The Report cites no one instance in support of the case which, it is said, so “constantly happens.” In the absence of such evidence I may be permitted to doubt whether the Post Office has been well informed. If such cases have occurred, it must be under extraordinary circumstances, for the Post Office itself has power to prevent such occurrences. There is nothing to prevent their sending their mail bags, as a parcel, by any train they like. They may have them carried, if they please, by a goods train, at 6d. per ton per mile; and that goods train will travel at least as fast as the old mail coach. A mail guard, with his bag of letters, may take his second-class ticket and walk into the railway carriage, with his bag, like any other passenger. On most of the lines on which it is complained that the railway rates are so heavy, the correspondence must be comparatively trifling. For instance, between Dundalk and Castle Blayney, the distance is 18½ miles. The Post Office rate paid, according to the Report, is 3s. 2d. a mile, or £2. 18s. 7d. for the whole distance; but the railway fare is only 2s. 7d. for the distance. If the Post Office insist on a special train and a travelling mail to carry a few letters, it is clear that they must pay in proportion, however minute may be the service rendered. The Report complains, that whilst the gross weight of passengers conveyed by railway, during a year, is 8 millions of tons, the gross weight of mails (including guards, clerks, &c.), is under 20,000 tons,[149] so that “the Post Office contributes less than 1/400 part to the total weight, whilst it contributes 1/23 part to the total earnings of the railways.” But this is a fallacy. The mails are not to be estimated by their weight. The tables in the Report show, that the very cases, in which the Post Office carries the smallest weight, are those in which they are obliged to make the largest mileage payments. The Report states, “the total payments to the companies for the year 1854, were £392,600, which, it may be observed, exceeds by £83,000 the 5 per cent. passenger tax for the same period.” It would therefore appear, that what the Government really pays for all the postal service of the kingdom, even on this showing of the Postmaster-General, is £83,000 a year. For this they carried Four Hundred and Fifty-six Million of letters, without reckoning newspapers and parcels. I now come to the second branch of the subject. I ventured to say, and I do not hesitate to repeat, that “without railway facilities the excellent plans of Mr. Rowland Hill for the reduction of the rates of postage could not have been carried out to their full extent.” But it is contended, that “not only would the penny postage without railways have been both practicable and remunerative, but that it would have been even more profitable than it now is.” Upon that I join issue. Would it have been practicable,—would it have been more profitable than it now is?