The Life of Sir Rowland Hill and the

1843] CORRESPONDENCE WITH AUSTRALIA. II
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"Where does such advice appear? In the notice given by the
Post Office on the occasion.
"
Does that contain anything more than an announcement to the
public that the East India Company had made such a regulation ?
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Yes ; it contains a recommendation to the public to address their
letters to the care of correspondents in India.
"Mr. Tennent. The tenor of your former answer would import
that that was a suggestion emanating from the Post Office ; are you
aware that that was a recommendation made to the public by the
Post Office
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in pursuance of direct instructions from the Directors of
the East India Company ? I was not aware till this moment that
the Directors of the East India Company had power to issue instructions
to the Postmaster-General.
"Are you aware of any instruction given by the East India
Directors to the Post Office, that if parties wished their letters to be
forwarded, they must find an agent there to do it ? I ******
have, of course,
no means of knowing the correspondence between the Post Office
and the East India Company.
But assuming
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that the facts are as I gather from the questions of the
honourable gentleman, I do not see how those facts can place the
Post Office under the necessity of calling upon the British public to
do that which is quite impracticable.
"
Chairman. What course has been taken ? The course which
appears to have been taken is this, that the Post Office issued the
notice I have read in the course of the last April, and that it was
withdrawn almost immediately after, in consequence, as it appears
to me, of the ridicule which the proceeding brought upon the Post
Office."*
The proceedings of the Committee, as I have
already stated, were brought to a rather abrupt con-
clusion, so as to prevent, for the moment, an elaborate
Report. Nevertheless the power to say enough to
acquit both the Treasury and Post Office was
* " Report of the Committee on Postage (1843)," questions 423-439.