Data Relative to Proposed Extension of Parcel Post. pp. 8-14.
From The Boston Herald.
Ernest G. Walker.
Postmaster-General Wanamaker first actively urged the establishment of a parcels post on a large scale. He summed up the situation epigrammatically in his 100 reasons for it and only 4 reasons against it—those 4 being the express companies. Others after him, especially the late Postmaster-General Bissell, made like recommendations. But Mr. Meyer now has an advantage in his campaign which none of his predecessors had in the rural delivery routes. Every one of the many thousands of routes would be a little parcels service in itself, aside from being a line of communication, by which small packages could be conveyed from all parts of the country or to any part of the country. Mr. Meyer is building much upon that fact. The local service at cheaper rates will also protect the local store-keepers, to which the big department stores and mail-order establishments are bogeys.
Ever since he announced his intention of urging a better parcels post service for the United States, the Postmaster-General has been the recipient of many letters. These come from various classes of people. Most of them commend his plan, but the retail associations, such as the associations of hardware men and grocers, come out in bold opposition. It is such people as these that the Postmaster-General hopes to convert when they are brought to understand the details of what he wants to do. Some of these critics, besides claiming that the legislation would favor the catalogue houses, argue that the government should not go into a general freight business and that if the express companies are charging exorbitant rates, the Interstate Commerce Commission, which now has authority over them, should step in and require that the rates be lowered.
The operations of parcels post in other countries make a very interesting transportation chapter. They are conducted on a gigantic scale and, apart from what J. Henniker Heaton, long an English member of Parliament from Canterbury, and a great advocate of postal reforms, calls “grandmotherly regulations,” have worked with practically world-wide success. Shopping by mail is made easy, whether one in the country would trade with the local draper or the big metropolitan merchant.
Great Britain’s conservative enactments will likely be a model for any extension of the parcels post service by Congress. The service is almost twenty-five years old over there. It has become one of the most important and highly appreciated postal features. Its growth has been continuous and phenomenal. The scope has frequently been broadened. There was an early clamor for an agricultural parcels post. The owners of small farms in remote localities wanted it. The growers of spring flowers in Kerry said it would enable them to compete with the south of France and the Scilly Isles. Eventually the agricultural parcels post was authorized and also spacious dimensions for packages. Flower growers can now send full length orchid spikes and long-stemmed roses by post, where formerly only simple blooms were admissable.
Send Fish, Eggs and Fruit
The produce of the culturists goes forward to London and other big English cities in tremendous volume. Fresh fish, dispatched from seaport towns to the large hotels, are delivered with celerity. Meats, cheese, fruits, vegetables, and freshly laid eggs in mail packages under the 11-pound limit form a very considerable factor in the commerce of the Kingdom.
The general rates are low. A 1-pound parcel takes a three-penny stamp. That is 6 cents in our money. For 2 pounds an 8-cent stamp is required; for three pounds, a 10-cent stamp; for 5 pounds, 12 cents; for 7 pounds, 14 cents; 8 pounds, 16 cents; 9 pounds, 18 cents; 10 pounds, 20 cents, and 11 pounds, 22 cents. Four-pound parcels cost as much as five pounds, and 6 pounds cost as much as 7 pounds. For inland parcels 3 feet 6 inches is the maximum length; 6 feet the maximum measurement for length and girth. These have been adopted as standard dimensions in the services of numerous other countries. Parcels should not be posted at a letter box, but presented at the counter of a postoffice. The government virtually guarantees the sender against loss up to $10. Payment of a registry fee of 4 cents, in addition to the regular postage, insures the parcel for $25; a 25-cent registry stamp carries an insurance of $1,000. There have been demands, not yet conceded, for the cash on delivery system that several European countries have adopted.
The big retail stores of London avail themselves extensively of the parcels service for delivery of goods. The rates, ranging from 6 to 22 cents, are not prohibitive. In many cases the government service is cheaper and quicker. Laundries return washing by parcels post. In Germany, where the rates are even cheaper, lads away at school send their soiled linen home by mail to be washed and it is returned to them by the same conveyance.
Sidney Buxton, the postmaster-general of Great Britain, in his last report, statistically demonstrates the continuous growth, and consequently the popularity, of the parcels post in the United Kingdom. The number of parcels delivered in the country districts of England and Wales in 1896-97 was 41,512,000, and increased annually by from 3 to 6 per cent, till in 1905-6 the number was 66,277,000. In the London district for the same ten-year period the increase was from 11,229,000 parcels to 18,167,000. A similar increase was shown for Scotland from 6,802,000 to 10,725,000 parcels, and for Ireland, where the increase was from 4,172,000 in 1896-97 to 6,513,000 in 1905-6.
The gross amount of revenue the government collected increased from £1,445,126 for 63,715,000 parcels in the United Kingdom for the first year of the decade to £2,138,673 for 101,682,000 parcels in the last year of the decade. The post-office’s share of these collections increased from £763,307 to £1,142,224. The average postage per parcel decreased during the period from about 11 cents to 10 cents. The postmaster-general undertakes to deliver both letters and parcels at every house in the Kingdom. They are delivered by the same postman, except in the large towns, where there is a special staff for parcel work.
Call Swiss Service Best
Because of competition from private agencies, that have charges graduated on a basis of distance, there is a tendency for an unduly high proportion of long distance parcels and parcels for delivery in rural districts, which are the least remunerative. The post-office has met this competition by establishing, for comparatively short distances, a large number of horse and motor parcel van services, as road conveyance for these distances makes possible an economy as compared with conveyance by railway at the charge of 55 per cent of the receipts.
The Swiss is cited much as one of the most efficient and satisfactory in Europe. The mountain villages and resorts of that industrious little country receive a large portion of their supplies by post, as a maximum weight of 110 pounds is carried within a radius of 62 miles. The conditions there are somewhat the same as with the dwellers in the Appalachian and Blue Ridge mountains, to whom it has been declared that a parcels post would be a great boon because there is no prospect that either the railroads or the express companies will ever approach their hamlets and villages.
This Swiss law includes an agricultural parcels post and likewise a passenger post, agitation for both of which has generally followed the establishment of parcels post in most countries. The passenger post of Switzerland is something like the mail coaches in the United States before the coming of railroads, except that the coaches are owned by the state and the fees are prescribed by the same authority. A very large business is done in sending parcels through the mails. A treasury official, who was traveling in Switzerland during the past summer, saw at one railroad station several enormous baskets filled with hams and provisions. They were samples of mail parcels under the 110-pound limit.
Cash on Delivery Plan
The general rates are more liberal than in any other country. A parcel weighing 1 pound is carried anywhere within the boundaries of the Federation for 3 cents, a 5-pound parcel for 5 cents, a 11-pound parcel for 8 cents, a 22-pound parcel for 17 cents, a 33-pound parcel for 23 cents, and a 44-pound parcel for 33 cents. Parcels weighing as much as 110 pounds are carried within a radius of 62 miles for 60 cents, which enables many of the peasants to market much of their light produce by mail. The rates are so adjustable that housewives can secure anything by post from a paper of pins to a bag of flour. The V. P., or value payable, system is a part of the Swiss postal arrangements, so that purchaser can pay for his goods on delivery, and there is but one financial transaction connected with the purchase as far as he is concerned. A provision for delivery makes the service all the more attractive.
Belgium’s parcels post has even a higher weight limit than Switzerland, for it accepts articles of 62 kilograms, or about 132 pounds, in one package, and puts no limit upon the size, except that unwieldy packages are subject to an extra charge of 50 per cent. But up to 5 kilograms, which is the conventional 11-pound limit of a majority of the parcels post countries, the charge is 50 centimes, or 10 cents; for 10 kilograms 12 cents, and two cents extra for every additional 10 kilograms (22 pounds). A higher charge is made in Belgium, as in several other European countries, if the parcel is to be carried on an express train. It amounts to six cents for five kilograms. The fee for delivering at residence is six cents additional.
Germany and Austria maintain the 50-kilogram limit. The first named country enforces the 50 per cent extra charge for unwieldy articles. It also has what is called the zone system. For conveyance 10 geographic miles the charge is six cents (25 pfennigs), and 13 cents (50 pfennigs) for greater distances. If the parcel weighs more than 11 pounds there is a charge of one cent (five pfennigs) for each additional kilogram carried 10 miles, 10 pfennigs for 20 miles, 20 pfennigs for 50 miles, 30 pfennigs for 100 miles, 40 pfennigs for 150 miles, and 50 pfennigs, approximately 13 cents, for more than 150 miles. The same rate of charges applies in Austria.
A Table of Charges
The French parcels post law requires presentation at the railroad station. Some other European countries, like Great Britain, require it to be delivered at the postoffice. The French maximum weight is 10 kilograms (22 pounds) without any restriction as to size. The postage rates are 12 cents up to 3 kilograms; 16 cents up to 5 kilograms, and 30 cents up to 10 kilograms. These rates are for delivery at a railroad station. An extra fee of 25 centimes (5 cents) is charged for delivering the parcel at the residence of the addressee.
Certain elementary items of cost enter into the service of European countries that would not be identical with the maintenance of a similar service in the United States. In Germany a considerable mileage of the railroads is state owned. They carry certain parcels in the mails without compensation. In large sections of Europe there has never been anything like adequate service by express companies, and in the absence of business enterprises in establishing such transportation the people have been compelled to look to their governments for relief. The cheap rates for parcels post there were originally, in some part, intended as an accommodation for the poorer classes.
The distances for transportation are less and the population is denser. The United States is 225 times larger than Switzerland, 60 times larger than England, 17 times larger than Germany, 12 times larger than the three countries combined. In England the average distance a letter or mail package travels is 40 miles; in Germany it is 42 miles; in the United States it is said to be 542 miles.
Difficult to Estimate Cost
No accurate information is available as to whether the European parcels posts are in reality self-supporting. They certainly are nearly so, and in some instances are regarded as profitable government ventures. Everywhere the service is characterized by prompt transmission and prompt delivery. The percentages of loss are very small. The several national constituencies that have a parcels post system would no more relinquish such privileges than American cities would relinquish electric lights or automobiles. One European enthusiast pronounced the establishment of the parcels post “a service to mankind only less splendid than that of the transmission of thought.”
In England it is claimed that the parcels post service would be a source of profit but for the amounts paid to the railroads for transportation, the share of 55 per cent of the receipts being regarded as exorbitant. Generally the parcels post is so joined with the rest of the mail service that its entire cost can not be counted.
The international business has grown to enormous proportions. The figures collected at Berne for 1904, in connection with the Postal Union, show that the parcels mailed across the frontiers of 36 nations and colonies that year numbered something like 38,000,000. The small percentage of that total, where the value was declared, showed an aggregate of about $162,000,000 worth of property. In that list the United States would have stood about eleventh on the showing for the fiscal year of 1906, when 264,438 parcels of an average weight of 2⅔ pounds were sent from this country abroad. Tunis sent more according to the figures than the United States. Germany, leading all other nations both in the dispatch and receipt of parcels in international mails, sent a total of 11,675,385, of which 11,343,516 were classed as “ordinary,” and 331,869 were “with a declared value” of $23,352,378. Austria, enjoying close postal relations with Germany, dispatched 10,659,300 parcels to other countries, of which 1,082,430 had a declared value of $68,396,578.
Has Become Great Factor
The totals of “receipts” and “dispatches” of course balance for the 36 countries in question, but are not the same for each country represented. The rank in parcels dispatched runs: Germany, Austria, France, Hungary, Great Britain, Switzerland, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, Tunis, British India, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Russia, Denmark, Luxemburg, Japan, and Egypt; in parcels received the order is: Germany, Hungary, Austria, Switzerland, France, Italy, Great Britain, Belgium, Russia, Netherlands, Denmark, Roumania, Spain, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Sweden, Norway, Luxemburg, Tunis, and so on. Switzerland in 1904 received across her borders 2,788,406 parcels by post, of which 2,635,090 were “ordinary” and 133,316 were declared of a value of $9,863,886. Of 6,352,360 parcels that came over the Austrian frontier, 778,380 had a declared value of $64,788,927. Germany received 7,337,404 parcels in international mails, of which 482,472 had a declared value of $35,901,435. The parcels received by post in the United States during the fiscal year 1906 from abroad were recorded as 131,064, of an average weight of 2.73 pounds. Probably the actual number was much larger, perhaps twice as large.
Sufficient figures have been given to indicate what a great factor the parcels post has become in the trade of the world. The value of the merchandise thus transported can only be roughly estimated, but it will probably exceed half a billion dollars annually.
This business is transacted across frontiers, causing little or no friction with customs officers. Boxes with declared value are subject to the legislation of the country of origin or destination as regards payment of stamp duties on articles exported and as regards the control of stamp and customs duties on articles imported. The stamp duties and charges for examination by customs officers involved in the importation are collected from the addressees when the articles are delivered.
Provision for Insurance
Practically the same rules apply for all parcels post. There is provision for insurance and also for “trade charges,” which latter term means that goods can be sent c. o. d., the maximum value being f.1000. The limit of weight is 5 kilograms, or 11 pounds. The cost of conveyance comprises a charge of 10 cents for each country participating in the territorial transit, a graduated distance tax for sea conveyance and extra rates for cumbersome parcels, and may be increased under certain conditions by delivery fees and, in case of declared values, by insurance fees. Weights under 2 pounds, however, are transported for a maximum of 1 franc. Special forms are provided for registering for customs declaration, for certificate of prepayment, when that is desired, and for trade charges.
The United States is not a party to this comprehensive parcels post convention, by which a vast quantity of merchandise is carried to different parts of the world annually, but Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Guatemala, Uruguay, and Venezuela are among the signatories. But the United States has parcels post conventions with 33 different countries on somewhat different but fairly liberal terms. It keeps the postage for parcels it sends to other countries and they in turn retain the postage on parcels sent here. That saves in bookkeeping and has been found economical, whereas the more comprehensive convention, under which most of the European and Asiatic countries operate, divide the postage receipts pro rata. The United States will not transmit through its mails parcels en route from one foreign country to another. Among the latest parcels post conventions the President has ratified under statute authority are those with Sweden, Peru, Denmark, Ecuador, and Bermuda.
Customs Easily Collected
The popularity in this country of the parcels post is well demonstrated by the great growth in the use of international facilities. The dispatches from this country for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1905, amounted to 560,228 pounds and for the year ending June 30, 1906, was 721,164 pounds, an increase of 28.73 per cent. Only one-fifth of the dispatches of the last mentioned fiscal year went to Europe, which indicates that a good share of the parcels business was with Mexico and Central South America. Parcels for Germany, Hongkong, Japan, Norway, Belgium, Great Britain, Sweden, and Denmark are accepted only for a maximum weight of 4 pounds and 6 ounces, where the maximum weight for the other countries with which the Postoffice Department now has conventions is 11 pounds.
The customs officials say that the parcels post business with foreign countries is increasing by leaps and bounds. Within recent months better facilities for the collection of customs dues have been inaugurated, with the result it is said, that many packages which hitherto passed without being noted are now being examined and recorded. There are offices of exchange, so called, in several of the larger post-offices of the United States where customs officials are stationed to attend to the collection of duties on these parcels from abroad. In the Washington City post-office this foreign parcels post business is said to have increased 300 per cent within the last twelve months. The Treasury Department keeps about 25 customs employees now on duty at the New York City post-office to attend to the foreign parcels post business which goes through that office. Dutiable packages to minor offices are handled from exchange offices. Such mail addressed to Plymouth, Mass., for instance, would be held till the addressee had forwarded to the postmaster at Boston the amount of duty required.