subject, because I find that here
is the great difficulty in the application of the principles and results
of the British system to our own country--ours is such a "great country,"
and we have so many "magnificent distances." But disposing as I have of
the unproductive mail routes, and showing as I have, the injustice of
taxing letters with the expense of any public burthens, this whole
difficulty is removed, and it is made to appear that two cents is the
highest proper rate of postage which the government can justly exact for
letters, on the score either of a just equivalent for the service
rendered, or of a tax imposed for the purposes of the government itself.

This is the conclusion to which the parliamentary committee were most
intelligently and satisfactorily drawn--that "the principle of a uniform
postage is founded on the facts, that the cost of distributing letters in
the United Kingdom consists chiefly in the expenses incurred with
reference to their receipt at and delivery from the office, and that the
cost of transit along the mail roads is comparatively unimportant, and
determined rather by the number of letters carried than the distance;"
that "as the cost of conveyance per letter depends more on the number of
letters carried than on the distance which they are conveyed, (the cost
being frequently greater for distances of a few miles, than for distances
of hundreds of miles,) the charge, if varied in proportion to the cost,
ought to increase in the inverse ratio of the number of letters conveyed,"
but it would be impossible to carry such a rule into practice, and
therefore the committee were of opinion, that "the easiest practicable
approach to a fair system, would be to charge a medium rate of postage
between one post-office and another, whatever may be their distance." And
the committee were further of opinion, "that such an arrangement is highly
desirable, not only on account of its abstract fairness, but because it
would tend in a great degree to simplify and economize the business of the
post-office."

Waterston's Cyclopedia of Commerce says, "the fixing of _a low rate_
flowed almost necessarily from the adoption of a _uniform_ rate. It was
besides essential to the stoppage of the private conveyance of letters.
The post-office was thus to be restored to its ancient footing of an
institution, whose primary object was public accommodation, not revenue."

The adoption of this simple principle, of Unifo