Having thus dealt with the past and present, I proceeded to speak of the future; and here I turned again to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as a judge certainly free from all suspicion of undue leaning towards penny postage, for an opinion as to the results to be expected from those improvements for which I had so strenuously contended. In the same speech he anticipated "that the revenue of the Post Office, as additional facilities are given, will continue to present a large annual increase;" and further on he estimated the net postal revenue for the current year at £850,000. I was able, even then, truly to add--and I may observe in passing, that this remark has since that time been frequently repeated by others--that there was no branch of the revenue the increase of which was so steady and rapid as the revenue of the Post Office. I pointed out that, as education became more and more extended, a large increase of correspondence, and consequently of revenue, might be confidently expected; the more so because, great as the actual amount appeared when viewed in the aggregate, the average yielded by its division amongst the whole population was but one letter per month for each person; while if the time should ever come when the average postage of the country would equal that given by the domestic correspondence of my own family, including children and servants, the annual gross revenue of the Post Office would amount to more than £40,000,000--or twentyfold its actual sum. But if the present imperfect arrangements afforded such results as those which had actually been realized, what would be the effect of adopting the whole plan? Little had been done towards this during the last three years, but the Post Office had reluctantly made at least one valuable move. It had established new deliveries in London to the extent, if not of six, as recommended by myself, yet to that of three. The effect was immediately to advance the annual rate of increase in the number of district letters by 50 per cent. This improvement had not been followed by that earlier delivery of the general post letters which I had offered to effect without any material addition to expense, but such an acceleration the Post Office had declared impossible. In the department of economy, however, much remained to be effected, and that not by a reduction of salaries, nor by increasing the labours of the men, but by simplifying the mechanism of the Post Office. I added that, seeing how much room there was for further improvement, and yet how near the results actually obtained approached to those anticipated from the complete development of the plan, I thought we were fully justified in assuming that, but for the unfortunate interruption in the progress of the measure which took place on the retirement of the Liberal Government, there would ere this have been no exception whatever to the realization of our anticipations.