The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-04-14 00:00:00

PENNY POSTAGE AND CHEAP BREAD.

[We found the following in our letter-box. We presume
that it has been forwarded for insertion on account of the
horne4ruths which it contains.]
New Broad-street, London.
DEAR W

I am sorry to be obliged to differ from you on the
penny postage question, especially as I was at one time
myself a very ardent supporter of the scheme ; but ex-
perience proves the folly of expecting that people will write
more because they can send letters at a cheap rate. On the
contrary, what we think we can do every day is often put off
and eventually not done at all. In regard to myself, the
new plan has not made one iota of difference : I have not
under its operation written or received more letters than
formerly, perhaps even not so many. Mr. Hill's golden
dreams about the revenue not suffering, must fast vanish
away, and I calculate a loss of one million sterling for the
first year•, will be the result. The question then arises, how
will the deficiency be made up ? for you know the exchequer
of England is not now overflowing. A government disburs-
ing more than it receives, and heavily in debt, can ill afford
to relinquish one million per annum. Well, how is the
amount to be made up? why, says the new Chancellor of
the Exchequer, by increasing the rate of taxation live per
cent. England, than which no country under Heaven is
more severely taxed, is now to be burdened with an increase
of five per cent., in addition to the 38s. per head already
paid, and for what ? To benefit the large manufacturing
houses, the merchants and opulent traders, who could well
afford to pay the postage of letters, which generally was
returned by a handsome profit. Long ago did I state that
government would lay some tax which would fall heavily on
the poor, to make up their loss, and now lay words are rea-
lised. The necessaries of life are to be taxed five per cent.
extra, to make up the loss on the superfluities of life ! To
the working classes, the labour of letter-writing is immense,
and even if they were paid for it, it would be irksome :
besides, be it remembered that not above one-seventh or the
population of Great Britain can read or write at all—six-
sevenths could not indite five words if their lives depended
on it ! The Duke of Wellington proved to us that soldiers who
have had a penny postage, have always been indifferent to let-
ter-writing-. It is altogether an affair well worthy the deeds of
the present incapables in office, whose foresight and judgment
are about equal to their honesty ! I am sorry to hear such a
bad account of trade with you, but I trust this spring will
revive us all. On the subject of cheap bread (as you
northerns emphatically call it), I must again differ with you,
and fain would I devote a lengthy paper to the discussion of
the subject, did time permit; but all the assertions in the
world can never prove that wages will maintain their. stand
while bread falls—the two must go t6gether, for better for
worse. And surely, when the great manufacturers them-
selves candidly confess that they do not want cheap bread,
but cheap labour, philanthropic beings like yourself will

rightly appreciate this class of repeaters! Perhaps you con-
sider that the landed interest ought not to have the repre-
sentation of the people. To this I would answer, that the
property which cannot be carried away is always most va-
luable. The landowners cannot put their' land in their
pockets and leave England, but the manufacturers can shut
up shop, and remove their skill to any other country. It
is wise, therefore, that those who have the greatest interest
at stake in this land should have the management of its
affairs ; and so long as Parliament is composed of a majority
of gentlemen having large estates, the attempt to upset the
Corn-laws will and must end in smoke, as it always has
done. Nothing appears more unjust than to endeavour to
injure the landed interest, and leave the funded interest
alone. Were you one of the former instead of the latter,
your property having been bought subject to the Corn-laws,
you would view the repeal in all its native hideousness and
deformity. I cannot find space for further argunients, but
I consider that no battery of the repeaters will ever stand
the fire of the lovers of the good old times, when democracy
was kept in its proper place, and radicalism was unheard of.
* *
lours truly,
A. W. P.