Note 660 — VIII CONCLUSION
Reading edition
"The business being one which both can and ought to be conducted on fixed rules, is one of the few businesses which it is not unsuitable to a Government to conduct."—J. S. Mill, Principles of Political Economy, London, 1871, vol. ii. bk. v. chap. v. § 2.
"It is clear that the restriction put upon the liberty of trade by forbidding private letter-carrying establishments is a breach of State duty. It is also clear that were that restriction abolished, a natural postal system would eventually grow up, could it surpass in efficiency our existing one. And it is further clear that if it could not surpass it, the existing system might rightly continue; for the fulfilment of postal functions by the State is not intrinsically at variance with the fulfilment of its essential function."—Herbert Spencer, Social Statics, London, 1910, p. 120.
Professor Cannan sums the matter up from the point of view of modern opportunism:—
"Much too great importance is commonly attributed to this part of State action: the sale of commodities. We may be sure that if the State had not happened to undertake the business of carrying letters, some private organization would have been established for the purpose. Whether it would have done the work better or worse than the present State Post Office does it, is a question which we have no means of answering. So, too, on the other hand, if the State in this country had undertaken the provision of railways, we should have had a railway system of some sort; it might have been a better or it might have been a worse system; whether it would have been better or worse would have depended on the wisdom of those who had the largest share in devising and extending it, and who these persons would have been, and what their wisdom would have been, we have no means of telling."—Edwin Cannan, Elementary Political Economy, London, 1903, p. 132.