Colonel Maberly would like a uniform rate of postage, but did not think it practicable. “Any arrangements which, in the great details of Post Office matters, introduce simplicity, he looks upon as a great improvement.”[211] Most of the other Post Office authorities liked the idea of a uniform rate, as “it would very much facilitate all the operations of the Post Office.”[212] The feasibility of payment in advance, now the almost universal practice, was the subject of much inquiry. Most of the witnesses from the Post Office recognised the advantage of the arrangement, though some of them doubted its practicability. Part of this difficulty, it must be admitted, was, in some sort, of my own creating; for, perceiving that the costly system of accounting rendered necessary by payment on delivery could never be entirely set aside unless prepayment became universal, my first notion had been to make this compulsory; and though, to smooth the difficulties, I recommended that in the outset an option should be allowed,—that, namely, which exists at present,—I certainly looked upon this as but a temporary expedient, and both desired and expected that the period of probation might be short. Doubtless it was a mistake, though a very natural one, so to clog my plan; my aim, however, was not to establish a pleasing symmetry, but to attain an important practical end. The Postmaster-General and the Secretary were both of opinion that the public would not like prepayment. Being called on to reply to objections on this point, I showed that the question for the public to determine was between prepayment at a low rate and post-payment at a high rate; and I ventured to predict that, when so considered, the objection to prepayment would speedily die away; the more so as the difference proposed to be made between the two modes of payment, viz., that between one penny and twopence, was not adopted “as an artificial means of enforcing prepayment,” but arose “out of the greater economy to the Post Office of the one arrangement as compared with the other.” Nearly twenty other witnesses were examined on the same point, all supporting my view, some going so far as to advise that compulsory prepayment should be established at once; and, indeed, the ease with which prepayment became the general, nay almost universal, custom, must make it seem wonderful that its adoption should ever have been considered as presenting serious difficulties.