shores during the past twenty years, never to return. And the dullest, the coldest, could not fail to perceive the wisdom of stimulating and facilitating the only possible intercourse between these exiles and their mends and relatives in the Old Country. The emigrant was, as he always is, silent; but his exalted virtues (to quote a Japanese expression) conquered. The Post-Office gave way.
The Post-Office yielded by degrees, penny by penny, like the miserly outfitter on the Dover road, who purchased David Copperfield's coat, and could not bring himself to pay the price, eighteenpence, by instalments, in less than half a day. First they grudgingly granted us an ocean, or all-sea, service to the Colonies, but made the postage 4d. In 1800 they established a general 2½d. rate to the Colonies; and in 1898, under the stimulus administered by Mr. Chamberlain, they gave us the long-delayed penny rate, to which Australia signified her adhesion in the present year.
The Empire has thus become a single postal 'district,' with one flag and a uniform rate of postage, communication between the most distant points being rendered as 'easy as speech, as free as air.' The Colonists, especially the Australians, have from the first warmly supported the agitation. The assurance given on their behalf in 1890, 'Let the parent duck take to the water, and the timid ducklings will quickly follow her,' has been amply fulfilled. As is well known, our cousins in Greater Britain spend £8 a head on our goods as against 10s. spent by the foreigner. Fifteen years ago, addressing the late Lord Salisbury, I ventured to say: 'Business men will appreciate the boon of being able to write to customers and agents at two-fifths of the rate which their foreign competitors have to pay. To Colonial trade, in my judgment, we must ultimately look for the subsistence of our home-working population, for every foreign market is being closed against us in turn by hostile tariffs.' How real and near the danger here indicated was at that moment the most
