There could, however, be no doubt that with a reduction of the rate, which then averaged 8-1/2d. a letter, the number of letters would be very greatly increased and the cost per letter consequently reduced. The public were in the habit of making use of every available means other than the post for forwarding their letters. Steamboats which carried a mail would carry outside the mail many times the number of letters that were enclosed in the mail. Teamsters, stage drivers, and ordinary travellers all carried large numbers of letters, and in cases where no such opportunity offered, persons had been known to enclose the letter in a small package, which could be sent as freight at less charge than the rate of postage on the single letter. If, therefore, all these letters, and the many additional letters which would be written if transmission were cheap and easy, were sent in the mails, the cost of the service would not be by any means proportionately increased, and the average cost per letter would be very greatly reduced. It would still, however, have been considerably more than a penny. Their conclusions were less satisfactory in regard to the rates actually recommended. They proposed a graduation according to distance of no less than five stages, starting with as short a distance as 30 miles. For this the rate was 2d., and the scale rose to 1s. for distances over 300 miles. The only virtues of the rates were that they were lower than those in operation in the United States and were to be charged by weight.[119] The chief recommendations of this report were carried out under the authority of the Colonial Office. The weight basis for determining rates of postage was adopted, and the Deputy Postmaster-General's authority was restricted. His privilege of sending newspapers free of postage was also taken away, and in compensation he was given a salary of £2,500 a year--personal to himself, and high on account of his long enjoyment of the lucrative newspaper privilege. That for his successor was fixed at £1,500 a year. The agitation in the provinces in regard to the Post Office continued during the succeeding years, but it was less vehement and concerned itself more with the question of rates than with questions of administration.