great source of revenue to the Post Office, which failed, however, to work out a system that would have been remunerative to itself, and advantageous to the public; and the consequence has been, that the public have resorted to what I may call, in the words of the Report, the “superior facilities” of the railway. But the railway gets for the carriage of these parcels nothing like the amount that the Post Office would get. The Post Office is bound, under Act of Parliament, to charge 1d. per paper, but the railways take these papers in bulk, several hundreds in a package; and carry them at the rate of so much per ton. To tell us, that an act of their own, by which they threw off an excess of labour which had become not only burdensome, but overpowering to the Post Office, was done out of consideration for the railways, and as a compensation for the abstraction of the book parcels, is not likely to be entirely acquiesced in. The number of book parcels that passed through the Post Office last year was a million and a-half. Captain Huish, in his evidence before Parliament in 1854, has shown, that the loss of revenue to railways, by the abstraction of book parcels has, in some cases, borne a large proportion to the sum paid to railway companies for the conveyance of the mails. A stronger proof than this, of the unfair dealing of the Post Office towards the railway companies, could scarcely be afforded. But I own, that I do not look so much to the actual loss as to the bad precedent. It seems to me, that there is no limit to what the Post Office may carry, if this is permitted. There are many lighter articles than books forming the substance of railway packages. Is the Post Office to undertake all the light carrier trade of the kingdom, without extra payment to the railways for the use of the roads? The Report says, “Mr. Stephenson is unfortunate in putting forward as an illustration the cheap transmission of printed proceedings of Parliament. Under the old postal system, and during the existence of mail coaches, Parliamentary reports and proceedings were conveyed by post free of all charges. On the introduction of a penny postage, a postal charge for their conveyance was imposed, which continues up to the present day.” If I am unfortunate in referring to this charge, the Report, I must say, is doubly so. For if all Parliamentary papers have been subjected to a penny postage, who receives the money? The railways ought to have a share of it; but they get nothing. The public ought to have a share of it; but on the contrary, the Post Office, which has greater facilities for carrying public papers, makes the public pay more for their transmission instead of carrying them for less. Who, then, does get the penny? The only answer is, that it goes to the credit of the Post Office account in reduction of the expenses incurred in carrying out the penny postage system.