POST-OFFICE, ROADS, AND CONVEYANCE. 615 



mation so devoutly to be wished, " no method was ever submitted so 

 universally applicable as that embraced by this Proposal. It is omnipotent 

 for good, as the want is for evil which it is commissioned to remedy; for 

 it contemplates what alone will prove either a permanent or effectual 

 relief, the improvement of the employed classes, by and through 

 the improvement of the employing classes. It will give an impulse 

 to our whole commercial intercourse by a mode that will reduce 

 taxation ; and what is better, enable us to pay taxation. It will 

 equalize domestic and foreign labour, and allow our manufacturers to 

 pursue with advantage a reciprocal system of exchange abroad, with 

 the addition of a new and prosperous market at home. It will give 

 cheap food, that sine qua non, to an ameliorated condition, with re- 

 muneration to our agriculturists, and benefit all our trading classes 

 by again balancing production and consumption among ourselves. It 

 will allow the poor rates to be administered in a way that will 

 cause them to work out their own cure ; circulate stagnant capital ; 

 prevent immigration ; relieve the country from excess of labour ; 

 and last, not least, tend to equalize the national wealth. 



Yes ! the POWER to accomplish these changes is now present 

 with us whenever the nation shall possess the WILL. It is then of 

 the last importance that that WILL should be formed without further 

 loss of time. Something practical must be done to absorb the sur- 

 plus labour of the country : and to prove availing, it must be done 

 speedily. It was the opinion of Dr. Adam Smith and we would 

 not desire a higher authority ' that the roads of the country would 

 be better attended to, and more economically managed, were they 

 placed under the control of government/ But this opinion was 

 expressed at a time, when he did not contemplate that public con- 

 veyance could ever be brought about by a method that would 

 also cheapen food, and multiply human industry in all its branches. 

 As preparatory, then, to a bill for ' a Government consolidation 

 of the Post-office, Roads, and Locomotive Conveyance, and ap- 

 propriation of their Revenue for the service of the State/ which we 

 hope the Postmaster- General will undertake to introduce, we 

 conclude by humbly, but earnestly, urging upon the noble pre- 

 mier and his colleagues in office to appoint a special commission to 

 enquire in what way a measure of such extensive utility for the pub- 

 lic good can be best arranged to secure its simultaneous and general 

 introduction. The field is now open and must be occupied, else ob- 

 stacles will arise, from the formation of private companies which 

 may render its future adoption impracticable. We trust, therefore, 

 that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will come down to the House 

 on the 6th of this month, prepared to falsify the imputation put 

 forth in the Westminister Review, ' that the Post-office will never be 

 reformed from within, and that ministers are determined to resist all 

 attempts to reform it from without/ by announcing, what will be 

 hailed with satisfaction by the nation in general, and by the millions 

 in particular, who are now roaming in idleness and destitution 

 through the land in quest of employment, and finding none that 

 ministers mean to entertain a Proposal, which will go far to remedy 

 almost every evil under which our social condition labours. The im- 



