Through the kindness of Mr Villiers, the long-time senior Member for Wolverhampton, the pamphlet, while still in manuscript, was confidentially submitted to the Government. The author, through his friend, expressed his willingness to let them have the entire credit of introducing the plan if they would accept it. Otherwise he reserved the right to lay it before the public. Many years after, Mr Villiers wrote of the satisfaction he felt that the measure was left to the unbiassed judgment of the people, for, after all, the Government had not the courage to accept the offer, and the only outcome of a rather pleasant interview, in January 1837, with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr Spring Rice, was the suggestion made by him and adopted by Rowland Hill, that the penny rate should be charged not on an ounce, but on half an ounce—to the cautious keeper of the national purse seemingly a less startling innovation. That the plan should be treated, not as a party question, but strictly on its merits, was its author's earnest, oft-repeated desire. Nor could it be properly regarded from a political aspect, since it counted among its advocates in the two Houses, and outside them, members of both parties. Yet, notwithstanding this support, and the fact that the friends of the proposed reform daily grew more numerous, the best part of three years was consumed in converting to recognition of its merits not only a fairly large portion of the official world, but the Prime Minister himself. However, the same Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, it was who declared that it was madness to contemplate as possible the abolition of the Corn Laws. “Post Office Reform” made no small sensation. It was widely read and discussed, as indeed was but natural, seeing how thoroughly dissatisfied with the old system nearly every one outside the official circle was. The proposed reform was, as a rule, heartily approved, although by some would-be clever people it was mercilessly ridiculed; and a writer in the _Quarterly Review_ assailed it, declaring, among other things, that “prepayment by means of a stamp or stamped cover is universally admitted to be quite the reverse of convenient, foreign to the habits of the people,” etc.—yet another illustration of the folly of indulging in prophecy unaccompanied by knowledge. He further professed to see in the proposal “only a means of making sedition easy.”![85]