he United Kingdom_,
unless it can be shown how we are to collect so small a sum as the
thirty-sixth part of a penny."--Rowland Hill, _Post Office Reform: Its
Importance and Practicability_, London, 1837, pp. 18-19.

[76] Ibid., p. 45.

[77] A "frank" was a letter or packet bearing on the outside the
signature of a person entitled to send letters free of postage.

[78] These proposals are not, however, necessarily related to the
principle of uniformity, and, although interesting and important at the
time, are now only of historical interest. They relate more particularly
to the practicability of applying low and uniform rates to the postal
service in the United Kingdom, having regard to the circumstances then
obtaining and to the necessity for maintaining a large net revenue.
Given that uniformity of rate was scientifically sound, it did not
follow that it should be immediately adopted, and the financial effect
was, to say the least, speculative. But since it was unlikely that the
plan would be adopted if any large decrease in revenue were likely to
result, Sir Rowland Hill was at great pains to explain methods by which
his plan could be adopted without serious reduction of net revenue, and
it was in this connection that the question of the increase in traffic
which might be anticipated assumed such importance.

[79] See, e.g., H. von Stephan, _Geschichte der preussischen Post_,
Berlin, 1859, p. 615.

[80] _Ninth Report of Commissioners for Inquiring into the Mode of
Conducting the Business of the Post Office Department_, 1837, Appendix,
pp. 26-40.

[81] "Of all the wild and visionary schemes he had ever heard or read
of, it was the most extraordinary."--Lord Lichfleld, Postmaster-General,
15 June 1837, _Parl. Debates_ (_Lords_), vol. xxxviii, col. 1464.

"He considers the whole scheme of Mr. Hill as utterly fallacious; he
thought so from the first moment he read the pamphlet of Mr. Hill; and
his opinion of the plan was formed long before the evidence was given
before the Committee. The plan appears to him a most preposterous one,
utterly unsupported by facts, and resting entirely on assumption. Every
experiment in the way of reduction which has been made by the Post
Office has shown its fallacy; for every reduction whatever leads to a
loss of revenue, in the first instance: if the reduction be small, the
revenue recovers itself; but if the rates were to be reduced to a penny,
revenue would not recover itself for