Page:The Post Office of Fifty Years Ago.djvu/65

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PREFACE.
v

considered in reference to the remission of taxation, to the extension of commerce, the promotion of friendly intercourse, or the advancement of education, it is interesting to all.

An objection to the proposed plan, which has reached me from an unknown quarter, is too remarkable to be passed over without notice: it is, that the number of letters under the proposed arrangements would be increased so enormously as to render their distribution impossible.

I have reckoned upon a great augmentation of the Post Office business, as affording the means for lowering the rate of postage and increasing the facilities for the transmission of letters. The objector so far outruns my expectations as to convert that which I consider a matter of gratulation into a subject for apprehension.

It seems to me that the Post Office must necessarily be considered as in a defective state, unless it is capable of distributing all the letters which the people of the country can have any motive for writing; at least in ordinary seasons, and under ordinary circumstances; therefore, if at any time the means employed by the Post Office prove insufficient, they should be forthwith increased.

If the objector can be supposed to mean that the