INADEQUACIES
Nevertheless, the advantages of the present system over the old are not sufficient. A large majority of the 25,000,000 persons served by the rural postal delivery are still without express service. There is still little opportunity for the direct transmission of foodstuffs from the producer to the consumer which at the present time presents the most hopeful method of attacking the soaring cost of food. There is still much potential and helpful express business which has not been called into being, and there is accordingly a considerable lowering in the rates which has not yet been effected. There is still no possibility of coordinating postal facilities with express facilities. There is still no change in the method of remunerating the railroads, and hence in the unscientific and discriminating methods of fixing rates. In a word, if this study may be said to have proved anything, it has proved that the express service belongs to the Post Office Department, not to the Railroad Administration; indeed, one can hardly avoid the deduction that the present war-time express system could have been adopted only from considerations of either temporary political expediency or of transient personal efficiency; or else of inattention to the true nature of the problem presented.