the present rates would give satisfaction to the public, but would
not meet the question, and would not prevent smuggling.

I. J. Brewin, of Cirencester, one of the Society of Friends,
considered the effect of a two penny rate would be, that the
post-office would get the long jobs, but not the short ones.

Lieutenant F. W. Ellis, auditor of district unions in Suffolk,
under the poor law commissioners, said that 2_d_. would not have
the effect of 1_d_. in bringing correspondence to the post-office,
because by carriers, and in other ways, letters are now conveyed
for 1_d_.

The evidence seems to have produced a universal and settled conviction,
that as far as the contraband conveyance of letters was an evil, either
financial or social, there was no remedy for it but an absolute reduction
of the postage to 1_d_. There were large portions of the country in which
the government could control the postage at a higher rate, 2_d_. or even
3_d_.; but in the densely populated districts, where the greatest amount
of correspondence arises, and where are also the greatest facilities for
evading postage, no rate higher than 1_d_. would secure the whole
correspondence to the mails. They therefore left the penal enactments just
as they were, because they might be of some convenience in some cases. Mr.
Hill declared his opinion that it would be perfectly safe to throw the
business open to competition, for that the command of capital, and other
advantages enjoyed by the post-office, would enable it to carry letters
more cheaply and punctually _than can be done_ by private individuals. And
the result shows that he was right; for the contraband carriage of letters
is put down. The Companion to the British Almanac, for 1842, says, "The
illicit transmission of letters, and the evasions practised under the old
system to avoid postage, _have entirely ceased_."

All this experience, and all these sound conclusions, are doubtless
applicable in the United States, with the additional considerations, of
the great extent of country, the limited powers of the government, the
entire absence of an organized police, and the fact that the federal
government is to so great a degree regarded as a stranger in the States.
Shall a surveillance, which the British government has abandoned as
impracticable, be seriously undertaken at this day by the congress of the
United States?

III. _The Postage Law of 1845._

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