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England, a rate of two cents per half ounce pays the salaries of letter-carriers, as well as other expenses, leaving a large surplus revenue, that, in this country, a rate of five cents per half ounce, ought, in time, to entitle the public to the delivery of letters at all dwellings within the usual precincts of cities, towns, and villages, without further expense.

The total abolition of the franking system is a condition indispensable to any efficient system of Post Office reform. Such a system is subject to inevitable abuses, whether it be confined to public offices or extended to members of Congress. It may, perhaps, be contended that the daily stipend allowed to members of Congress was based upon the supposition that they were to be exempt from postage on their correspondence. We answer, that the possession of the franking privilege on their part was an advantage not altogether unqualified; it doubtless exposed them to much frivolous and impertinent correspondence, as well as to inconvenient solicitation and importunity for franked covers for the conveyance of the letters of parties whose correspondence should legitimately be subject to postage. Such was proved to be extensively the case before the parliamentary committee in London, and there is no good reason to suppose it otherwise in this country. The pre-paying system will exempt all members of Congress from postage on the letters they receive; and if it be thought expedient, a fair augmentation of their daily stipend may be allowed by law to cover the probable amount of postage of the letters on public business which they may transmit. At a five cent rate, a dollar per day wouldcover the average number of twenty single letters.

The correspondence of the public offices will be transmitted, as it now is, subject to the same charge as other packets, except only that its postage may stand as a matter of account between these offices respectively and the Post Office. To transmit through the Post Office, free of charge, the correspondence and documents of the public offices, and yet to make the Post Office pay its own expenses, is tantamount to paying the expenses of the postage of the state by a tax levied in the shape of a postage on the correspondence of private individuals. The postage like the other expenses of the state, can only with justice be paid out of the treasury; to levy it as a tax on correspondence is doing what the legislature never contemplated.

In all countries sufficiently advanced in civilization to realize the idea of a National Post Office, a sufficient sense of the advantages of the diffusion of knowledge has prevailed, to lead to the partial exemption of the postage duties on journals, pamphlets, and other printed papers; but it must be distinctly understood, in considering this with reference to the organization of the United States Post Office, that although in other countries such printed matter is transmitted through the Post Office at a cost which is small comparatively with the general postage duties, there is still a charge made for such packets more than sufficient to pay the expense of their transport; and it is necessary also to remember, that in all those countries the Post Office is not merely a public institution for the cheap, rapid, and safe transmission of correspondence, but also a direct source of revenue. In the liberal form of government established in this country, it seems to be conceded that the gross revenue of the Post Office ought not to exceed its expenses; in other words, that it should be an institution for mere public convenience, and that correspondence is not an eligible object of taxation. It ought not, therefore, on the one hand, to be expected that journals or other printed matter should be carried by the Post Office at a less rate than would cover their expenses fairly estimated; for it is admitted here that it would be unjust to make up the deficiency by a tax on other correspondence, and there is no other source out of which it could be made good. It would, on the other hand, be even more objectionable to lay an excessive rate upon these than upon written correspondence. Hitherto all journals, without regard to their size or weight, have been transmitted at a certain rate per single copy, varying under certain limitations in proportion to the distance. This is attended with inconveniences and objections nearly similar to those which prevail against the single and double system of letter postage. One journal will spread over a quantity of paper ten times that of another, will have ten times the weight, and be attended with ten times the expense of transportation, yet the postage of the two will be the same. By late inventions and improvements in the manufacture of paper, single sheets can be made of any size that is required, and there is consequently no other limitation to the size of a single printed sheet, ex

cept the magnitude of the printing press on which it is worked. There is, therefore, ample scope for the abuse of the privilege of transmission of printed papers at reduced rates under the present system.

In accordance with the principles which characterize the reform system of postage in regard to letters, it would follow that printed papers should equally be liable to postage by weight, and prepayment by stamps. All the reasoning which establishes the advantage of these principles as applied to letters, are equally applicable to printed papers; but as the latter are transmitted in packets of greater bulk and weight than letters, and therefore the labor and expense chargeable per individual packet upon them will be proportionably less than letters, it is equitable that they should be charged at a less rate by weight. It would be difficult, perhaps impracticable, to ascertain the exact expense of their transmission and delivery through the Post Office; but if that expense could be ascertained, it should regulate the rate of their postage. In the absence of such an estimate, a uniform rate of two cents per ounce for all distances might be adopted subject to such future modification as experience might suggest.

With a view to ascertain the practical effect of such a rate, we have ascertained the weights of the principal daily and weekly papers published in New York, and of other periodical publications to which this regulation would be applicable. These are given in the subjoined table together with the rates of postage which would be chargeable upon them.

Cost of

Cost of
Weight Postage
(av'ge) Stamps
Journals & Periodicals. ounces. per 100.
Edinburgh Review, (reprint) 7
New World,
Knickerbocker,

North American Review, 13

7.00

11
5

1.50

5.00

13.00

The weight of each paper being once ascertained, and being uniform, or nearly so, stamps for its free transmission would be prepared and delivered to its publishers, at a corresponding price per hundred. No practical difficulty is found in this proceeding, which has been for several years in operation in England. Each stamp has the name of the journal to which it belongs, engraved upon it, so that the stamp of one journal cannot be used for another.

The practical arrangement of a system of pre-payment on newspapers and periodicals, may at first produce some little inconvenience, but this will be temporary

those who desire to have newspapers or periodicals forwarded to them by post, must pay a subscription which will include the postage. The mode of stamping the papers, adopted in England, is the simple and obvious expedient of putting a stamp on the paper on which the journal or periodical is printed, which stamp carries it free through the Post Office to any part of the country. The same object may be accomplished, though not with the same facility, by enclosing the papers in stamped bands, each band carrying a stamp proportional to the weight of the papers it encloses, or the adhesive stamp might be easily affixed to the papers themselves, as they are to letters. It is evidently equitable that printed matter should be chargeable by weight, and in reference to this principle, we have ascertained a fact which is worthy of attention. When newspapers are wet, as they are always when fresh from the press, they are twenty-five per cent. heavier than when dry; but as they are put up for the Post Office wet, it fol87 lows that the public is put to the needless expense of transporting through the country many tons of water under the name of newspapers and periodicals. For every four tons of printed paper thus carried, there is one ton of water;-journals and periodicals should, therefore, be dried before they are sent to the Post Office, otherwise their proprietors cannot justly complain of being charged twentyfive per cent. extra for their transmission. It would be important to the objects of

Weight Postage (av'ge) Stamps Journals & Periodicals. ounces. per 100. Courier and Enquirer, 17 $1.87 Journal of Commerce,

1.624 1.37

1.33

1.50

87

75

1.00

18

Evening Post,

1

Commercial Advertiser,

11

Express,

16

Tribune,

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6.00

Hunt's Magazine,

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New Englander, (quarterly) 8§

8.50

(Washington)

1.12
874

1.00

1.75

2.00

this inquiry to obtain, by reference to the business done by the Post Office under the existing system, an approximate estimate of the gross revenue to be expected under a reformed system. The published reports of the Post Office department afford, however, no sufficient data on which to found such a calculation. We are therefore compelled to use for our purpose the data afforded by the reports of the Post Office department of Great Britain.

It is a principle established by universal experience, that the consumption or use of any commodity increases rapidly in proportion as its cost is lessened, and this increase is generally in a much higher ratio than that of the reduction of price. The following example of the practical operation of this law will illustrate it. They are selected from various parliamentary returns and reports published in Great Britain and ascertained generally by reference to the register of customs and duties. When soap fell oneeighth in price, its consumption was increased one-third; when sixteen per cent. was taken from the price of tea, its consumption was doubled. After 1823 the price of silks fell twenty per cent., and twice the quantity was bought and worn. At the same time coffee fell about twentyfive per cent., and the quantity used was tripled. Within the twenty years preceding 1837 cotton goods fell about fifty per cent., and their consumption was increased four hundred per cent. When the reduction of the stamp duty upon newspapers took place in England, their price was reduced by one-third, yet the actual sum expended on them by the public was augmented. The same result ensued when the duty on advertisements was reduced.

A curious example of the effect of the reduction of price in the case of an object of mere personal gratification, is afforded in the example of the Tower; the fee of admission to see which, being previous to 1837 three shillings, was reduced successively, first to one shilling, and then to sixpence. In the six months ending November, 1837, 7,533 persons were admitted to see it, at three shillings per head. In the six months ending November, 1838, 31,333 persons were admitted, at one shilling per head; and in the six months ending November, 1839, 56,213 persons were admitted to it at sixpence per head.

During the three years ending 1783 the average price of tea was six shillings

per pound, the quantity consumed in that time by the public cost £5,221,352. In 1784, the duty was reduced, and the average price became four shillings per pound, during which the quantity consumed cost £9,417,699. Thus a reduction of 33 per cent. in this article, produced an increased return in money of one hundred per cent., and threefold consumption of the commodity.

To the increased consumption of the article, by diminution of price, there is no practical limit, but there is a limit which it is the business of the financier, the statist, and the economist, to ascertain, at which the greatest return in money is obtained by reduction of price. There is a certain point in the price of an article, at which either an increase or diminution of price will produce a diminished return, and in cases where profit alone is concerned, this is the point for the producer to aim at; but in the case of the postage, where no revenue is sought for, the problem presents itself under somewhat modified conditions. There the object is to ascertain that price which will create the greatest possible amount of intercommunication, giving a return which will not fall short of the gross expenses of the establishment.

In the case of the English postage system, it was a matter of dispute, when the reform was agitated, whether the Post Office should be continued as a source of revenue at all; and parliament appears, accordingly, to have faltered on that point, by giving to the government an hypothetical pledge, that if the establishment of the new system should cause a deficit in the general revenue of the kingdom, by reason of the diminished amount supplied by the Post Office, they would make such deficit good by other means. It is clear, therefore, that it was expected, at least by some who favored the new system, that the nett revenue of the Post Office would fall off

but it was contended by all that it would restore itself after the lapse of a reasonable time. The results, so far as they are yet known to us, are in accordance both with these apprehensions and expectations. The annual amount of the nett revenue of the Post Office, immediately before the reduction of postage, was $7,842,067, and it had been declining in amount from former years. The nett revenue of the first year, under the new system, was $2,322,370, and that of the second year, $2,675,380. Subsequent to this period, we do not possess the

official returns, but it is understood that there is an annual increase, which, in about five years from the establishment of the new system, will restore the revenue to its former amount.

The estimated annual number of letters transmitted through the Post Office, in the years 1839 and 1840, the last of the old and the first of the new system, showed an immediate increase of a hundred per cent. The next year, 1841, showed a further increase of 40 per cent. on the original amount, and the actual increase of the total correspondence of the kingdom, according to the latest returns, has been in the ratio of about three to one.

These data, imperfect and insufficient as they must be admitted to be, nevertheless tend to sustain the prevalence of the general law of reduction of price, in its application to postage. When it is considered that the rate which we have suggested is two-and-a-half times higher than that which yields a large revenue in England, no revenue being desired to

be raised by postage here, there cannot be any reasonable grounds for doubt that the gross returns will cover the Post Office expenses. In addition to the large increase of correspondence, which the reduction of postage must itself produce, the abolition of the franking privilege will add largely to the revenue. That which is now executed at the cost of those who write chargeable letters, will be hereafter executed, as it ought to be, at the proper cost of the writers.

The effect of a diminished rate of postage, and the consequently augmented number of letters in increasing the total revenue accruing to the Post Office, is illustrated in a striking manner by the following table, which exhibits the correspondence of a single week of four towns in Great Britain. They are at very different distances from the capital, but it must be remembered that this difference of distance, however great, produces no appreciable effect upon the Post Office expenses of each letter

Chargeable letters dispatched to London in the week beginning 15th January, 1838.

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It is clear, from this table, that the lower rates of postage, so far as they are instrumental in augmenting the correspondence, have the effect of increasing the gross returns. It is true that the proximity of places has, in this instance also, tended to increase the amount of correspondence, but not to any extent sufficient to account for the great difference in the amount of the gross revenue shown in the above table.

It has been frequently urged in favor of maintaining a high rate of postage in this country, that numerous post offices have been established in districts so sparsely peopled, that the whole amount of the correspondence, whatever rate may be fixed on, would not pay the expenses of the individual post office. To this it may be answered, that the discretionary power vested in the Government, for the establishment of local offices, must obviously be exercised

within reasonable limitations, and that it would be in the highest degree unjust, and indeed an insufferable abuse of official power, to spread post offices over such thinly peopled districts that the business of transmission and delivery could only be executed at a loss greatly exceeding the correspondent amount of the postage. The overplus must either be defrayed by an excessive charge, levied on the correspondence with more populous places, or out of the revenues of the General Government. If such postoffices, which cannot pay their own expenses, be established at all, their existence can only be defended by their tendency to the general welfare of the country, and although on such grounds they might be justly maintained by the Treasury of the General Government, it would be an outrage upon all principles of justice and right to levy a fund for their support exclusively upon the letter

writers of New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, New Orleans, and Boston.'

In the printed reports of the Post Office department very just and reasonable remonstrances have been made against the exorbitant charges made by Railway Companies, and in some cases by Steamboats, for the conveyance of the mails. It has been truly observed that railways from their very nature are monopolies, and that in many instances competition between steamboats is insufficient to protect the Post Office from injurious and fraudulent combinations, the effect of which is to extort from the General Government a rate of freight many times greater than that which is charged to private individuals. This is an abuse which ought to be put down by the supreme power of the law, and it is happily one in the suppression of which the whole body of the enlightened public will zealously concur. The rate at which private individuals and companies can carry freight upon railways and in steamboats is generally known, and it is within the legitimate power of the general government, aided and countenanced by Congress, to exact from all public carriers the transport of the mails at equally reasonable rates. To maintain that such parties may with impunity exercise an arbitrary power of fixing one tariff for the government mails and another for private freight, so as to set at defiance the power of the general legislature, would involve an admission of a degree of feebleness in the Constitution which would render it unfit to promote the wellbeing of the nation for which it was framed. The observation which has been made in one of the Post Master General's reports, that certain companies seize the pretext of the mails being required to be dispatched at particular hours, as the ground of an exorbitant demand for their transport, is really so puerile that it hardly deserves to be seriously considered.

The Post Office service, in England, is executed upon the railways, at a greater cost than was ever incurred on any main lines of common roads, but the nature of this service, and its superior efficiency, amply compensates the public for the increased expense. These great lines of internal communication are vast channels of social and commercial intercourse, into which smaller tributaries, in the form of branch railways and common roads, pour their streams in countless number and unbounded quantity. Each main line thus drains an entire Province; the quantity of Post Office business, therefore, transacted upon it is greater, incomparably, than ever was executed on any common road; but it is even more remarkable for the superior efficiency of its execution than for its increased quantity.

A house of considerable dimensions, constituting a locomotive Post Office, is actually erected on wheels and transported over the railway at the rate of thirty miles an hour. In this house are well lighted rooms properly furnished with the apparatus requisite for the Post Office functionaries; at the stations, as they pass, the letter-bags are received and delivered; the processes of sortation, weighing, stamping, and bagging are executed in this moving mansion between station and station, so that no inconsiderable part of the entire business of the Post Office is here performed while the letters are in the very act of being transported. But ingenuity is not exhausted even here. Post Offices are established at small and thinly peopled stations, where the flying mail could not afford to pause in its rapid course. In such cases, an apparatus is attached to the locomotive office, on which the letter-carrier or guard hangs the bag to be delivered as the train approaches the station. The bag to be received, is, in like manner, suspended to an arm, projecting from a post erected on the side of the railway, awaiting the expected ar

The establishment of local Post Offices, if left to the discretion of the Post Office department, is subject to the most intolerable abuses. The inhabitants of some remote country place, that they may have the advantage of a good coach-road between them and some desirable market-and contractors, that they may make the road-and small officeseekers, that they may pocket postage perquisites—all make loud requisitions on the department for the establishment of a post office, when there is not the shadow of a chance that it will pay expenses. In such cases the expenses are paid for, not by the people who enjoy the privileges, nor by the public treasury, but by the letter writers of the larger towns. This is manifestly a gross abuse, and we know no way of correcting it better than to limit the power of the Postmaster General. If letters be carried to distant out-of-the-way places, let post-riders be paid, like our city carriers, a cent or two additional. If they must have roads for coaches, they should make them, without looking for unnecessary mail-contracts to cover the cost.

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