Page:The life and letters of Sir John Henniker Heaton bt. (IA lifelettersofsi00port).pdf/229



1. There are 42,000,000 people in Great Britain and Ireland, and 40,000,000 in France. A narrow channel 21 miles across separates these two great and friendly nations. Surely the British and French postal authorities still have energy enough to bridge this chasm—a chasm stretching apart into the blue distance, like the two sections of the gigantic Roman aqueduct in the Campagna that want a central connecting arch, or like the two sections of an alpine tunnel before they are united.

Penny or ten centimes postage exists throughout the British and French Empires, embracing a population of 490,000,000 and an area of 14,600,000 square miles.

2. At present the postage is one penny to Fiji, 11,000 miles from London; and the postage to the Society Islands, 10,500 miles from Paris, is ten centimes, or one penny. Yet it is 2½d, or 25 centimes, between Dover and Calais, 21 miles. We are like people conducting two parallel railways under rival ownership. The commercial and social benefit predicted from a costly Channel Tunnel could be secured at once by a stroke of the pen, establishing an Anglo-French Postal Union without alarming any military strategist.

3. Last year we sent to France 12,600,000 letters, and received from France 12,000,000 letters. We sent to France 1,500,000 lb. of printed matter, and received from her 1,092,000 Ib. of printed matter. There were also sent through France to and from the East and Australasia, 24,000,000 British letters and 8,200,000 lb.