This last fact could not but be viewed by some as a formidable obstacle to the plan; and though I did not see it in that light, believing that a reduction of postage would give a stimulus to commerce, which would greatly benefit all the other sources of revenue, I suggested that the difficulty could be met by such gradual adoption of the plan as might suit the caution or timidity of the controlling authorities. My recommendations appear in the following extract:—
“It cannot be doubted that a reduction in postage to a certain extent would benefit the Post Office revenue, and an opinion to this effect is very general in the Post Office itself. Let, then, a general system of reductions be put into immediate operation, and extended as rapidly as the state of the revenue will permit; and concurrently with this, let the means here pointed out for simplifying the mechanism of the Post Office be adopted as far as practicable, in order that the consequent increase in the amount of business may not require an increased establishment.”
To give effect to these recommendations, I proposed that, as a first step, the postage between post towns should be immediately reduced by one half; that the charge should depend no longer on the number of enclosures, but on weight; that stamps should serve at first for a very limited range, say for fifteen miles; so that the numerous mistakes expected to occur in their use (of which there was much groundless apprehension) might admit of speedy and easy correction; and, though at that time very desirous of seeing prepayment made universal, because of the complete simplicity which it would introduce into the Post Office accounts, I recommended that an option should be given, by which prepayment should always be lower by one penny than post-payment. Of course in recommending these expedients I did not swerve from my original design; my expressed desire being that these first measures should be gradually extended, as experience warranted, until the whole plan was in operation.[142]
Much anxiety had been expressed, which under present circumstances seems ludicrous enough, as to the means by which the increased number of letters, on which I relied for sustaining the revenue, could be conveyed from town to town. A five-fold increase, it was maintained, would require a five-fold number of mail-coaches; and I was charged with having omitted this material fact in my calculations. Reply was easy, because, first, the existing mail-coaches were by no means fully laden, many of them indeed having very little to carry; and secondly, the chargeable letters formed but an inconsiderable part of the mail; the bulk of which consisted partly of newspapers, and partly of letters and packages sent under franks, insomuch that, startling as this may seem, the chargeable letters then divided among the four-and-twenty mail-coaches which left London every night might, without displacing a single passenger, and without exceeding or even equalling the ordinary load, have been all forwarded by a single coach. In short, instead of being justly exposed to the charge of omission, I had made in my calculations, through excess of caution, more than due allowance for the increased expense, and that by the large amount of £100,000. Fortunately I was able truly to add “that though my plan, with its estimates, had then been before the public for several months, and though both had been submitted not only to the general inquirer, but to the scrutinising examination of those who had most opportunity for acquiring knowledge on the subject, no statement had appeared which invalidated any one of the calculations.” Caution in statement, I may observe, had been strengthened in me by almost all the various trainings through which I had passed. As an instructor, a surveyor, a machinist, an inventor, a responsible secretary to an important enterprise, I had had constant need for its exercise; the more so, perhaps, as I was keenly sensible to the ridicule that follows error, especially in innovators.
To return to my immediate subject. By this time, the result of a reduction of postage made six years before in a large portion of the London district, by the extension of the twopenny range, had been shown to be favourable; a return on the subject having been called for by the Commissioners of Post Office Enquiry. It had been calculated by the Post Office authorities that this reduction would reduce the gross revenue to the extent of £20,000 per annum; whereas at the end of six years the revenue, instead of being a loser, was by £10,000 a gainer.[143] Considerable reductions, also, had recently taken place in the postage of foreign letters; reductions already followed by a great increase in receipts. Neither had any instance occurred, within my knowledge, in which reduction of postage had, after a fair trial, been attended with loss to the revenue.
On the 23rd of November, Parliament having meantime reassembled, Mr. Wallace renewed his motion for a committee on my plan, and though but ten months had elapsed since my first publication, such was already the progress of public opinion that the committee was not only granted, but, as would appear from the silence of “Hansard,” without even a debate. The nomination of its members, which took place four days later, gave the following list:—Mr. Wallace, Mr. Poulett Thomson, Viscount Lowther, Lord Seymour, Mr. Warburton, Sir Thomas Fremantle, Mr. Raikes Currie, Mr. Morgan John O’Connell, Mr. Thornely, Mr. Chalmers, Mr. Pease, Mr. Mahony, Mr. Parker (Sheffield), Mr. George William Wood, Mr. Villiers.[144]
The reference or instruction to the committee was as follows:—
“To inquire into the present rates and mode of charging postage, with a view to such a reduction thereof as may be made without injury to the revenue; and for this purpose to examine especially into the mode recommended for charging and collecting postage in a pamphlet published by Mr. Rowland Hill.”[145]
Three members of this committee, viz., Lord Seymour, Mr. Parker, and Mr. Poulett Thomson (afterwards Lord Sydenham)—were also members of Government, and, as I soon found, sat as opponents to the plan.[146] I need not say, however, that the appointment of the committee, whatever adverse elements it might contain, filled me with high expectations; so well assured was I by this time of the soundness of my views, and so confident that they would derive abundant support from the examination to be made, whatever might be the ultimate decision of the committee.