462 Mr, Commissioner Hill [April 4, 



office itself to amount to 76 millions, which number was finally adopted. 

 As the scheme of Penny Postage was based on the understanding that 

 the ultimate loss to the revenue would not exceed 300,000/. per annum, 

 a tolerably accurate computation of the real number of letters was one 

 of the problems regarding the amount of increase in correspondence 

 required to fulfil this condition, it being self-evident that if the Post- 

 office had been correct in its estimate of 43 millions, the required mul- 

 tiplication must be very much larger than if the then existing number, 

 as was now conceded, amounted to 76 millions. The Postmaster- 

 General contended that a twelvefold increase would be necessary, while 

 Mr. Hill calculated that a fivefold increase would suffice. To enable 

 the Committee to form a judgment of the sources of increase, he began 

 by adducing evidence to prove the vast multitude of contraband letters 

 which, if postage could be reduced to a penny, there would be no temp- 

 tation to transmit through a surreptitious medium. He then proceeded 

 to show that the number of contraband letters, great as it was, must 

 sink into insignificance when compared with that which the high 

 tariff* prevented from being written at all. It is believed that on the 

 institution of Penny Postage contraband transmission ceased altogether, 

 and yet the first year added but 93 millions of letters to the 76 millions 

 of the old system, while some portion of this 93 millions must clearly 

 be placed to the account of letters which, but for the reduction in post- 

 age, would not have come into existence. The augmentations of sub- 

 sequent years have exceeded the limits of the wildest aspirations. But 

 Mr. Hill did not depend altogether on the effect to be produced by 

 swelling the grand total of letters. He laid great stress on diminishing 

 to the Post-office the expense of the service : the cost per letter, not 

 the total expense. That by the expected great increase of letters was 

 sure to be enhanced. This important end he proposed to attain by 

 the combination of two expedients. One was uniformity of post- 

 age. The other the relief of the office, by the employment of stamps, 

 from the onerous duty of collecting postage. That both these changes 

 must be highly economical is obvious. The taxation of letters, as it 

 was then called, meaning thereby the task of ascertaining the amount 

 of postage for each letter, and registering it upon the letter itself, was a 

 slow and complex process, the greater part of which uniform postage 

 did away with. But the principal item of cost had always been the 

 delivery of letters from house to house. Under the old system the all 

 but universal usage was for the sender to post his letter unpaid. The 

 inevitable consumption of time thus caused in the collection of postage 

 would be fresh in the memory of a large portion of the audience. 

 Neither of the two branches of postal service thus cheapened presented 

 any obstacle to the application of the principle of uniformity ; but the 

 third, namely, the journey which the letter made from the office of re- 

 ception to that of destination, would appear at first sight of necessity to 

 demand different rates of remuneration. No one was prepared to be- 

 lieve that the transit of a letter from St. Martin's-le-Grand to Barnet, 

 the first stage on the road to Edinburgh, would cost practically the 



