The Life of Sir Rowland Hill and the

238 LIFE OF SIR ROWLAND HILL. [1851-4
revenue. In 1852, however, I succeeded in demon-
strating to Lord Hardwicke that if the Post Office
were charged, on the one hand, with a fair share of
the packet service, and received credit, on the other
hand, for the stamp duty on newspapers,* the net
revenue would be found, not, as was then maintained
by some persons, nothing at all, but, as set forth in
the ordinary accounts of the department, more than
a million per annum. A year later Lord Canning,
then Postmaster-General, giving me the draft Report
of the Packet Commission which he had prepared as
chairman, with a request that I would look it over, I
found that he had adopted my views, though he ex-
pressed doubts as to the agreement of his colleagues.t
I may mention here that ten years later I prepared an
elaborate memorandum as to the means of ascertaining
the true net revenue of the Post Office. This paper,
in which the incidence of the packet service expense,
as well as other questions relative to the subject, is
duly treated of, will be found in the Appendix (I).
PACKET SERVICE.
Lord Canning *s Commission.
Of the able Report of the Commission, already
mentioned, commonly called Lord Canning's Com-
mission, the following are some of the leading points.
* The newspaper stamp duty was finally abolished in 1870. ED.
t About five weeks earlier I find the following entry in Sir R. Hill's Journal :
"May 30th, 1853. Again pressed on the Postmaster-General the unfairness of
transferring to the Post Office (as I fear is intended) the existing contracts for the
Packet Service. ... I fear the injustice will be committed nevertheless, Sir
James Graham, who generally contrives to have his own way, having made up
his mind to the thing with a view, I suspect, to give an appearance of retrenchment
in the Admiralty expenditure." ED.