Note 312 — II THE RATE FOR NEWSPAPERS
Reading edition
"Mr. Howe was very loose, and rarely took any steps to obtain or enforce the payments of the amounts due to him for the transmission of Journals through the Post....
"I cannot look upon it as the mere collection of a private source of emolument to the officer, but I conceive that the Department is interested in the question not only inasmuch as the amount received from this source goes in aid of a larger salary to the officer, but that whenever the time comes that the substitution of a postage rate on newspapers supersedes the present mode of sending them, a due enforcement of such rate will be most unfavourably received, if a free transmission has been previously permitted from the negligence of the party to whom the collection of the charge was deputed and whose perquisite it was."—Report of Mr. Page, 1842 (British Official Records).