“It is, in fact, taxing the conversation of people who live at a distance from each other. The communication of letters by persons living at a distance is the same as a communication by word of mouth between persons living in the same town. You might as well tax words spoken upon the Royal Exchange as the communications of various persons living in Manchester, Liverpool, and London. You cannot do it without checking the disposition to communicate very essentially.”
At the same time Lord Ashburton hesitated to adopt a rate as low as one penny. He was for twopence or threepence.[55]
The doubts of Lord Ashburton as to the rate were encountered by Mr. Cobden, who testified:—
“I consider the only way to produce the greatest possible amount of revenue is to charge the lowest possible trading profit; and it is in the Post-Office as in steamboats, or Paddington coaches, or calicoes, or sugars, or teas, or anything else which can be or ought to be an article of universal demand and consumption. With that view I have regarded Mr. Rowland Hill’s plan of Post-Office Reform; and taking the cost of a letter, upon the presumed increase he has stated, even at three-fourths of a penny each letter, I should say one penny would then be a proper charge ultimately to produce the greatest possible amount of revenue. I would reason from analogy and experience in every other business, and in none more than my own.”[56]
On such a point nobody could speak with more authority than Mr. Cobden.
But nobody showed more comprehension of the moral ground for this reform than Mr. Jones Loyd, the eminent banker and economist, afterwards Lord Overstone. Nothing can be better than this:—
“I think, if there be any one subject which ought not to have been selected as a subject of taxation, it is that of inter-communication by post; and I would even go a step further, and say, that, if there be any one thing which the Government ought, consistently with its great duties to the public, to do gratuitously, it is the carriage of letters. We build national galleries, and furnish them with pictures; we propose to create public walks, for the air and health and exercise of the community, at the general cost of the country. I do not think that either of those, useful and valuable as they are to the community, and fit as they are for Government to sanction, is more conducive to the moral and social advancement of the community than the facility of intercourse by post. I therefore greatly regret that the post was ever taken as a field for taxation, and should be very glad to find, that, consistently with the general interests of the revenue, which the Government has to watch over, they can effect any reduction in the total amount so received, or any reduction in the charges, without diminishing the total amount.”[57]
In all the voluminous testimony this beautiful passage is like a beacon-light.
At last this important subject was transferred from the Committee to Parliamentary debate; and here I content myself with a few brief words from leading speakers. Mr. Goulburn, one of the chiefs of Opposition, admitted that the plan proposed would “ultimately increase the wealth and prosperity of the country.”[58] Mr. Wallace declared it “one of the greatest boons that could be conferred on the human race.”[59] Sir Robert Peel admitted that “great social and commercial advantages will arise from the change, independent of financial considerations.”[60] Viscount Sandon, of the Opposition, struck a higher chord, when he declared that he “had long been of opinion that the Post-Office was not a proper source of revenue,” but “ought to be employed to stimulate other sources of revenue.”[61] In the same strain, and with higher authority, Mr. O’Connell declared it “one of the most valuable legislative reliefs that had ever been given to the people”; that it was “impossible to exaggerate its importance”; and even if it would not pay the expense of the Post-Office, he held that “Government ought to make a sacrifice for the purpose of facilitating communication.”[62] I group these testimonies as important in the history of this reform, and furnishing a guide for us.