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"We do not know whether you have overlooked one fact, but it was forcibly impressed upon us this last week when we were sending price lists to Persia. Our clerks raised query whether they should be posted via Russia at the charge of one halfpenny or by the Brindisi mail at the charge of 14d. !!

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"Upon reference to the British Postal Guide you will find this duty (duly ?) set forth "under the heading of Persia at page 234, for printed papers and books, the British "medium being three times the charge via Russia.'

Again, Messrs. Peek, Freau, & Co., the celebrated biscuit manufacturers, lately sent two tons of samples to customers in the United Kingdom via Belgium. Each sample weighed three ounces. They found that the charge was only Id. each, while these samples if sent from one place to another in the United Kingdom would cost 2d. each.

6. I have to thank you, Sir, for the information conveyed to me in answer to my request for it, that "The total postage collected upon British mails for Australasia may be "estimated at about 116,000. per annum.” This important fact has now for the first time been made known to the public.

7. I have also to express my acknowledgments for the statement that "The total sum paid for the sea conveyance of all mails sent vid New York in the year ending the 30th "of September 1886 was 99,9271.”

This is a pregnant and noteworthy fact. Your letter states that the total postage collected for British mails for Australasia may be estimated at about 116,0007. per annum). That is to say, you collect from the public 116,0001. for the conveyance of mails to the 3,000,000 or so of Australasians. Yet we only pay 99,9277. for the carriage of the heavy mails sent from this country to the sixty millions of our kindred inhabiting the United States. The correspondence posted in the United Kingdom for the United States during the year ending 31st December 1877 was 116,444 lbs. of letters and 1,031,908 lbs. of newspapers and other articles. The enormous increase of mail matter is shown by your letter to me dated 8th of February 1887, which states that during the year ending 30th of September 1886 no less than 337,855 lbs. of letters and 2,780,625 lbs. of newspapers and other articles were despatched, so that the quantity of mails was more than doubled in those 10 years. This may be a convenient opportunity to point out that in proportion to the populationthe people of Australasia receive from England at least six times as many letters as the people of the United States. This very gratifying fact should im- press the British public and the authorities with the necessity of encouraging corre- spondence. It may be objected that the voyage to America is a shorter one than that to Australia, but on the other hand the population is 20 times greater. It must also be remembered that the capacious liners in question devote but an infinitesimal portion of their space to the reception and stowage of mails. Their cabins are crowded with passengers, their holds are stuffed with merchandise. While our trade with foreign countries is falling off, our transactions with the Colonies show annually an astounding augmentation. If it were urged that the lines are only kept running by the aid of the subventions at present allowed them, I reply that the allegation is untrue and absurd. Why, Sir, on June 2nd last I brought to your predecessor's notice the offer of a powerful steamship company to convey letters from England to Australia by a service as rapid and regular as the existing one for a charge of one penny per letter. Again, a renowned company has offered to convey the mails to and from Australia by a first class weekly service for a subvention of 182,000/. per annum. I yield to no one in my desire to encourage the magnificent Peninsular and Oriental and the Orient Steamship Companies with the view of maintaining the greatness of England on the sea. against the Post Office being charged with the cost of doing so.

But 1 again protest If it is the desire of England, and it is of the Australian people, to subsidize these powerful lines, some such plan should be adopted as is outlined in the preceding paragraph (No. 3).

I have lately ascertained that for a sum of 182,000l., or 200,000l. per annum, the great steamship companies would be willing to convey six times the amount of mailed matter at present despatched.

The enormous growth in the volume of Australian correspondence revealed in the Post Office statistics, and the anticipated increase which would follow a reduction of rates, would suffice without special arrangements to bring about a penny postal service fully as remunerative in a few years.

8. I beg to thank you further for directing that the number of letters despatched to and received from the East shall be ascertained, the number being at present merely conjectural. I regret, however, that the gentlemen entrusted with the task of in- vestigation have found that "the loss upon the Australian mail service vid Suez cannot "be stated separately from the general loss incurred in the mail services by that route connecting this country with the possessions in the East." As I have before said,

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the amount of information, tabular and otherwise, which has been sent me bears witness to the zeal and energy which these gentlemen have displayed. But they could not perform impossibilities. If they had been baffled on this and other points, it is because the system of account keeping instituted long ago at the Post Office is radically defective. There is, it must be confessed, a want of knowledge of the proportion which income bears to expenditure that would not be submitted to by a merchant in connexion with his business concerns for an hour.

How is it possible, I would ask, for the Department to enter into contracts involving the payment of immense sums for the carriage of mails without being aware of the amount of its income, and without being liable in such circumstances, like the rest of the world, to the penalties of improvidence? It is, however, right to acknowledge that we are indebted to you for the perception of this condition of affairs.

year.

You have herein done much to elucidate the mystery of the immense loss on the mail service which so justly impressed the House of Commons last show the urgent need for an inquiry, under the authority of the House, into the facts of All this goes to the case. For that inquiry I shall ask the House, and I contend that the facts set out in this correspondence are of themselves sufficient to justify the granting of my request.

9. I further contend that the time has arrived for finally settling how much profit the Post Office ought to make from its business. Last year this profit amounted to 2,500,0007.

Let it remain at that amount, the additional profits being devoted to cheapening, extending, and developing postal communication. It will be observed that the resolutions now standing in the paper in my name are very different from that moved by me last year; and that those who were my opponents on that occasion may with a clear conscience support me now. By supporting these motions not one penny is taken from postal revenue; not one penny of additional taxation is imposed.

It may be objected by some purblind critic, peeping timidly out like a mole from his statistical burrow, that any additional profit made by the Post Office should go to relieve the general burden of taxation. This argument was also urged against Sir Rowland Hill's proposal to introduce the Inland Penny Post, which was nevertheless introduced, and has resulted in this magnificent annual profit. But, as already pointed out, the general burden of taxation is not relieved. belongs, moreover, to that class of taxes which should be imposed with the utmost This surplus postage is itself a tax, and it caution. For it is, first, a tax on the poorest class of the community; and, secondly, a tax on the initial operations of the most extensive and vital branch of our commerce, that, namely, with our Colonies. It follows that, by permitting the Post Office to go on increasing the amount of its annual profit, we are tacitly imposing additional taxation to the amount of such increase on the poorest classes, and, secondly, on the trade which finds our working classes bread to eat. How long the working classes will stand this I

for one do not doubt.

10. It is to be noticed that, from the beginning of this movement, not one of my main assertions and arguments has been impugned. Our exertions have been greatly aided by the mighty support of the English press. There is no organ of importance whose sympathy has not been with us, often expressed in language which must have touched the reader with warmth and cogency. There are critics, it is true, who without attempt- ing to meet my arguments go about hinting and whispering and suggesting their dislike to even the smallest reduction in the rates. We feel no resentment against such men. We remember that for a long time their predecessors, a sitnilar class, opposed the Inland Penny Post, and were content to pay 8d. for the conveyance of a note from London to York. We see in these men an interesting survival of the foolish faint-hearted obstructors of 50 years ago.

11. I believe that the rush and increase of correspondence which will occur after the institution of a penny postage rate to and from the Colonies (first, in consequence of the lowering of the charges, and second, by reason of the multiplication of the Colonial population and through the swelling tide of emigration) will amaze the most sanguine among us.

But, as I have pointed out, the steamship companies are ready to carry six times the amount of mails already tendered for, at the same price, so that no matter what the augmentation of correspondence there will be room enough for all of it.

12. I have said much of Australia in my letters to you, Sir, first, because I am natu- rally deeply interested in the welfare of that country, hut chiefly because it is so distant that any arrangements which would be remunerative as regards the conveyance of mails to the Antipodes must necessarily be more than remunerative as regards less distant Colonies.

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