UNIFORM RATE AT ONE CENT.
In the process of simplification the uniform rate should be the lowest unit of coin. Beyond the sufficiency of this rate as a protection of the Post-Office against abuse, and also its obvious convenience, is its cheapness, reducing the tax on correspondence to its practical minimum. In England the penny was the lowest unit of coin, being in the English currency what the cent is in ours. The success of the English experiment is our best encouragement. There is better reason for the cent as a proper rate in our country than there was for the penny as a proper rate in England.
Such a rate will be so near to free postage for all, that it may be considered such practically. Let it be adopted, and free postage will become the companion of free school, free lecture, and free library, constituting the mighty group of republican civilization. The existing franking system will naturally disappear in this new franking system for all.
Here we encounter the financial question, What will be the effect on the Treasury? Will it pay? These are the potential words. This is the touchstone. That it will pay in beneficent influence tenfold, ay, Sir, a hundred-fold,—that it will make the Post-Office more than ever the powerful agent of human improvement, I cannot doubt. What is a little revenue, compared with such a result? What, even, is a deficit, with such a compensation? But looking at the financial question, and forgetting for a moment the incalculable good, it will be found that there are general laws of profit on small prices applicable to this proposed reduction, reinforced also by the example of England, and even of our own country.