This had been moved by Mr. P. Thomson, and the substance of it was to abandon the recommendation of a uniform rate and to consider instead a Report proposed by Lord Seymour, the chief points of which were to recommend the maintenance of the charge by distance and the establishment of a rate varying from one penny, for distances under fifteen miles, to one shilling for distances above two hundred miles, or of some similar scale. _This, it must be observed, would have been adopted as the recommendation of the committee but for the casting vote of the Chairman, Mr. Wallace._ To what extent so untoward a circumstance would have retarded the cause of postal reform it would be difficult now even to conjecture; but it cannot be doubted that the success, which, even with the support of the committee, was so hardly achieved, would at least have undergone long and injurious delay. To make this clear, it must be observed that by the adoption of Lord Seymour’s draft Report (a copy of which I have before me) not only the recommendations for uniformity and decided reduction of postage would have been set aside, but also those for increased facilities, for the general use of stamps, and for charge by weight instead of by the number of enclosures. Lord Seymour’s Report, however, though so unsatisfactory in its recommendations, and, according to my view, very erroneous in its reasonings on many points (more especially in its main argumentation, viz., that against uniformity), yet contained passages of great use to me at the time, as confirming my statements, and more or less directly supporting my views; particularly as regards the evils which high rates of postage brought upon the poor, the vast extent of illicit conveyance, the evils of the frank system, and even many of the advantages of a uniform charge. Doubtless, had the recommendations contained in this Report been voluntarily adopted by the Post Office only two years before, almost every one of them would have been received as a grace; but it was now too late, their sum total being altogether too slight to make any approach towards satisfying the expectations which had subsequently arisen. Before quite leaving Lord Seymour’s Report, I must, in candour, admit that on one point his prediction was truer than my own, though, as my own remained unpublished, I was not committed to it. The following is the passage:— “It appears that the great change which must result from the substitution of railways for mails [mail-coaches] will have the effect of increasing considerably the cost of conveying the correspondence of the country.” In my copy of this draft Report (given to me, I suppose, by Mr. Wallace) I find the following remark in my own handwriting:— “No such thing. One railway stands in place of several common roads.”