which is usually practised by those whose interests are involved in their success. But the law constitutes the Post Office a monopoly. Its conductors are, therefore, uninfluenced by the ordinary motives to enterprize and good management; and however injudiciously the institution may be conducted, however inadequate it may be to the growing wants of the nation, the people must submit to the inconvenience; they cannot set up a Post Office for themselves. The legislature, therefore, is clearly responsible for all the mischief which may result from the present arrangement. With reference to this point, the Commissioners of Revenue Inquiry, in their able Report on the Post Office, remark, that "the restrictions which, for the maintenance of the revenue, the law has imposed concerning the untaxed conveyance of letters, raise an obligation on the part of the Crown to make adequate provision for the public exigencies in this respect; and, in effecting this object, it falls within the province and the duty of His Majesty's Post-master General to create, as well as to guard and to collect a revenue."[1]
It would be very easy to multiply arguments against the present condition of this tax. I might speak of the gross inequality of its pressure, of the impossibility of preventing evasion, now notoriously practised by all classes, notwithstanding the inquisitorial means resorted to for the detection of offenders, and the severity of the penalties inflicted. But surely
- ↑ 18th Report of the Commissioners of Revenue Inquiry, p. 4.
