Note 81 — I THE RATE FOR LETTERS
Reading edition
"Of all the wild and visionary schemes he had ever heard or read of, it was the most extraordinary."—Lord Lichfleld, Postmaster-General, 15 June 1837, Parl. Debates (Lords), vol. xxxviii, col. 1464.
"He considers the whole scheme of Mr. Hill as utterly fallacious; he thought so from the first moment he read the pamphlet of Mr. Hill; and his opinion of the plan was formed long before the evidence was given before the Committee. The plan appears to him a most preposterous one, utterly unsupported by facts, and resting entirely on assumption. Every experiment in the way of reduction which has been made by the Post Office has shown its fallacy; for every reduction whatever leads to a loss of revenue, in the first instance: if the reduction be small, the revenue recovers itself; but if the rates were to be reduced to a penny, revenue would not recover itself for forty or fifty years."—Abstract of Evidence of Colonel Maberly, Secretary to the Post Office, Third Report from the Select Committee on Postage, 1838, p. 18.