In this dilemma, as to how to carry out the scheme in practice, Mr. Wallace favourably suggested the adhesive stamp, the adoption of which plan, he had no hesitation in saying from the evidence adduced, would secure the revenue from loss by forgery. Mr. Warburton, also a member of the 1837-38 Committee, "viewing with considerable alarm the doubt which had been expressed of adopting Mr. Hill's plan of prepayment and collection by stamped covers," recommended that plans should be applied for from the public.
Again, in the House of Lords on the 5th of August, Lord Melbourne, in introducing the Bill, is as much embarrassed as was the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Commons. The opponents of the Bill use, as one of their strongest arguments, the impossibility of carrying out the scheme in practice. The Earl of Ripon says:—"Why were their lordships thus called upon at this period of the session to pass a Bill, when no mortal being at that moment had the remotest conception of how it was to be carried into execution?" Here Lord Ashburton, like Mr. Wallace in the Commons, favourably suggested the adhesive stamp, "which would answer every purpose, and remove the objection of the stationers and paper makers to the measure."
Let it, then, be clearly noted that, up to the period of the Bill in July and August, 1839, not a word is said in any way connecting Mr. Hill's name with other than the impressed stamp on the sheet of letter paper, or, more especially, on the stamped covers. That, and that alone, is taken on the one part as his plan by all the speakers, official or otherwise—for that alone does the Chancellor of the Exchequer ask for "powers." The adhesive stamp is brought in, on the other part, as a distinct proposal, in no way entering into the proposals of Mr. Hill.
(The above is given in more detail in my former pamphlet, entitled "Sir Rowland Hill and James Chalmers, the Inventor of the Adhesive Stamp," 1883).
FOOTNOTE:
[1] See "Hansard," Vol. 48.
THE ADHESIVE STAMP.
In my pamphlet entitled "Sir Rowland Hill and James Chalmers, the Inventor of the Adhesive Stamp," I have already proved from overwhelming evidence, both general and specific, the invention of the adhesive stamp for postage purposes by the late James Chalmers, bookseller, Dundee, in the month of August, 1834. In addition to friends and fellow-townsmen, several of those in his employment at that period have, unknown to me, come forward from various quarters to describe the process and to fix the date. The setting up of the form with a number of stamps having a printed device—the printing of the sheets—the melting of the gum—the gumming the backs of the sheets—the drying and the pressing—are all described, and the date already named is conclusively fixed.[2] That this was the first instance of such invention is clear; earlier instances of an impressed stamp proposed for postage purposes are on record, but not one of a proposed adhesive stamp—while Sir Rowland Hill himself has left it on record, in his "Life," referring to the same period and occasion when an impressed stamp was proposed in 1834 for newspaper covers by Mr. Knight, "of course, adhesive stamps were yet undreamt of." (See page 69 of my pamphlet above named).