As another means of diminishing theft, I proposed a reduction of the fee for money orders; and this also was carried into effect; the rates being reduced from 6_d._ to 3_d._ for any sum not exceeding £2; and from 1_s._ 6_d._ to 6_d._ for any higher sum up to £5. This reduction, combined with the low postage charged on transmission, had the effect of increasing the number of money-orders in ten years by more than twenty-fold.[303] The most troublesome and unsatisfactory duty now devolving upon me was resistance to needless increase of expense. I found, with great concern, that augmentation was proceeding rapidly; and, indeed, the addition during the first year of penny postage amounted to something more than £100,000;[304] that, too, following an increase of £70,000 in the previous year; an amount sufficient to produce a very serious injury to fiscal results, the whole of which I well knew would be by many attributed to my reform. The increase was partly due to what was, in one point of view, an untoward coincidence, viz., the concurrent extension of the railway system. For though this tended greatly to the convenience of correspondents, and therefore to increase in the amount of correspondence, yet its effect in augmenting postal expenditure was quite startling. That an improvement which has so prodigiously cheapened the conveyance of passengers and goods should have greatly raised the cost of conveying the mails, however paradoxical, is demonstrably true, as indeed appears by the following simple statement. The total charge for carrying the inland mails in the year 1835 (that before the writing of my pamphlet) was £225,920;[305] and it will be remembered that the mail-coaches were then so lightly loaded as to admit of a manifold increase in burden without much addition to their number. By the end of 1840, when the number of chargeable letters had little more than doubled, while that of free missives must have greatly decreased, this charge had risen to £333,418,[306] and at the present time (1868) it appears to be as high as £718,480.[307] Of course, great benefit to the Post Office is derived from the vast increase in speed, and greater allowance of space; but while in all these the public has its full share, it enjoys at the same time that great reduction in expense, which contrasts so remarkably with the increased charge to the Post Office. To a limited extent, explanation is to be found in the loss of that immunity from tolls which in England all mail-coaches enjoyed on the old roads; but the main augmentation is attributable to circumstances which could not be considered without a too-long digression. The increase was and is unquestionable; and the coincidence, as already implied, was misleading, giving an excellent handle to the enemies of the reform, and demanding of its friends a longer explanation than the public had time or inclination to follow.