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1
435
Her Majesty's Mails
·
William Lewins
218
In
1848,
the
advantages
of
a
book-post
were
granted
to
the
country.
By
the
new
rate,
a
single
volume
might
be
sent
to
any
part
of
the
United
Kingdom
at
the
uniform
rate
of
sixpence
per
pound.
The
privileges
of
this
book-post
were
gradually
extended
to
the
colonies.
The
railway
companies,
at
the
time
and
subsequently,
complained
loudly
that
the
Post-Office,
by
establishing
the
book-post,
had
entered
into
an
unfair
competition
with
them.
This
competition
was
described
as
very
injurious,
on
account
of
the
low
rates
at
which
books
and
book-packets
were
conveyed.
It
was
answered,
however--and
in
this
answer
the
country
very
generally
agreed--that
the
railway
companies
had
no
legal
or
equitable
right
to
the
monopoly
of
parcel-traffic;
and
if
they
had,
the
exceptions
taken
in
the
case
of
the
book-post
were
only
to
books
and
printed
matter
intimately
connected
with
objects
such
as
the
diffusion
of
knowledge
and
the
promotion
of
education--matters
with
which
the
Post-Office
was
now
most
immediately
concerned.
The
facts,
however,
were,
that
very
few
indeed
of
the
packets
sent
by
the
book-post
were
such
as
had
been
previously
sent
by
railway.
The
Post-Office,
by
offering
its
vast
machinery
for
the
transmission
of
such
articles,
especially
to
remote
districts,
gave
facilities
which
had
never
before
been
offered,
and
which
caused
books
and
documents
to
pass
through
the
Post-Office
which
otherwise,
had
no
book-post
existed,
would
not
have
been
sent
through
any
other
channel.
A
Select
Committee,
which
sat
in
1854,
on
the
conveyance
of
mails
by
railway,
took
evidence
on
this
point,
and
in
their
report
stated
it
as
their
opinion,
that
a
large
proportion
of
the
packets
sent
would
not
have
been
so
forwarded
but
for
the
facilities
offered
by
the
Post-Office
in
their
distribution.
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