“1,588. Why should you regret that being made public?—They would reach us so much later, and throw so much upon the last half-hour in the evening. “1,589. That is the time when the office is most pressed by business?—Yes. “1,590. _Mr. Currie_ [a member of the committee]. In fact, the office has given the public an accommodation which the office is anxious that the public should not profit by?”[241] * * * * * “1,655. If Mr Hill’s plan were carried into effect, I do not think that any tradesman could be got to receive letters [_i.e._, to keep a receiving-house] under £100 year.”[242] The Postmaster-General:— “Question 2,821. He [Mr. Hill] anticipates only an increase of five and a quarter-fold [to make up the gross revenue]; it will require twelve-fold on our calculation.... Therefore it comes to that point, which is right and which is wrong: I maintain that our calculations are more likely to be right than his.”[243] It may be remarked here that the gross revenue rather more than recovered itself in the year 1851, the increase of letters being then only four and three-quarters-fold.[244] My own examination occupied a considerable portion of six several days, my task being not only to state and enforce my own views, but to reply to objections raised by such of the Post Office authorities as were against the proposed reform. This list comprised—with the exception of Mr. Peacock, the solicitor,—all the highest officials in the chief office; and however unfortunate their opposition, and however galling I felt it at the time, I must admit on retrospect that, passing over the question of means employed, their resistance to my bold innovation was very natural. Its adoption must have been dreaded by men of routine, as involving, or seeming to involve, a total derangement of proceeding—an overthrow of established order; while the immediate loss of revenue—inevitable from the manner in which alone the change could then be introduced (all gradual or limited reform having by that time been condemned by the public voice), a loss, moreover, greatly exaggerated in the minds of those who could not or did not see the means direct and indirect of its recuperation, must naturally have alarmed the appointed guardians of this branch of the national income. If, as the evidence proceeded, they began to question the wisdom of their original decision, they probably thought, at the same time, that the die was now cast, their course taken, and all that remained was to maintain their ground as best they could. The nature and extent of Post Office resistance, much as has appeared already, is most conspicuous in the following extracts—the last I shall make—from the Digest of Evidence, in which are summed up the opinions put forth by Colonel Maberly, the Secretary; opinions from which, so far as I am aware, he never receded:—