We can now come to veritable proposals. Though it is due to Mr. Sikes to say that the fact of prior proposals, with the same object in view, were either forgotten or only came to light for the first time after he had publicly made and urged his plans on the country, it seems not to admit of question that two gentlemen had been, quite unknown to him or the public generally, over the same ground before him, and, whether wisely or not we will not attempt to decide, had desisted from pressing their plans after obtaining an adverse decision with regard to them. So far as the Post Office is concerned, it is only fair to say that the authorities up to quite a recent period have had their hands sufficiently full in completing the plan of Penny Postage Reform which, for several years after the passing of the Act of 1839, was almost held in abeyance; and that, inundated with crude and undeveloped schemes, it was requisite that a plan in which so much was involved should be well matured, and go weighted with the stamp of public approval. Whether, however, the Post Office system was prepared so early as 1851,--the date of the earliest proposal,--to undertake Savings Bank business, is a question which, considering the transition state in which it then was, admits of some doubt. In 1852, the Rev. George Hans Hamilton, the Vicar of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and now Archdeacon of Lindisfarne, proposed through his relative, Mr. G. A. Hamilton of the Treasury, a national system of Savings Banks to be worked by means of the Post Office,[160] which it is but justice to say presents many, if not most, of the features of the plan eventually produced. Mr. Hamilton met with varying success; his proposals were not taken up warmly, but were understood by him to present difficulties which might ultimately be overcome. Had this gentleman persevered in the advocacy of the scheme which he propounded, or had he had the good fortune, to have fallen on more favourable times, with Mr. Gladstone as Chancellor of the Exchequer, there can be little doubt that his plan would have been cordially taken up and his name ever associated with it. As it was, his exertions were recognised by Mr. Gladstone when he came to deal with the matter, that gentleman referring on one occasion to the valuable suggestions he had made. It should be added, that Mr. Hamilton has, since the plans came into operation, urged a modification of one of its features (to be referred to hereafter), and it is little to say, considering the value and the shrewdness of his original suggestions, that he is well entitled to be heard on the point.