When, five years ago, I took the secretarial control of the Money Order department, the building appropriated thereto was fully occupied, and negotiations were in progress for purchasing land to extend the accommodations. At present, notwithstanding an increase of business to the amount of one-third, there is such ample room that no extension is likely to be required for many years to come. My knowledge of the other departments of the Post Office enables me to state, with some confidence, my opinion, that similar improvements may be extended to those also, and with the like beneficial results. At the present time, a postponement of building, though but for a few years, is of great importance. Several projects for bringing railways into the heart of the metropolis, so as to make them available for mere local transit, are on foot. And from some years' experience, first as a director and afterwards as chairman, of the Brighton Railway Company, I feel justified in predicting that in some shape or other, some such project will be realized: I also foresee that such change must produce results in which both the Post Office authorities and the proprietors of the railways will have a common interest, and from overtures which have been made to the Department by some of the projectors, I think it highly probable, that whatever changes in the Post Office may be thereby rendered necessary or desirable, will not have to be made altogether, perhaps not mainly, at the cost of Government. But however this may be, it can scarcely be doubted that the effect of such railways must be to reduce the value of any outlay made irrespective of this disturbance in the present system of Metropolitan communication, since it is hardly possible that any buildings that might now be put up would be found adapted, either in position or arrangement, to the altered state of things. Having now concluded the financial part of the subject, I beg your Lordship's attention to the new sources of anxiety which have been opened, and to the possibility of allaying that anxiety by substituting a unity of executive power for its present divided state. The vast increase which has taken place of late years in the facilities for locomotion and the conveyance of merchandise, has led to a wide-spread desire--I might almost say a clamorous demand--for further facilities in the transmission of letters. On some points this is the result of ignorance as to what is practicable or even possible, while on others it relates to changes which I have long had in view, but which, under present impediments, I cannot undertake.