The Life of Sir Rowland Hill and the

APPENDIX M. 489
On the plan set forth above, if taken as a whole, I think it would
be safe and justifiable to reduce the charge for what I have called
the primary distribution of newspapers, &c., to one halfpenny the
four ounces, that is to say to one-half the present rate.
Security against fraud generally, it may be pointed out, would be
immeasurably increased if the proposed boon were accompanied
with the entire abolition of the impressed stamp, the use of which,
besides maintaining a constant temptation to dishonesty, demands,
on the part of the Post Office and the public, the observance of a
highly complicated set of rules, involving so much trouble that they
are constantly violated with impunity.
This change, however, would have to be accompanied with the
issue of a three-halfpenny adhesive stamp* (a measure actually con-
templated some years ago) to supply the place of the impressed
stamp of the same value now used by newspapers which, like the
Times or Illustrated London News occasionally range in weight
between four and six ounces. The use of the new stamp might
very properly be extended to all other printed matter of like
weight.
Before touching on further possibilities as respects newspapers,
I return to the subject of letters, in relation to which much
additional improvement is desirable. This might be arranged
under the following heads :
(a) Increase in the number of deliveries ; at least in the large
towns.
(b) The extension of periodic (not necessarily daily) delivery to
every house, however remote, as in France, Prussia, and
Switzerland; an improvement important, not only to commercial
interests and social intercourse, but to jurisprudence,
legislation, and political action.
(c) The establishment on one or two of the great routes say
after a trial for a short distance of a mode of conveyance
far more rapid than any yet employed, but delayed on
account of its great expense, viz., tubular conveyance ; by
the use of which, in the opinion of the eminent engineers,
Mr. C. H. Gregory and Mr. E. A. Cowper (as set forth
by them in a report to myself dated October, 1859), a speed
of from 120 to 150 miles an hour might be attained, though
at a total annual cost (interest of capital inclusive) of
about ;8oo per mile, from which, however, there would be
* This was written at a time when, as yet, there were no halfpenny stamps. ED.