THE POST OFFICE OF FIFTY YEARS AGO.
the distance that mail was carried. Indeed, it was shown from careful investigation that the cost of mere conveyance, even for so great a distance as from London to Edinburgh, was only the 36th part of a penny per letter. From this and other facts it followed that a uniform rate was more just than one varying according to distance. The convenience of uniformity was obvious.
I may add that when I first entered on the investigations preparatory to the construction of my plan, I myself had no conception of the practicability of a uniform rate; and that the discovery referred to above was as startling to myself, as it proved when announced to the public at large.
A reference to my original pamphlet, a copy of which is, I presume, still in your Lordship's possession, or to my evidence before the Select Committee of 1838, appointed to inquire into the practicability of my plans, will show the various steps by which I arrived at the conclusion that a uniform penny rate was at once just and practicable.
There is but one other person, so far as I am aware, to whom the suggestion of a uniform penny rate has, with even the slightest plausibility, ever been assigned—I refer to the late Mr. Wallace, formerly Member for Greenock, and Chairman of the Select Committee on Postage in 1838; but though Mr. Wallace frequently urged, among other useful reforms, a great reduction in the postal charges, I can say from personal knowledge that he had no idea whatever of a uniform rate until after the publication of my pamphlet. Indeed, this sufficiently appears from his speech in Parliament in July, 1836, the last occasion on which, before the publication of my pamphlet, he referred to the rates of postage. The following is an extract from "Hansard" (vol. 35, 3d series, p. 422):—
*****
35
