to form any serious obstacle to correspondence, is
there, perhaps, a more unobjectionable tax."--J. R. McCulloch, _Taxation
and Funding_, p. 320.

[753] "The Post Office in reality is neither a commercial nor a
philanthropic establishment, but simply one of the revenue departments
of the Government. It very rightly insists that no country post office
shall be established unless the correspondence passing through it shall
warrant the increased expense, and it maintains a tariff which has no
accordance whatever with the cost of conveyance. Books, newspapers, and
even unsealed manuscripts, can be sent up to the weight of 4 ounces for
a penny; whereas if a sealed letter in the least exceeds 1/2 ounce it is
charged 2d. It is obvious that the charges of the Post Office are for
the most part a purely arbitrary system of taxes, designed to maintain
the large net revenue of the Post Office, now (1867) amounting to a
million and a half sterling.

"It will thus be apparent that Sir Rowland Hill's scheme of postal
tariff consisted in substituting one arbitrary system of charges for a
system more arbitrary and onerous."--W. S. Jevons, _Methods of Social
Reform_, London, 1883, p. 280.

[754] "Will it pay?

"I will here lay down what may seem to financiers in this House a
somewhat startling position. I hold that the State has no right to make
a profit out of the Post Office. (Cheers.) ... Probably half the letters
sent are business letters; and another very large share is sent by
persons of small means who have many stern inducements to take care of
their pence. In other words, one half of your postal revenue is derived
from a tax on the machinery of trade, and another large share from the
poorest class of citizens.

"This is practically a tax on commerce."--Sir J. Henniker Heaton, _Parl.
Debates_ (_Commons_), 30th March 1886.

[755] "Regarded as a tax diffused over the whole community, it is on the
whole defensible, though the tendency to insist that the postal profits
shall be devoted to improving the service is already becoming more
pronounced."--C. F. Bastable, op. cit., p. 575.

"The Post Office, therefore, is at present one of the best sources from
which this country derives its revenue. But a postage much exceeding
what would be paid for the same service in a system of freedom is not a
desirable tax. Its chief weight falls on letters of business, and
increases the expense of mercantile relations between distant places.