Edmund Barnes
Isaac Henry Cabanes
William Ogilvy
Charles Coltson
Saml Ardron
Charles Evans.
No. 3.
To The Right Honorable Lord Walsingham and The Earl of Chesterfield, His Majesty's Post Master General.
The paper from the Post Master General relative to the Tax proposed by the Commissioners having been communicated to the Clerks of the Roads and the Inspector of Franks they beg permission to offer the subsequent observations.
That the proposal by the Commissioners for Government to receive a Tax of a penny for the postage of each Newspaper passing through the Post Office, however eligible it might appear at the time it was first proposed, will not they believe at this period, be productive of that expected advantage to the public the encrease of Revenue, as the reasons annexed among others may probably prove.
Because since the proposal was made to the Commissioners, and they made their Report an additional Stamp has been imposed of one halfpenny a paper, and another halfpenny on each has been added by the Printers, so that the Public now pay one penny more than they did at that time.
Because the proposed Tax would be a means of compelling the Stationers, Printers and Dealers to send their papers by Coach the same day at the customary charge of one farthing each paper
instead of sending them by post on Government Account at a penny the second day. And it cannot be supposed that a number of persons many of them of considerable property would quietly submit to have the circulation of their papers confined to post conveyance at one penny each paper, without those serious efforts to oppose and prevent it which the prospect of certain and total ruin to their business and consequently to their Families must excite.
But allowing it were possible to confine the whole of the papers sold in the Country to post conveyance and a recompence made to those Stationers and Printers employed in the distribution at present would not the encreased price occasioned by this Tax very much diminish the Number of Newspapers now printed to the great injury of the Stamp duty? probably to a greater Amount than would be gained by the plan proposed. For were the Stage Coaches prohibited conveying Newspapers all the Morning Papers now conveyed by them to many parts of the Kingdom would be lost to the Stamp Revenue, and all the Morning Papers read at the Coffee Houses and other public Houses, would be collected by the Newsmen at a small sum each paper in the Afternoon and sent into the Country by the post in the Evening without the least trouble to themselves, it being their daily business to go round their London district, early in the Morning, and in the Afternoon before the dispatch of the Papers by the post.
Before the Penny postage was laid on all papers sent by post to Ireland the Weekly number remitted to that Kingdom was upon an Average 8,000: the Number now sent upon an Average is only 1,380 Weekly.