The EARL OF LICHFIELD, Postmaster-General, said the leading idea of Mr. Rowland Hill’s book seemed to be “the fancy that he had hit upon a scheme for recovering the two millions of revenue which he thought had been lost by the high rates of postage.” His own opinion was, that the recovery of the revenue was totally impossible. He therefore supported the measure on entirely different grounds from those on which Mr. Hill placed it. In neither house had it been brought forward on the ground that the revenue would be the gainer. He assented to it on the simple ground that THE DEMAND FOR IT WAS UNIVERSAL. So obnoxious was the tax upon letters, that he was entitled to say that “the people had declared their _readiness to submit to any impost_ that might be substituted in its stead.” The proof is thus complete, that the British system was actually adopted with sole reference to its general benefits, and the will of the people, and not at all in the expectation of realizing, in any moderate time, as much revenue as was derived from the old postage. The revenue question was discarded, from a paramount regard to the public good, which demanded the cheap postage, even if it should be necessary to impose a new tax for its support. The extravagant expectations of some of the over-sanguine friends of the new system, were expressly disclaimed, and the government justified themselves on these other considerations entirely—considerations which have been most abundantly realized. It will be easy to show that the benefits and blessings anticipated from the actual enjoyment of cheap postage, have fully equalled the most sanguine expectations of the friends of the measure, and have far exceeded in public utility, the pittance of income to the treasury, which used to be wrung out by the tax upon letters. The same examination will also show, that there is no substantial reason, either in the system itself, or in any peculiarity of our circumstances, why the same system is not equally practicable and equally applicable here, nor why we should not realize at least as great benefits as the people of Great Britain, from cheap postage.