I stated, in my address, that not only was the Post Office dealing illiberally with the railway companies, but that it was absolutely entering into competition with them, as carriers, by undertaking the conveyance of books and other parcels, at very reduced postal rates. The Post Office authorities open their reply by saying, that they shall not stop to inquire whether railway companies have any legal, or equitable right to the monopoly of parcel traffic.[154] I shall not stop to inquire, by what policy a Government department steps in to interfere with the free course of trade. But, argues the Report, the companies sustain no loss, “for the general rates paid by the Post Office to railway companies are largely in excess of those paid by the booksellers for their parcels.” The Post Office has never paid one farthing to the railway companies in respect of these parcels. The Post Office pays the companies so much per mile for the whole service. It carries what it pleases. It chooses to carry books. Those books formerly went by the companies’ luggage vans, and were paid for to the companies by the public. The Post Office undertakes the carriage of these parcels, puts them into its letter bags, and carries them, under its contract with the railways, without paying the railways a single farthing extra. The railways suffer all the loss: the Post Office obtains all the profit. And then the Report tells you that “the companies, instead of being injured, are benefited by the abstraction.” “By far the larger portion of the book parcels,” says the Report, “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.” But there is one remarkable fact in the Report which is inconsistent with this theory. Since the stamp duty has been removed from newspapers, the Post Office, on their own showing, has lost the annual delivery of nearly 28,000,000 of newspapers, which formerly passed through the post;[155] and there is reason to believe, that the number of such transmissions is daily decreasing. Now, if the superior facilities of the Post Office induce the public to get their book parcels by post, how is it that they are gradually relinquishing the use of the post as a means of getting their newspapers? The superior facilities, if there are any, are precisely of the same description both for newspapers and book parcels; yet, nevertheless, the public, who best know how to appreciate superior facilities, are gradually giving up the facilities of the post in respect to newspapers, and employing the facilities afforded by the railway. The superior facilities, are, therefore, not estimated by the public as equivalent to 1d. per newspaper parcel.