Note 297 — II THE RATE FOR NEWSPAPERS
Reading edition
"Q. 1852. Mr. Cobden: Would the carrying of newspapers be profitable to the Post Office at the present rates, provided you were left to adopt your own regulations as to the transmission of newspapers without the intervention of the Board of Inland Revenue?—In one sense it would be profitable and in another it would not. If we were to charge against the newspapers a share of the fixed expenses of the establishment, then it is very questionable whether it would be profitable; but if you consider, as we probably should, that the expenses of the establishment are incurred in respect of the letters, and only calculate the additional expense which would be thrown upon us for the transmission of newspapers, then I think we should find them profitable.
"Q. 1853: Having an immense organization at the Post Office with a certain amount of fixed charges, with a large amount of postmen necessarily travelling over the whole of the kingdom, you would find it profitable to carry newspapers for a penny, in addition to the letter carrying, would you?—Yes.
"Q. 1854: Therefore, if the newspaper stamp were abolished, and you were left to regulate the postage at the Post Office, you would deem it profitable to carry newspapers at a penny each?—Yes, certainly we should: what I mean is, that the carrying of newspapers would not increase our expenses to the extent of a penny each.
"Ans. 1912: I was in hopes that we might distribute them at a halfpenny, if we could have completed a plan in the simple form in which it presented itself to my mind at first.
"Q. 1913: The plan is so far under consideration, and, perhaps, these difficulties may be got over?—I cannot hold out any expectation of that; I think I have considered it sufficiently to see that those difficulties are all but insuperable."—Evidence of Sir Rowland Hill, Report from Select Committee on Newspaper Stamps, 18th July 1851.