THE POST. OFFICE SYSTEM.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR.
12 mo. 5,1842
RESPECTED Fitiersn—Thy attention on former occasions to the subject of Post-office Reform induces me to trouble thee with a few remarks tbare00. We have a Penny Postage ; and so far as the mere cost of conveyance is eon*. dered, the public have no cause for complaint. But this is only a part of the advantages to be derived from a fuller development of the principles of the Penny Postage Act. It is evident that if the time occupied in conveying let- ters to their destination be unnecessarily long, the benefits of cheap postage are neutralized by the delay and inconvenience attending the delivery. It is notorious that thousands of letters and small parcels are eent by railways and carriers instead of the post, because the former deliver them more expeditiously than the letter ; and this temptation to defraud the revenue will continue to operate unless the Government overcome it by increasing the facilities for a more speedy transmission of letters, &c. through the Post-office. As the Government possesses the monopoly of carrying letters, it is but just that the public should derive all the accommodation the Post-office is capable of affording, or else it should be abandoned to private enterprise. The subject is important, and worth the notice of the public press; and 1 know of none more capable of doing justice to it than the Spectator.
I remain respectfully, J. H. [We arc fully alive to the importance of the subject; but all practical con- clusions respecting it depend upon many and complicated facts, which we have not at command. The question of the completion of the Penny Postage plan can be little furthered, in this stage, by mere newspaper discussion : it requires searching and grave inquiry, which it must receive, at the hands of a Perlis; in ntary Committee, in the ensuing session.—En.]
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