afford. That the furnishing of this information is very much restricted by the high rate of postage, and that if it were more generally afforded, it is probable that much more business would be done. It is also stated, that the increase in the number transmitted at a low rate of postage would be such, that the Revenue required would be much greater than it now is under the high rate of postage,—one witness, Mr. Cook, estimating the increase, if allowed to be transmitted at a low rate of postage, at three millions of prices current annually."[1]
Prospectuses too, such as are already issued to some extent by merchants, manufacturers, and shopkeepers, would become a very large class of post letters. For example, a manufacturer introducing some improved article, a shopkeeper receiving new patterns, or a bookseller issuing a new work, would gladly avail himself of any inexpensive means of immediate communication with every individual of the class from which he expected his customers.
The following is a statement in corroboration of these views, with which I have been favoured by Mr. Charles Knight, the publisher:
"Upon the point on which you desire my opinion, with reference to the productiveness of the Post Office Revenue under a greatly reduced scale of charges, I have no hesitation in believing that if the rate of postage throughout the country were reduced to a penny, many hundreds of thousands of prospectuses of new books, and of publishers' catalogues, would be annually circulated. In my own case, I should feel that such a mode of circulation would be by far the cheapest and most efficient plan of advertising. To be able to address the information which a prospectus communicates, with absolute certainty, to the persons likely to be interested in its perusal, would be a most advantageous method of advancing the distribution of books, and would obviate
- ↑ 5th Report of the Commissioners of Post Office Inquiry.—The date of Lord Lowther's Report is May, 1835.
