The postage on inland letters was reduced in 1865, 1871, 1884, and again in 1897. In 1839, the last year of high postal rates, the total number of letters, including franks, delivered in the United Kingdom, was somewhat in excess of eighty-two millions. This number was rather more than doubled in the following year. During the ensuing ten years the figures were again doubled, the total in 1850 being 347 millions. For the five-year period 1866-70, following the reduction in postage of 1865, the average yearly number delivered was 800 millions. In 1875 this increased to a little over 1000 millions; in the postal year 1880-81 to 1176 millions, in 1890-91 to 1705 millions, and in 1900-01 to 2323 millions.[265] So far as colonial letters were concerned, a marked reduction in rates was granted soon after inland penny postage was obtained, the reduction being extended to the larger part of the Empire.[266] Further reductions followed until, in 1898, a penny half ounce rate was established for most of the colonies, and all were included in 1905. As on a previous occasion, the United States was the first foreign country with which an agreement was made to adopt this low rate, and its advantages have been enhanced still further by an increase in the initial weight from half an ounce to an ounce. During the sixties, treaties were entered into with the most important European countries for lower postage rates, and, in 1874, at the first meeting of the Postal Union, a uniform rate for prepaid letters of 2-1/2_d._ a half ounce was agreed to. Reductions also followed for other postal matter. In 1891 a universal foreign letter rate of 2-1/2_d._ was announced so far as the United Kingdom was concerned, with the exception of those countries where a lower rate already prevailed, and a further reduction followed in 1907 by increasing the initial weight from half an ounce to an ounce in the case of all foreign and colonial letters, the charge on foreign letters for each unit after the first being reduced at the same time from 2-1/2_d._ to 1-1/2_d._ [265] _Rep. P. G._, 1855, p. 65; 1881, app., p. 11; 1891, app., p. 16; 1901, app., p. 25. [266] Colonial legislatures were given the power in 1849 to establish posts of their own and to fix the inland postal rates (12 and 13 Vict., c. 26).