"At the first meeting the Secretary of the Post Office set forth the familar objections of the Department to the penny-rate; and the inference naturally drawn by the colonial delegates was that the Home Government had receded from Mr Chamberlain's offer. The Australian delegates accordingly announced that they could not accept any reduction of postage. This roused the delegates of South Africa, who offered to support a uniform penny-rate; and Mr Mulock, for Canada, instantly closed with their proposal.
"The British officials then put up the Duke of Norfolk to recommend the delegates, in a fatherly way, to compromise their conflicting views by accepting the happy medium of the twopenny rate. Mr Mulock, however, formally proposed penny postage for all parts of the Empire that might be disposed to accept it.
"At the third meeting the attitude of the Home Delegates to the question of imperial postage had undergone a transformation. The Duke of Norfolk finally announced that the Government gave its unqualified support to the proposal of imperial penny postage. And so ended the struggle between Mr Chamberlain and the Post Office."
July of 1898 saw the initiation, though not the completion, of penny postage throughout the Empire. In later years H. H., when asked what was the happiest time of his life, invariably spoke of the moment when he scribbled the following hasty notes to his wife:
Urgent and Express.
My dear Little Wife,
I think we have won. The message to me confidentially is "I think you will be pleased, although not all you wanted."
