Note 256 — Chapter IV · PENNY POSTAGE BILL.

“In 1839, I think it was, he [Mr. Warburton] urged upon me the adoption by the Government of the plan of penny postage which had been made known to the public by Mr. Rowland Hill. I said I thought the plan very ingenious, and likely to confer great benefits upon the public, but that it would make a temporary deficit in the revenue, which would probably require to be filled up by new taxation. Mr. Warburton said that a new tax was a great evil, and he hoped it would be avoided. No further conversation passed at that time. Unfortunately the Government adopted both parts of Mr. Warburton’s advice. The Cabinet was unanimous in favour of the ingenious and popular plan of a penny postage; but they ought to have enacted at the same time such measures as would have secured a revenue sufficient to defray the national expenditure. Failing to do this, there was for three years together a deficit, which exposed the Government to the powerful reproaches and unanswerable objections of Sir Robert Peel. Public opinion echoed those reproaches and those objections, and produced such a degree of discontent as was in itself a sufficient ground for a change of Administration.”—Extract from Earl Russell’s “Recollections,” &c., p. 231.