Mr. Patey had supported Mr. Blackwood's request with the statement, based upon inquiry of postmasters throughout the United Kingdom, that "in a very large number of towns only a small part of the telegraphic news transmitted was inserted in the newspapers. In many cases, on inquiry of the proprietors, it was stated that it was not inserted inasmuch as it was not of interest to the readers. In other cases, because the amount of local news was more than would admit of the special telegraphic news being inserted." Mr. Patey also had quoted from a recent issue of the _Glasgow Herald_ the statement, that "there was not a leading provincial paper in the Kingdom, the sub-editorial room of which was not littered in the small hours of the morning ankle deep with rejected telegraph flimsy;" and from a recent issue of the _Freeman's Journal_: "The fact is, that the Post Office, and the better class of papers as well, are both over-pressed with these cheap duplicate telegrams. We suppose we pay for about ten times as many as we print. Though we get them, and pay for them, so as to insure having the best news from every quarter, we regard them rather as a nuisance, and would be glad to have them reduced in quantity." And finally, Mr. Patey had argued that the newspaper press was able to pay much more than it did pay, "inasmuch as there had been a tendency on the part of the papers generally, not confined only to the large papers," to get their news by special messages prepared by their own agents and not sent in duplicate to any extent.[109] Before the _Select Committee on the Revenue Departments Estimates_, 1888, Mr. C. H. B. Patey, Third Secretary to the Post Office, stated: "We believe that the tariff under which the press messages are sent in this country causes a loss amounting to nearly $1,000,000 a year."[110] In August, 1888, in the House of Commons, Mr. Cochrane-Baillie asked the Postmaster General "whether in view of the _Report of the Committee on the Revenue Departments Estimates_, he could state that the Government would bring in further legislation to relieve the country from the loss incurred by the present arrangement in connection with press telegrams?" The Postmaster General replied that "he was quite in accord with the Committee on Revenue Departments but he feared it would be difficult to effect any change, since the newspaper press tariff was fixed by the Act of 1868, and had been in force for upward of eighteen years."[111] [Sidenote: _Annual loss on Newspaper Messages estimated at $1,500,000_]