“_March 12th, 1842._—Penny Postage is safe. Sir Robert Peel, in announcing his financial measures last night, states that he does not intend to advance the rate, at least at present. He speaks highly of the social advantages of Penny Postage, and expresses an opinion that the measure has not yet had a full trial. But he states, erroneously, that the cost of the packet service defrayed by the Admiralty exceeds the Post Office net revenue.” This was, I believe, the first appearance of a statement which, in one form or other, has ever since tended to perplex or mislead the public. More of this hereafter. Of my efforts for improvement during this year of difficulties I propose to speak in less detail than heretofore, limiting attention to a few matters of chief importance. My labours were not altogether ineffectual, though for the most part, as I have already said, it was but seldom that I was able to accomplish anything of much importance. To some extent the rule already adopted with regard to new salaries and additional emoluments must, I think, have acted to check extravagance, even when control had passed from my own hands; and I may add that an occurrence about this time, due to past proceedings, showed in a striking manner the value of the rule:— “_June 11th, 1842._—Week’s work chiefly a large number of salary cases, _i.e._, applications for advances, allowances, &c., which have been waiting ever since May, 1841, for returns ordered from the Post Office. Many prove on investigation to be utterly groundless: whether this explains the delay of twelve months in making the returns (some, indeed, are not even yet sent in) I cannot say.” Of course, my chief aim at this time, supposing the penny rate to be secure, was to introduce measures for increased facility, on which depended, in great degree, the multiplication of letters, and for improved economy to render such increase adequately beneficial to the revenue. It will be remembered[314] that one of the last acts of the late Chancellor of the Exchequer was to sanction a plan for extending rural distribution. The necessity for such a measure is shown in the following summary, which I subsequently gave in evidence, the items of which, though literally correct, will scarcely be credited in the present day:— “The establishment of rural Post Offices does not appear to have been regulated by any well-defined principle. In some districts, owing apparently to the greater activity of the surveyors, they are exceedingly numerous; in others, of superior relative importance, they are comparatively infrequent. Some places, of 200 or 300 inhabitants, have them; others, with 2,000 or 3,000, are without.