Good Housekeeping. 53: 2-10. July, 1911.
Housekeeping by Parcels Post.
Isabel G. Curtis.
What would a parcels post mean to the American housekeeper? The suburban or rural family could receive the bulk of its supplies by mail—clothing, food, even eggs and butter and fresh meat. And the country household that had something to sell could, by availing itself of the parcels post, eliminate the expensive middleman and ship direct to the consumer. Thus the city housekeeper could receive eggs, butter and other things by mail at much less than she pays now. In scores of ways the parcels post would tend greatly to decrease the cost of living, for it would revolutionize the present cumbrous and expensive methods of retail business.
The United States Postoffice authorities will accept a package of not more than twelve pounds in weight and not more than three and one-half feet wide by six feet long for delivery at any postoffice in England, Germany or in any one of the thirty-nine foreign countries blessed with the parcels-post system, at a rate of twelve cents a pound. But you are denied the privilege of sending the same package to any destination in your own country at any price. A four-pound package sent to a local point will cost the sender sixty-four cents while the same package can be sent to New Zealand or Costa Rica for forty-eight cents.
The parcels-post rates in foreign countries are very moderate. In Germany, for instance, weight and distance determine the amount of the charge. The distance charge is fixed by means of zones, the first zone having a radius of ten geographical miles from the sending point, the second twenty, etc. The charge for an eleven-pound parcel is six cents within the first zone and twelve cents for every greater distance. For parcels weighing more, the charge is the same for the first five kilograms, but varies proportionately for each additional kilogram. In Germany, the weight limit is one hundred pounds, in England eleven, in France twenty-two and in Belgium one hundred and thirty-two pounds. That there is no good economic reason why any civilized community cannot have a parcels post seems to be proved conclusively by the earnings of the postal departments of the governments that have tried it. The postoffice departments of Germany and France each has a yearly surplus of more than $14,000,000, and England enjoys a surplus of more than $20,000,000—a striking contrast to our own Postoffice Department, with its annual deficit of millions.
“Then why don’t we have a parcels post?” you ask. The answer given to this question many years ago by Mr. John Wanamaker, when he was Postmaster General, means just as much today as it did then.
“There are just four reasons against the establishment of a parcels post,” said he. “They are the American, the Adams, the United States, and the Wells Fargo Express Companies.”
It has been said by some congressmen and postoffice officials that there is no parcels post because the public has not demanded it. Why not demand it now? Let every woman write to her husband’s congressman and speak her mind!
As pointed out by an Englishman recently in New York, one of the great advantages of the parcels post is its celerity. “Before it came into vogue,” he said, “customers often had to wait days for their goods. Now, within the London radius, it is a case of only a few hours, for the parcels post makes several deliveries daily. By paying a small additional fee, ‘immediate delivery’ is secured.
“The great retail houses, in increasing numbers, employ the parcels post for sending home the purchases of customers, instead of using their own delivery wagons. They find the government does the work for them cheaper and better than they can do it for themselves. The price charged, which is paid, of course, in postage stamps, varies from two cents for a parcel weighing under two pounds to twenty-two cents for a parcel not exceeding eleven pounds. Many of the London laundries now send home the week’s washing by parcels post for the same reason that the big stores are taking to it. The service cost less than that which they had previously provided themselves.”
This gentlemen dwells upon the importance of the fact that goods thus conveyed by the government are virtually insured up to the value of most packages sent.