Note 742 — APPENDIXES

E.g. "The common mode of levying a tax on the conveyance of letters is by making the Government the sole authorized carrier of them, and demanding a monopoly price. When this price is so moderate as it is in this country under the uniform penny postage, scarcely if at all exceeding what would be charged under the freest competition by any private company, it can hardly be considered as taxation, but rather as the profits of a business; whatever excess there is above the ordinary profits of stock being a fair result of the saving of expense, caused by having only one establishment and one set of arrangements for the whole country, instead of many competing ones."—J. S. Mill, Principles of Political Economy, London, 1871, vol. ii. p. 461.