At last victory was assured. The Parliamentary Committee reported in favor of change. But Parliament hesitated to fix the change in permanent form. By Act of 17th August, 1839, the Lords of the Treasury were empowered by warrant under their hands to declare the rates of postage according to weight, “without reference to the distance or number of miles the same shall be conveyed,”--and also to suspend, wholly or in part, “any parliamentary or official privilege of sending and receiving letters by the post free of postage, or any other franking privilege of any description whatsoever.” The Lords of the Treasury were contented with ordering a uniform rate of fourpence, and without the abolition of the franking privilege. This was not enough. The people called for more, and the Lords of the Treasury by another warrant declared the rate at one penny and suspended the franking privilege.[63] This was followed by the Act of Parliament passed 10th August, 1840, in which the great change was consummated. The rate was established at one penny, with stamps; and the franking privilege was abolished, except in the case of petitions to the Crown or to Parliament not exceeding thirty-two ounces in weight. The clause of abolition was as follows:-- “That, except in the cases herein specified, all privileges whatsoever of sending letters by the post free of postage, or at a reduced rate of postage, shall wholly cease and determine.”[64] The abolition of the franking privilege was more than Rowland Hill had proposed. In his testimony before the Parliamentary Committee he undertook to account for the anticipated increase of letters “in some measure from the _partial voluntary disuse_ of the franking privilege,”[65]--thus mildly forecasting, not its abolition, but its voluntary renunciation. And the Committee, in their recommendations, treated its abolition as incident to cheap postage. This is their language:-- “It would be politic, … _if, on effecting the proposed reduction of the postage rates_, the privilege of Parliamentary franking were to be abolished, and the privilege of official franking placed under strict limitation,--petitions to Parliament and Parliamentary documents being still allowed to go free.”[66] Thus was the abolition of the franking privilege announced as subordinate to the reduction of the postage rates, which was the main object.