The Life of Sir Rowland Hill and the

l86o-3l PACKET SERVICE. 371
learn, has never given rise to a single complaint. Its
pecuniary benefit was exemplified by a tender subsequently
made for a particular service by Sir Edward
Cunard ; the effect being to reduce the annual charge,
in this one contract alone, from ,23,000 to ^19,000,
a rate of saving, which, when applied to the whole cost
of the packet service, would amount to about .200,000
a year.
Readjustment of
Concurrently
Transmarine Rates.
with these and other measures for
reducing the cost of the service, my brother sought to
do something towards meeting its inevitable expense
by a moderate increase of postage in quarters where
the charges for conveyance were proportionately the
heaviest. Experience had shown that, where trans-
mission necessarily occupies a long time, increase of
correspondence depends far less on lowered rates than
on increased speed and frequency of transmission. He
felt, moreover that it could not be just to call upon the
British tax-payers generally to pay exorbitantly for
advantages specially appertaining to the comparatively
few persons who were directly interested in foreign
and colonial correspondence; that every branch of the
postal service ought to be self-supporting, and the false
principle of protection to particular interests entirely
shut out. At the same time, to meet the convenience
of those who required cheapness rather than speed, he
proposed a concurrent reduction on all letters sent by
ordinary trading vessels ; a mode of conveyance in-
volving very little expense. A change so doubtful
of acceptance, though so sound in
principle, Lord
and it
Stanley of Alderley had the courage to adopt ;
B B 2