the financial reforms
which had been introduced in recent years, and found that the effect on
the revenue of reductions in the rate of tax showed very considerable
variations. While in some cases, as, for example, leather and soap, a
reduction of the duty by one-half had reduced the revenue by one-third,
a similar reduction of the duty on coffee had increased the revenue by
one-half. From this Sir Rowland Hill concluded that it was of the utmost
importance to select carefully the taxes to be reduced, and he cast
about for some guiding principle in the light of which the most suitable
tax for reduction might be discovered. This principle he deduced to be
as follows, viz. that the tax which most called for reduction was that
which had failed most to keep pace with the increasing numbers and
prosperity of the nation.[69] Tested in this way, the tax on letters
proved unsatisfactory. While in most other departments of the revenue
the preceding twenty years had been years of expansion and progress--as
might be anticipated during a period of peace following great and
exhausting wars--in the case of the Post Office the period had been one
of stagnation.

Attention had already been directed to this fact by Sir Henry
Parnell.[70] Between the years 1815 and 1835 the duty on stage-coaches
had increased from [L]218,000 to nearly [L]500,000 a year. During the same
period the revenue of the Post Office, both gross and net, had not
increased at all--in point of fact, it had slightly decreased. If it had
kept pace with the increase of population, the annual net revenue would
have increased by half a million. If it had increased in the same
proportion as the duty on stage-coaches, the revenue of 1835 would have
exceeded that of 1815 by no less than [L]2,000,000. These facts convinced
Sir Rowland Hill that a reduction of the rates of postage was urgently
necessary; and apart from financial considerations, the moral and
intellectual results which would follow a facilitation of intercourse
appealed powerfully to a reforming Radical.[71] Having arrived at the
conviction that the Post Office offered most scope for his zeal, he
found no lack of material to work upon. A Commission of Inquiry into the
Revenue Departments had reported on the Post Office in 1829. A
Commission of Inquiry on the Post Office had been sitting for some
years, and had made numerous voluminous reports. Sir Rowland Hill set to
work to make a careful study of the informat