Her Majesty's Mails

9. The opinion is frequently expressed in conversation, and we have often met with such expressions of opinion in our daily and weekly press, to the effect that the Post-Office ought to give more accommodation to the public in many ways, and so disburse some, if not all, of its enormous profits. These profits are said to be absurdly large; that fifty per cent. is ten times the interest of money lent on decent security, and five times as much as would satisfy sanguine private speculators. This subject of Post-Office profits is made, de facto, the principal argument against what is called the Post-Office monopoly. We have already, in other parts of this book, offered an opinion on steps which might be taken in the way of affording extra facilities to the public. A cheaper sea service and a halfpenny post for our towns are two of the most important and most practicable measures. Granted that our packet service ought to be kept up as at present, we have an invincible argument for universal free deliveries at home. When asked[200] if he thought it necessary that our Colonies should have greater postal facilities than they could pay for, Mr. Hamilton, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, answered that "a colony might reasonably complain if it was deprived of advantages of postal communication, simply because that postal communication might not be remunerative." Again, on the question of Post-Office revenue,[201] "I think the first charge upon that revenue is to supply reasonably all portions of Her Majesty's dominions with postal communication," which consideration, it seems to us, will apply equally at home and abroad. Still more important seems the plan of a halfpenny post for local letters, that is, for letters posted and delivered in the same town. Before the days of penny postage, we had penny posts in all the principal towns of the country. A halfpenny post, if only applied to our largest towns, where it would be certain to be remunerative,[202] would have the effect of materially lessening the weight of the argument that our present rate of charges is anomalous and unfair.