be the letters that would be liable to the charge of Id. These three descriptions of letters amount at present in the aggregate to above 25 millions. Assuming that the packet and ship-letters (so long as that part of the charge upon them which is not inland postage remains unreduced) would not materially increase by the mere reduction of the inland postage they are liable to, and also that those letters which now pay a penny postage would remain invariable, an increase to four-fold in all inland General-post letters, and to three-fold in the letters of the London local post, would. give a gross revenue exceeding the present by about 80,0001. a or grouping the letters in a different manner, if the General-post letters which now pay a higher rate than 4d., and the foreign and ship-letters, taken together, were considered as forming one class, and the General Post letters paying a rate not exceeding 4d., the London local post letters, and the country penny-post letters, taken to- gether, were considered as forming another class, an increase in the former class to about 3 8-10 fold, and in the latter to about 21 fold, would give the surplus above stated: the average rate in the former class, which is now about 10•347d., would become 2.7784d.; and the average rate in the latter class, which is now 2.1425d., would become at least ld. But since, if postage were paid in advance, the occasion for the repayments on account of returned and other letters, which at present amount to 122,531/. a year, would cease (so far at least as regards inland letters), a further sum, say of 100,000/. a year, would arise to the revenue from the discontinuance of most of these repayments. The surplus, therefore, would be 180,0001, a year. It appears to See the computation of these numbers in the notes to pages 3 and 4 of the Abstract of the Evidence. See the note to page 8 of the Abstract of the Evidence.

Taking the numbers of the different despriptious of letters according to their computed amounts in Note L to the Report, the following is a detailed computation of the effects of the changes above suggested on the revenue.

EXISTING. ANTICIPATED.

Rate per Yearly Yearly Number I Rate per Yearly

Letter. Revenue.

a LOAM:. I Letter. Revenue.

DESCRIPTION OF LETTERS. Yearly Number. of Letters.

Packet and Ship Letters General Post Inland Letters above 4d.

Ditto, not exceeding 4d London Local Post Letters Country Penny Post Letters

d. £ . d. X

3,523,572 23'1562 369,340 1 3,523,572 17.437 265,015 46,378,800 9.2224 1,782,191 4 185,515,200 2.5 1,932,450

5,153,200 3.5 75,151 4 20,612,800 1 85,887

11,837,852 2'3266 114,758 3 35,513,536 1 147,973

8,030,412 I 33,483 1 8,030,412 1 33,483

74,923,836 7.6074 2,374,923 3.3794 253,195,541) 2.3277 2,455,808

7,000,000 7,000,000 44,500,000 44,500,000 126,423,836 2.41 304,695,540 - - - Total Franks Newspapers Total The preceding computations arranged under different heads: General Post Letters above 4d., including

Packet and Ship General Post not exceeding 4d,, London Local Post, and Couhtry Penny Post

Total Parliamentary Franks

Official Franks, misapplied to other than pu !die purposes, which tomtit probably, when liable to charge, be sublivided into four letters each. The number of these letters can only

be guessed at Official Franks, for public purposes Public Statutes Newspapers Total of Documents transmitted by Post 49.902,372

95,021,464

74,923,836 7.6074 4,813,418 109,010 2,000,000 77,542

44,100,000

126,423,836 2.7784 2,188,465 1 267,343

`).3477 2,455,808 2.5 50,140*

8 3,634*

2'3333 2,509,582 2441 304,695,540 2,509,582

2,151,531

223,392

2,374,923 2,374,923 10.347

2.1425

3.788

2.564

3.3794

3.445 189,038,772 64,156,768 253,195,540

4,813;148

109,010 258,117,998 2,000,000 77,542 44,500,000 Unappropriated Total Revenue from Letters, 1837

2,379,564 See Notes to Report, pages 4 and 6.

4,641

* Addition to the revenue, in case the letters now franked were made liable to carge. your Committee exceedingly probable that the increase in each of the said classes would be greater than the rates of increase above stated, which are the computed rates on the supposition that the present amount of revenue is to be made good. In making this computation, your Committee have assumed that the average of the General Post inland letters, transmitted to distances greater than 15 miles, would be single and a quarter. The average reduction of the rates on charge- able letters of all descriptions would be in the proportion of about 34- to 1; and the average increase of all the letters would be in the propor- tion of 1 to about 31.

Assuming that the present number of privileged letters and news- papers remained constant, th e entire number of documents to be distributed would be increased only in the proportion of about 1 to 2 4-10th; and the entire weight in the proportion of about 1 to ; or taking an arithmetic mean between the number and the weight, it may be computed that the whole work to be executed would be increased in the proportion of about 1 to 2. Now, taking into consideration all the topics inquired into under the Eighth Head of the present Report, and especially the following circumstances therein mentioned, that the mails are at pre- sent, on the average, very much underloaded, and that Sir Edward Lees appears to have that opinion of the details of Mr. Hill's plan in eco• nomizing labour, that he has expressed his readiness to endeavour to carry into effect, according to that plan, without any addition to the establishment of the Edinburgh Post-office, the distribution of a treble number of chargeable letters, your Committee are of opinion, that in case the adoption of a twopenny and penny-rate, in the manner above described, were to occasion a 31 fold increase in the number of letters, the additional expense required for the distribution of the increased number would not be very considerable.

x.—CIIANGES IN THE RATES OF POSTAGE RECOMMENDED BY

THE COMMITTEE.

Your Committee having compared the anticipated effects on the re- venue likely to be occasioned by the two foregoing plans of reduction, proceed to state what plan of reduction they are prepared to recom- mend.

If, under the terms of their appointment, which restrict the consider- ation of the Committee to such reductions of the rates as may be made without injury to the revenue, your Committee felt themselves at liberty to recommend that plan which, of all that have come under their con- sideration, was the most approved of by the principal part of the wit- nesses they have examined, and which, according to their own judgment, was the better, they would have advised the immediate adoption of Mr. Hill's plan, as one calculated, in their opinion, at the risk of some tem- porary sacrifice of public income, to improve at no distant period the Post-office revenue itself ; and as one certain to afford at once (not to speak of its important moral and social effects) the most incalculable advantages to every branch of trade, manufacture, and business at home, and consequently to improve very considerably the other branches of the general revenue of the country. It appearing, however, to the ma- jority of the members of the Committee, that, under the terms above recited, it was not competent for them to recommend a plan which ap- peared not improbably to involve the hazard of some temporary sacri- fice of public income, your Committee have restricted themselves to recommending for immediate adoption, that plan of the two which, in their opinion, is not liable to the former objection ; and to advise the ultimate adoption of Mr. Hill's plan, fininded upon a tuliforin penny rate, as soon as the state of the public revenue will admit of a consider- able sum being risked. The resolutions on this subject, which your Committee have come to are the following : " That your Committee are of opinion, that so soon as the state of the public revenue will admit of the risking a larger temporary reduc- tion, it will be expedient to subject all inland letters to a uniform rate of ld. per half-ounce, increasing at the rate of Id. for each additional half- ounce.

"That your Committee are of opinion, that prior to establishing the uniform rate of Id., it would be expedient, in the first instance. to re- duce the rates on inland General-post letters to a uniform rate of 2d. per half-ounce, increasing at the rate of ld. for each additional half- ounce ; reserving all the cases of prices current, the letters of soldiers and sailors and others, where a penny only is now charged, and of such short inland rate as is hereinafter recommended to be charged on a dis- tance of 15 miles.

" That your Committee are of opinion, that, considering the strength of concurrent evidence on the evasion of postage between neighbouring towns, and also that the present system of penny-posts is partial and unequal, a uniform rate of Id. per half-ounce ought immediately to be established for all distances not exceeding 15 miles from the post-office where the letter is posted, the payment being made in advance, through the medium of' some kind of stamp; and that the charge, when not so paid in advance, should be 2d."

X1.—EXPEDIENCY OF RETAINING, ABOLISHING, OR LIMITING THE PRIVILEGE OF FRANKING LETTERS.

It appears, from the return laid before your Committee, that out of a number of from 62 to 64 millions of General-post letters, including privileged letters, which now pass annually through the different post- offices, about seven millions, that is, about a ninth part of the whole, are franked letters. Of these, as nearly as can he collected from the Returns, about 4,813,448* are the franks of Peers and Members of

* The four returns of letters posted in the two weeks commencing January15 and January 29 respectively [App. Report L, Nos. 3 and 4, and. App. E., Report 11., Nos. 1 and V], give the Hollowing results :

PRIVILEGED LETTERS. Total. Sent from the Country to London. Sent from Lon- don tothe Country.

Sent from the Country to the Country.

Week cotrunencingJan. 15

41,196 45,345 36,361

122,902 Ditto Jan. 29 46,371 51,046 37,894 133,311 Total for Two Weeks 87,567 96,391 74,255 258,213 Percentages .339127 .373300 .287572 1. The privileged letters, therefore, reduced to the standard of single letters, would amount to above 30 per cent. of the whole number of letters which are transmitted by the Gtnsral Post. t As regards official franks, provided the use of them were strictly limited to that which was intended, the service of the public, considering it for the present moment in the light only of a question of account, it would make no difference whether certain officers had the power of franking, or whether each office paid its own postage in the first in- stance, and afterwards obtained repayment of that postage from the public, as one of its ordinary expenses. By their each paying their own postage the receipts of the Post-office would be increased but those receipts must afterwards be made good out of the pub is revenue. Various objections however may be stated to the custom of franking in public offices.

1st. It is liable to the abuse, which no vigilance can effectually guard against, of being made the vehicle for private correspondence. Thus it appears from Dr. Lardner's evidence, that while he resided in Dublin, the greater part, if not the whole of his correspondence, was allowed to pass under the franks of the then Postmaster-General for Ireland, and that the extensive correspondence in which he is now engaged, in re- lation to various publications, and to engineering, on which he is pro- fessionally consulted, is carried on principally by means of official franks. He states, that as these franks enable him to send any weight he pleases, he is in the habit, in order to save trouble to those from whom he obtains the franks, of enclosing under one cover a bundle of letters to the same neighbourhood. This appears to your Committee an exemplification of the irregular means by which a scale of postage, too high for the interests and proper management of the affairs of the country, is forced to give way in particular instances ; and like all such irregular means, it is of most unfair and partial application. The relief depends, not on any general regulation known to the public, and accord- ing to which relief can be obtained, but upon favour and opportunity; and the consequence obviously is, that while the more pressing suitor obtains the benefit he asks, those of a more forbearing disposition pay the penalty of high postage. It appears then that, with a view to guard against the manifest abuses to which the present system is liable, it would be far better that each public department should purchase the stamped covers it required for conducting its correspondence, and keep a regular account of that item of' its expenditure. It might then be ascertained, by strictly superintending the application of these covers solely to the public service for one year, what was a fair ordinary allow- ance for postage to each office ; and the expenditure under that head in the first year might be compared with that in future years, so as to show whenever any excess occurred. • Bat. secondly, the system of official franking, like all other franking of letters, is liable to this objection, that it keeps out of the view of the public how much the cost of distribution is exceeded by the charge, and to what extent therefore the postage of letters is taxed. If the letters of the State, which are now franked, contributed like other letters to swell the Post-office receipts, and the postage on those letters were paid out of the general revenue, the Exchequer would neither lose nor gain, since what was paid in by the Post-office, would be paid out to some other public office : but every letter that paid postage would be considered as hearing its share of the whole expense of the Post-office; as is now the case with those letters which are sent or received by one of the public departments not entitled to frank. Concerning Parliamentary franks, Lord Ashburton apprehends, as an evil incidental to this privilege, that the Members of the Legislature, in consequence of their exemption from postage, have their attention The yearly number of franks, estimated from the return of the week commencing January 15, is 6,390,904 The yearly number of franks, estimated from the return of the week commencing January 29, is 7,036,172 The Return [App. E. to Report II., No. 12], stating 5,270,993 to be the number of franks sent in 1837 from London to the eunutry, and from the country to London, will, if multiplied 1ultiplied by the factor - .287572, or 14036, give the total number of franks, inclusive of those sent from the country to the country : and this affords a third estimate of the annual number of franks, viz. 7,398,534. if from 7,000,000, assumed to be the total number of franks, there be deducted 2,109,010, stated in the same Return as the number of official franks, and 77,542, slated in the same Return as the number of copies of the public statutes distributed by authority, the remainder, 4,813,448, would be the number of Parliamentary franks. t The average weight of a single chargeable letter is about 3-10ths of an ounce; the average weight of a Parliamentary frank about 48--100ths of an ounce ; that of an official frank 1.9376 oz., or nearly two ounces; and that of a copy of a public statute is 3.1129 oz. [See Note II. to this Report.] Privileged letters, if liable to the existing rates, would contribute the following amounts to the revenue. [See Notes to Report, p. 16.] Rate per Lened.r. Revenue. I7•392 348,814 616,965 171021270095

36,443 1,002,222

Parliament; about 2,109,010 are the franks of Public Offices, entitled to send their letters free ; and about 77,542 are copies of the Statute; distributed by public authority. If the number of single letters to which each description of letter is equivalent, be taken into account, the pro- portion would be as follows the Parliamentary franks would average nearly as doublet letters; the official franks, as appears from the Re- turn, as octuple letters ; and the copies of the Statutes as 13-pie letters; the chargeable General-post letters, including only the inland part of the foreign and ship-letter postage, average on the whole as single and an eighth. The relative quantities, therefore, of these diffsehrigei,, r different docu- ments would be as follows : 56,000,000 of General-post chargeable letters, equivalent at 1 to 9 63:000626:080906 4,813,448 Parliamentary franks 2 t 2,109,010 official franks 8 to 16,872,080

13 to 1,008,046 63,000,000

77,542 copies or the Statutes 00,507,0/2

Number.

Parliamentary franks Official cial franks 4,813,448 2,19,010 0 Statutes distributed . 77,542 Totals 7,000,000 the less drawn to an evil which affects the other classes, and especially the middle classes off society, namely, to the evil of high postage. Mr. Brankston alleges, that it is principally the rich and independent who endeavour to obtain franks from those who are privileged to give them. Pr. Lardner says, that a man, to obtain such advantages as he obtains, must be a person known to, or connected with, the aristo- cratic classes of society ; this gives, he admits, unfair advantages to those who have friends or connexions privileged to frank. Other ob- servations on the head of " Franks" will be found iu the Abstract of the Evidence appended to this Report. The amount of revenue which the letters of the Members of the Le- gislature would yield, if charged with the existing rates, Iming about 348,8141., and the amount which they would yield at the proposed rate of at/. being about 50,1401., the exemption from postage, at the existing rates, is an exemption on an average to every Member from the pay- ment of a tax of 309/. a year ; and at the proposed rate, as the postage would be payable only on letters sent, would be equivalent to an exemption from the payment of a tax of the half of 44/., i. c. of 22/. a year; but, as many franked letters do not concern the Members who frank them, the exemption would amount, at the reduced rate. to a much less suns even than that last named. The exemption would be an exemption from a sum so moderate, that it cannot be considered that, at the reduced rate, the parting with their privilege would be productive to individual Members of any serious. inconvenience; though certainly that might be the case, in not a few instances, were the privilege to be made to cease pending the continuance of the existing high rates. In by surrendering this privilege, the object could be attained of extending to the middle and working classes of this country the inestimable advan- tages of a cheap postage, and of holding free intercourse by way of letter, your Committee feel satisfied that the privilege would be sur- rendered.

On the subject of franking, your Committee have come to the fol- lowing Resolution : " That your Committee are of opinion, that taking into account the serious loss to the Post-office revenue which is caused by the privilege of franking, and the inevitable abuse of that privilege in numerous cases where no public business is concerned, it would be politic, in a financial point of view, and agreeable to the public' sense of justice, on effecting the proposed reduction of the postage rates. the privilege of Parliamentary franking were to be abolished, and the privilege of official franking placed under strict limitation ; petitions to Parliament and Parliamentary documents being still allowed to go free."

NIL—ANTICIPATED EFFECTS OF THE CHANGES PREVIOUSLY RECOM- MENDED ON THE RECEIPT AND EXPENDITURE OF THE POST-ornon, Also ON THE GENERAL REVENUE OP THE COUNTRY.

Your Committee having already stated their opinion what the effects would be of substituting for the existing rates a oniform twopenny rate for all distances exceeding 15 miles, and a penny rate for all distances not exceeding 15 miles, have only to add to their limner estimate an estimate of the effects that would result from abolishing the custom of franking. The letters written and received by the Members of either House of Parliament, and so many of the official franks as are misap- plied to the purposes of private correspondence, would be a new source of revenue to the Post-office. The former are about 4,813,44s, and the latter, say, 109,010 in number. The Parliamentary letters, when made liable to charge, would probably not average higher than any other chargeable letters ; that is, they would average about 2,1d. per letter; the latter, as they often enclose numbers of letters, may be computed at 8d.; and these together would yield a revenue of about 53,774/. a year. This sum added to the surplus of 180.000/., which it was shown, on the data assumed, would arise from the adoption of a twopenny rate for distances exceeding 15 miles. and of a penny rate for distances not exceeding 15 miles, would give a total surplus of 234.0901. beyond the present amount of the gross revenue; and that surplus would be snore than double of the sum required to meet the new item of charge which, according to the evidence of the Chairman of the Board of Stamps and Taxes, and of Mr. Dickinson, the distri- bution and manufacture of the proposed stamps would give occasion to. The only charges remaining to be provided for would be any addi- tional charges which the contemplated increase in the number of liners might render necessary for their conveyance and distribution. Your Committee have already assigned the reasons why they conceive, in case the various parts of Mr. Hill's plan of collecting postage and dis- tributing letters were adopted, this additional cost would be of moderate amount ; and that amount they conceive would be more than counter- vailed by the general benefit the revenue would receive from the general increase there would be in commercial and other transaetions, in con- sequence of the removal of impediments to correspondence. Taking this view of the subject, the Committee have come to the following Resolutions :

"That your Committee are of opinion, that the annual expenses in- curred by the Post-office in the distribution of letters, franks. and newspapers, within the British Isles, are, as appears from the Returns of Post-office expenditure, about 375,0e07. ; that as the chargeable let- ters form only about three-fifths in number of' what the Post-office dis- tributes, and not more probably than one-filth in weight, and as the present means of conveyance are in most cases sufficient forsuany times the weight now carried, an increase of chargeable letters would not be accompanied by a proportional increase of charge ; that a large per- tam of the cost of management of the Post-office, as of every other extensive establishment, would remain the same, or nearly so, what- ever might be the quantity of business transacted ; and that the pro- posed arrangements would conduce to simplification and consequent eco- nomy: your Committee therefore are of opinion, that the present charge of management, with a comparatively moderate increase, would suffice for carrying the proposed plan into effect." And your Committee have agreed also to this Resolution : "That your Committee are of opinion, that the cheap, speedy, and more frequent communication by means of post, which it is the object of Mr. Hill's plan to establish, would greatly facilitate all commercial transactions, and lead to a great extension of trade, both foreign and domestic that this extension of trade would, in no inconsiderable de- gree, improve the general revenue of the country, and thus probably compensate for any small diminution which might take place in the revenue of the Post-office."

XIII. SUNDRY SUGGESTIONS CALCULATED TO IMPROVE THE ADMI- NISTRATION OF THE POST-OFFICE, AND TO FACILITATE TIM DISTRIBUTION OF LETTERS.

§ 1. Various Plans fl Reduction and Alterations of Duty suggested by the Post-qffice Authorities.

Other plans, also, of reduction, but on a far more limited scale, than those which have been previously considered, were submitted to the consid_ration of the Committee by some of the officers of the Post- office. A graduated scale of reduced rates, commencing with 2d. and extending up to 12d., tantamount, as was stated. in England, to a re- duction of 3d. per letter, was laid before the Committee by Colonel Moberly. It would occasion, he thinks, a loss of from 700,000/. to 8,00,00ot a year, and he was unable to say in what time that loss would be made good to the revenue. The charging the rates upon the direct distance from point to point, instead of the distance actually travelled by the snails, was another plan Of reduction, which had been submitted by the Post-office to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as a very beneficial thing, if he could spare the stun which that mode of charging would occasion the loss of, namely, timm 80,0001. to 100,000/. a year. Mr. Lawrence, Assistant Secretary to the Post-office, was of opinion that the rates of postage might be reduced with advantage to one-half; but 31r. Louis, inspector of Mail-coaches, thought that the revenue would not recover itself from the effects of such a reduction under 10 or 15 years. With the exception of the principle of charging the rates according

to geographical distance, a principle capable of adaptation to any other plan into which distance might enter as an element for computing the rates, none of these latter plans were approved of by any of the wit- nesses unconnected with the Post-office and no opinions were given by the proposers of them -what the increase of correspondence would be, in case of their being adopted. Moreover, since they all involved a greater or less sacrifice of revenue, your Committee, under the terms of their appointment, on that account, if on no other, felt themselves precluded from recommending either of them to the favourable con- sideration of the House.

A penny rate on printed circulars was proposed by Sir Edward Lees, as a mode of making good the loss that he thought would accrue from. another measure of reduction which he suggested ; but most of the other Post-office authorities, and many of the witnesses unconnected with that department, and among the rest Lord Ashburton, were un- favourable to that plan, on account of the fraud and evasion which they thought it would give rise to.

§ 2. Other Suggestions, calculated to improre the _Administration of the Post-Vice and to facilitate the Distribution of Letters.

Mr. Hill considers it very essential to the proper working of his plan, that greater facilities should be given to the transmission of letters. That such facilities would produce a great effect on the number of letters, is shown, he argues, by the fact, that the improvements intro- duced by Mr. Palmer. though accompanied by several augmentations made at different times in the rates of postage, produced a very con- siderable increase in the number of letters. Improved facilities in dis- tribution he considers an essential part of his plan ; and until such im- provement were adopted, his plan could not be said to be introduced or tried. The impression at the Post-office. says Colonel Moberly, is, as a general principle, and it is, in point of fact, almost always fbund as a general mks that increased accommodation produces an increased quan- tity of letters. The Assistant Secretary, Mr. Lawrence, is of opinion, that an increased number of deliveries would increase the correspond- ence of the country generally. Mr. Banning, Postmaster of Liver- pool, states, that the snore frequent opportunities there are of writing, the more letters will be sent ; that many deliveries give facilities for sending ; and that the best way of raising the revenue is by quickness of despatch. Mr. Brown, of Liverpool, in the view he takes of the improvements essential to the proper working of the Post-office, would think it necessary to associate with a low rate of postage quick trans- mission, rapid sorting, quick and frequent delivery. Deliveries, he thinks. cannot be too frequent ; the snore frequent the better, con- sistently with the means the Post-office possess of making them. It appears from a Return laid before your Committee (No. 16, page 469, Report I.) that in the three years preceding the conveying of the Manchester and Liverpool mail by railways, the postage on letters passing between those towns averaged 12,964/., and that the re- ceipts were then on the decline ; but that, since the conveyance of the mail by railway has been established, the receipts have risen, on the average of the three years ending with 1837 inclusive, to the annual =pout of 16,9771., or about :31 per cent.; and this increase has taken place on the very line of communication which is one of the chief lines fin. practising evasion. Want of facilities, it appears, as well as high postage, has occasioned evasion. Mr. Willock, Postmaster of Manchester, writes word that letters have, in numerous instances, been sent in conchs-parcels, not so touch with a view to save postage, as to facilitate transmission, and to insure early delivery. This happens, he states, very much in those neighbourhoods in which there is not direct communication through the medium of the Post-office, especially in a populous and manufacturing district between 10 and 30 nines front Manchester. In confirmation of the latter remark, Mr. Cobden states, that in the village of Sabden, 28 miles from Manchester, where his print-works are, although there is a population of 1,200 souls, there is no post-office, nor any thing that serves for one. Mr. Cobden also states, that the Chamber of Commerce of Man- chester consider, that this is the epoch for a total change in the ma- nagement of the Post-office, as regards the frequency of transmission and the punctuality of its arrangements. The objection is, in the first instance, to the rates of postage; and, next, they are of opinion, that on the opening of new lines of railroad, the Post-office must. adapt itself to that great revolution in internal communication. The opportunities to smuggling which railroads will afford, will require additional efforts on the part of the Post-office; frequency of transmission, facilities for sending and receiving letters, quick sorting, and rapid delivery are decidedly necessary to save the establishment from the smuggler. Many letters are sent by coach, says Mr. Davidson of Glasgow, when they cannot go by post. Were the postage reduced to the amount of a coach-parcel, more letters would be sent by post ; but it would require great facilities of transmission. There are only two mails a day to Edinburgh, but there are coaches every two or three hours ; three posts a day to Paisley, but coaches to and from that town every hour ; steam- boats to Greenock every hour ; although the postage were reduced to Id., unless there were greater facilities of transmission, a considerable number of letters would go through illicit channels. Owing to the mul- titude of conveyances there are between Glasgow and Paisley, and the limited number of communications by post, he does not think that the reduction, which was lately made from 4d. to 2d., will effect the ex- tinction of illicit transmission. Mr. John Reid, formerly a bookseller at Glasgow, says, that he always had his letters at Glasgow from Ireland, and from the Islands and Highlands of Scotland, in about half the time in which he could obtain them by the Post-office. Mr. T. W. Sebright, Surveyor to the Post-office for the home district, says, that evasion pre- vails principally where letters are sent circuitously, and where there is not direct communication. Mr. Francis B. Oerton says, that between Walsall and Wittenhall, which communicate by means of a penny- post, the carriers convey as many letters as the post. They collect the letters as well as convey them, and go six times a day, whereas the penny-post goes but once. Mr. Brown, of Liverpool, believes that the mercantile community and the public will continue to avail themselves of coaches, in order to secure the quick transmission and early delivery of letters, even at a higher rate of charge than the post ; because time is as valuable as money. Unless the Post-office be the quickest convey- ance, and the sorting of letters take place more speedily than at present, and the delivery be rapid, letters will still continue to come by other conveyances than the Post-office, for the sake of despatch ; these three points being accomplished, he thinks the post would supersede all other conveyances.

The effect of want of facilities to transmit letters is to diminish the number transmitted. Mr. Vickers, of Sheffield, states, that the Liver- pool Post-office, from necessity, lie believes, has been dilatory of late. The consequence of these delays has been, that lie directs that all the bills remitted to hint from America, which are drawn upon Liverpool houses, be addressed to his agent at Liverpool, instead of himself at Shef- field. This causes a considerable diminution in the direct correspond- ence between Liverpool and Sheffield. On the subject of extending the use of day-mails, of the detention in London of forward letters, of foreign letters, mileage, the Metropolitan post-range and receiving-boxes, and the fees taken at Manchester and Liverpool, your Committee beg to refer to the Resolutions they have come to on several of those matters, and to the Abstract of the Evi- dence appended to this Report, in which latter the conflicting opinions of the witnesses on some of the topics above referred to are fully stated. On the subject of fees in general, your Committee have to express their regret that the positive and reiterated recommendation of the Commissioners of Post-office Inquiry has not been acted upon to its full extent ; some of the fees in the Secretary's office appear to have been abolished, and compensation in the form of salary granted in lieu thereof; but, according to a Return laid before the Committee, there appears to be still an indirect taxation of the public to a considerable amount for the benefit of individuals. Your Committee beg to express their disapprobation in general of the system of fees ; and they cannot better express their opinion than by quoting the following paragraph from the Reports of the Commissioners in 1768 and 1629, in which they entirely concur : "The compensation to the officers and clerks for the duty done in this office arises from a variety of sources ; namely, salaries on the establishment, salaries out of incidents, salaries from the bye and cross- road office, allowances, fees on commissions, deputations and expresses, agency, percentage on payments, gratuities, profits on newspapers, &e., by which the accounts are not only intermixed and confused, but many of the officers paid in a manner inapplicable to the duties they perform : our purpose is to simplify the mode of such compensation, and to recommend certain fixed salaries, adequate to the trust reposed and ser- vice required, and a general abolition of all fees, perquisites, and gra- tuities whatever for the immediate benefit of the officer employed."

" The Report above referred to was submitted to the Postmaster- General, who, as your Lordships will find, on referring to the Appendix of the Report of the Committee of Finance in the year 1797, made excep- tions to several of the recommendations which it contained ; and in de- ference, as it would seem, to his suggestions, the system of remuneration by indirect and uncertain emoluments was but partially discontinued : from what is there stated, however, under the head of Regulations pro- posed by the Commissioners, and approved by the Postmaster-General, but which have not yet taken place,' it appears that the Postmaster- General bad concurred in the recommendation that the officers should thereafter have fixed salaries in lieu of fees, perquisites, and emolu- ments and in the establishment proposed by the Postmaster-General and approved by his Majesty's Order in Council prefixed to the Appen- dix of the Report referred to, with the exception of the special case of Mr. Freeling and the newspaper privilege annexed to the situation of certain clerks in the Foreign Office, there is no notice of any emolu- ment to accrue otherwise than from fixed allowances. Your Lordships will observe nevertheless, amongst the continuing sources of such emo- luments, some which were expressly objected to by the Commissioners of Inquiry, whilst others of a similar nature have since been added, in opposition to the principles suggested in their recommendations."

It is the opinion of some of the witnesses that a certain latitude should be allowed for the admission of late letters and newspapers ; but upon this point also your Committee fully concur in the following opinion expressed by the Commissioners in their lbth Report : "Some of the above payments, as those for late letters and news- papers, were no doubt intended to operate to prevent the inconvenience of their being received in great numbers at a late hour. The penalty of unconditional exclusion seems to us likely as effectually to insure this object ; and care being taken that the receivers remain open as long as official punctuality and convenience will allow, we see no suffi- cient reason for countenancing a purchaseable delay. lf, however, this principle be still acted upon, the payment should be regarded, not as designed to produce emolument, but as an aid to official regulation,

and should be fixed at such a rate as to approach a prohibitory fine in all but very special cases." Your Committee have now performed the duty devolved upon them by the House, of inquiring into the existing rates of postage, with a view to such reduction as might be made -without injury to the revenue ; and to that end, as directed, they have especially examined into the plan of charging and collecting postage recommended in the pamphlet of Mr. Rowland Hill. Besides the witnesses examined, many other persons from all parts of the country were ready and desirous to give evidence in corroboration of the proofs already laid before the Com- mittee, that the post was evaded and correspondence suppressed by the operation of the present rates ; that great extension would be given to the posting of letters by adopting Mr. Hill's plan ; and that great ad- vantage would arise, as well to the revenue as to the whole community, from the cheap and expeditious transmission of letters. It appeared, however, to the Committee, that the mass of evidence bearing upon these points was already sufficient, and it was not considered necessary to prolong the inquiry further. The principal points which appear to your Committee to have been established in evidence, are the following—

The exceedingly slow advance, and occasionally retrograde movement, of the Post-office revenue during the period of the last 20 years. The fact of the charge of postage exceeding the cost in a mani- fold proportion. The fact of postage being evaded most extensively by all classes of society, and of correspondence being suppressed, more especially among the middle and working classes of the people ; and this in consequence, as all the witnesses, including ninny of the Post-office authorities, think, of the excessively high scale of taxation. The fact of very injurious effects resulting from this state of things to the commerce and industry of the country, and to the social habits and moral condition of the people.

The fact, so far as conclusions can be drawn from very imper- fect data, that whenever on former occasions large reductions in the rates have been made, those reductions have been followed in short periods of time by an extension of correspondence proportionate to the contraction of the rates.

And as matter of inference from fact, and of opinion, That the only remedies for the evils above stated are, a reduction of the rates, and the establishment of additional deliveries, and more frequent despatches of letters. That owing to the rapid extension of railroads, there is an urgent and daily increasing necessity for making such changes. That any moderate reduction in the rates would occasion loss to the revenue without, in any material degree diminishing the pre- sent amount of letters irregularly conveyed, or giving rise to the growth of new correspondence.

As regards the plan of a low uniform rate, payable in advance, and to be collected by means of stamps, the principal points established in evidence are— The fact that this plan in the ease of newspapers is now in full operation, and was retained in the year 1836, expressly on the ground of its superior convenience as a mode of collecting postage.

The fact that this plan, so far as uniformity of rate and pre- payment are concerned, is already in operation in the case of the letters of soldiers and sailors, and is considered by them as a highly valuable privilege. The fact that so far as uniformity of rating is concerned, this plan is in operation in the case of ship-letters, which are trans- mitted for the rate of 4d. from one extremity of the kingdom to the other.

And as matter of inference from fact, and of opinion, That the principle of a low uniform rate is just in itself; and when combined with pre-payment, and collection by means of a stamp, would be exceedingly convenient, and highly satisfactory to the public.

That the effect of the adoption of Mr. Hill's plan in the details of the management of the Post-office department would be, to use the words of Sir Edward Lees Secretary to the Post-office at Edin- burgh [Appendix to Report II., p. 35], " That considerable time world he saved in the delivery of letters ; the expenses in almost every branch of the department, but principally in the Inland and Letter-carrier offices, much reduced ; the complex accounts of the Bye and Dead-letter Offices greatly simplified, and the expenses greatly diminished. That the system of accounts between the Deputy Postmasters, which presents so many opportunities and facilities for combination and fraud, would disappear ; the labour and responsibility of surveyors be curtailed ; a system of cow** and intricate duty, inseparable from the existing nature of the country part of the Post-office, give way to one of simplicity and uniformity ; and the entire principle and machinery of the Post• office be changed in its character, greatly contributing to the secu- rity, comfort and advantage of the community, in its connexion with the public correspondence."

That in the opinion of all the witnesses, excepting most of the officers of the Post-office, the adoption of Mr. Hill's plan would occasion a very great increase in the number of letters posted; and in the opinion of most of them, a far greater increase than would. he required to maintain the revenue at its present amount. On the foregoing premises, your Committee have come to the con- clusions which they have already stated ; and it only now remains for them to mention, what they consider to be due in justice to Mr. Hill, that throughout the whole of their laborious and protracted investiga- tion, he evinced the utmost readiness and anxiety to explain to your Committee all the principles and details Of his plan.