The third allegation of Mr. Stephenson is that the Post Office has lately entered into a competition which is injurious to railway companies, by conveying books and other parcels at very reduced rates. Without stopping to inquire whether railway companies (most of whose Acts of Incorporation are of a later date than the Penny Postage Act, and several of whose lines have been opened since the commencement of the book parcel regulations) have any legal or equitable right to the monopoly of parcel traffic, it may be sufficient to state, that with very trifling exceptions it is only to books and other printed matter (the general circulation of which is so intimately connected with the diffusion of knowledge and the promotion of education), that any reduction below the ordinary postal charges for letters has been applied. Now, even assuming for a moment, that every book parcel that the Post Office carries is abstracted from parcels which would otherwise be conveyed by railway, it is obvious that the companies would not sustain any loss by such parcels becoming part of the mail, if the Post Office paid to the companies for its mail rates only as high as the booksellers pay them for their parcels, in which, for the most part, such books would be conveyed, if they were sent at all. But it is a matter of fact, that the general rates paid by the Post Office to railway companies are largely in excess of those paid by the booksellers for their parcels. It follows, therefore, that the companies, instead of being injured, would be benefited by any such abstraction, seeing that, besides receiving a higher rate of remuneration for the carriage of those book parcels, they are entirely relieved of the cost of collection and delivery, a cost which, as Mr. Stephenson shows, renders goods traffic less profitable to railway companies than passenger traffic. But a more careful consideration of this question will establish good grounds for the opinion that by far the larger portion of the book parcels which the Post Office carries would not be sent at all, but for the peculiar facilities offered by the extensive organisation of the Post Office, contrasted with which the facilities which railway companies can of themselves afford sink into insignificance.