[76] Ibid., p. 45.
[77] A "frank" was a letter or packet bearing on the outside the signature of a person entitled to send letters free of postage.
[78] These proposals are not, however, necessarily related to the principle of uniformity, and, although interesting and important at the time, are now only of historical interest. They relate more particularly to the practicability of applying low and uniform rates to the postal service in the United Kingdom, having regard to the circumstances then obtaining and to the necessity for maintaining a large net revenue. Given that uniformity of rate was scientifically sound, it did not follow that it should be immediately adopted, and the financial effect was, to say the least, speculative. But since it was unlikely that the plan would be adopted if any large decrease in revenue were likely to result, Sir Rowland Hill was at great pains to explain methods by which his plan could be adopted without serious reduction of net revenue, and it was in this connection that the question of the increase in traffic which might be anticipated assumed such importance.
[79] See, e.g., H. von Stephan, Geschichte der preussischen Post, Berlin, 1859, p. 615.
[80] Ninth Report of Commissioners for Inquiring into the Mode of Conducting the Business of the Post Office Department, 1837, Appendix, pp. 26-40.
[81] "Of all the wild and visionary schemes he had ever heard or read of, it was the most extraordinary."—Lord Lichfleld, Postmaster-General, 15 June 1837, Parl. Debates (Lords), vol. xxxviii, col. 1464.
"He considers the whole scheme of Mr. Hill as utterly fallacious; he thought so from the first moment he read the pamphlet of Mr. Hill; and his opinion of the plan was formed long before the evidence was given before the Committee. The plan appears to him a most preposterous one, utterly unsupported by facts, and resting entirely on assumption. Every experiment in the way of reduction which has been made by the Post Office has shown its fallacy; for every reduction whatever leads to a loss of revenue, in the first instance: if the reduction be small, the revenue recovers itself; but if the rates were to be reduced to a penny, revenue would not recover itself for forty or fifty years."—Abstract of Evidence of Colonel Maberly, Secretary to the Post Office, Third Report from the Select Committee on Postage, 1838, p. 18.
[82] Post Office Reform: Its Importance and Practicability, by Rowland Hill, second edition, London, 1837.
[83] See Life of Sir Rowland Hill and History of Penny Postage, London, 1880; Sir Henry Cole, Fifty Years of Public Work, London, 1884.
[84] Third Report of the Select Committee On Postage, 13th August 1838, § 10.