Note 754 — APPENDIXES
Reading edition
"Will it pay?
"I will here lay down what may seem to financiers in this House a somewhat startling position. I hold that the State has no right to make a profit out of the Post Office. (Cheers.) ... Probably half the letters sent are business letters; and another very large share is sent by persons of small means who have many stern inducements to take care of their pence. In other words, one half of your postal revenue is derived from a tax on the machinery of trade, and another large share from the poorest class of citizens.
"This is practically a tax on commerce."—Sir J. Henniker Heaton, Parl. Debates (Commons), 30th March 1886.