: Cheap Postage by Leavitt Joshua - Postal rates

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PUBLISHING DIRECTION.

Subjoined are the proceedings under which the following sheets were prepared and are now published:

"At a meeting of the Board, on the 25th of April, 1848, Mr. Leavitt, the Corresponding Secretary, on behalf of the Publishing Committee, reported the copy of a pamphlet on the subject prescribed. And on motion of Mr. Moses Kimball, it was

BOSTON, April 26, 1848.

BOSTON: PRINTED BY FREEMAN AND BOLLES, DEVONSHIRE STREET.

CHEAP POSTAGE.

An American gentleman, writing from London, in 1844, says, "It is hardly possible to overrate the value of this in regard to the exertion of moral power. At a trifling expense one can carry on a correspondence with all parts of the kingdom. It saves time, facilitates business, and brings kindred minds in contact. How long will our enlightened government adhere to its absurd system?"

The unspeakable benefits conferred by cheap postage upon the people, are equalled by its complete success as a governmental measure. The gross receipts of the British Post-office had remained about stationary for thirty years, ranging always in the neighborhood of two millions and a quarter sterling. In the year 1839, the last year of the old system, the gross income was ?2,390,763. In the year 1847, under the new system, it was ?1,978,293, that is, only ?413,470 short of the receipts under the old system. A letter from Mr. Joseph Hume, M. P., to Dr. Thomas H. Webb, of Boston, dated London, March 3, 1848, says, "I am informed by the General Post-office, that the gross revenue this year will equal, it is expected, the gross amount of the postage in the year before the postage was reduced." Mr. Hume also encloses a tabular statement of the increase of letters, together with a copy of the Parliamentary return, made the present year, showing the fiscal condition and continued success of the Post-office. He sends also, a copy of a note which he had just written to Mr. Bancroft, our Minister at the Court of St. James, as follows:

Bry. Square, 2d March, 1848.

I have the pleasure to send you the copy of a paper I have prepared, at the request of Mr. Webb, of Boston, to show the progress of increase of the number of letters by the post-office here, since the reduction of the postage, and I hope it may induce your government to adopt the same course.

I am not aware of any reform, amongst the many reforms that I have promoted during the last forty years, that has had, and will have better results towards the improvement of this country, morally, socially and commercially.

I wish as much as possible that the communication by letters, newspapers and pamphlets, should pass between the United States and Great Britain as between Great Britain and Ireland, as the intercommunication of knowledge and kindly feelings must be the result, tending to the promotion of friendly intercourse, and to maintain peace, so desirable to all countries.

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